What founders can learn from Anjuna’s layoffs and turnaround | TechCrunch

In 2021, Anjuna Security was growing rapidly, recruiting aggressively, and pursuing a market that seemed limitless. By the end of that year, the venture-backed cybersecurity company had about 75 employees, growing sales, customer success and support teams in anticipation of continued hypergrowth.

Then 2022 arrived.

As the market evolved, corporate clients became more difficult to attract. Like many construction startups at that time, Anjuna was overburdened and underfunded. The company was therefore forced to make a difficult decision and laid off some of its staff, then carried out a new round of layoffs a few months later.

Cutting costs was only part of the challenge. The most difficult question was how to bounce back and keep other team members motivated.

Ayal Yogev, CEO and co-founder of Anjuna, joined Isabelle Johannessen on TechCrunch’s Build Mode to discuss how the company survived a volatile market by acting quickly, making cuts with compassion, and learning from early missteps.

One of the reasons Anjuna was able to endure two rounds of layoffs is because the company had already taken the time to build a strong internal culture, rooted in a simple idea. “We only have one word when it comes to culture, and that’s care,” Yogev said. “We care about our employees. We care about our customers.”

Rather than treating culture as a set of abstract values, the company focused on consistent behavior. Internally, this meant transparency and clear communication about what was happening and why. Externally, this involved supporting departing employees beyond termination, from sharing job opportunities through investor networks to ensuring continued access to benefits such as healthcare.

Importantly, the company avoided common pitfalls that erode trust during layoffs, such as prolonged uncertainty, impersonal processes or management silence. Instead, decisions were made quickly and conversations were dealt with directly.

Despite everything, the impact was real. A second round of layoffs made it harder to rebuild confidence. But the culture already established shaped how the remaining team responded. Rather than focusing on blame, the emphasis was on learning: what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.

“There’s kind of two things that people do, like the kind of worst companies are looking for someone to blame and it always ends up creating a culture where people are just trying not to make mistakes,” Yogev said. “It just creates a culture of blame, which is completely counterproductive, right?

Today, Anjuna is rebuilding itself with a different approach. Hiring is more deliberate. Sales growth is closely linked to real demand. And new tools, including AI, help the team operate more efficiently without overextending.

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Isabelle Johannessen is our host. Build mode is produced and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience development is led by Morgan Little. And a special thank you to the Fonderie and Cheddar video teams.