\n
![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/1272c_yik-yak-down.png?w=640\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
Yik Yak, the once universally recognized anonymous social network that virally took over college campuses back in 2014, is planning to lay off a \u201csignificant\u201d number of employees, first noted by\u00a0The Verge.<\/a> The company is said to be retaining mostly engineers as it\u00a0notified its team of about 50 employees earlier this morning.<\/p>\n In a statement to TechCrunch,\u00a0Tyler Droll, CEO of Yik Yak, pointed to strategic changes as the cause for the layoffs. While it\u2019s possible that some positions\u00a0are being shifted around to refocus the company on \u201clocal\u201d social networking,<\/a> declining download metrics tell the story of a company struggling to find its identity and retain user interest.<\/p>\n We recently made some strategic changes at Yik Yak in line with our key areas of focus for the company. Unfortunately, as part of that we had to make the difficult decision to lay off a portion of the team. We are incredibly appreciative of their contributions toward making Yik Yak the special place for college students around the world that it is today.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yik Yak was founded as I started college in 2013.\u00a0I had\u00a0front row seats to the app\u2019s\u00a0rise and fall on one of the largest campuses in America.<\/p>\n There used to be hundreds of up-votes on posts<\/p>\n There was a point in late 2014 when employees and ambassadors were setting up booths around Ann Arbor to\u00a0give out Yik Yak socks and beer cozies. This was clearly the high point for the app and students ate it up. Unfortunately, the company has since struggled to gain prominence outside the aforementioned demographics.<\/p>\n The startup presented\u00a0itself with an overall \u201cscandalous spring-break\u201d vibe, which proved inaccessible to many\u00a0users. A\u00a0group of Yik Yak promoters once marched around UofM with a camera to film students responding to blunt, shock-value, questions.<\/p>\n While Yik Yak gets a lot of criticism for being host to offensive\u00a0anonymous content, it has shown me, on more than one occasion, that anonymity can sometimes have value.<\/p>\n Students struggling with overwhelming anxiety, depression and traumatic\u00a0life events have found solace on the platform. In a single night, Yik Yak\u2019s feed could simultaneously include threats to athletes coming off a bad game\u00a0and notes of kindness and understanding to other struggling peers.<\/p>\n The company never found a way to increase the compassion\u00a0and put and end to the hate<\/a>. Efforts to\u00a0rebrand as more of a \u201clocal\u201d social network brought out frustration in users who appreciated the app as purely a place to anonymously vent within a shared community. This, coupled with the success of other emerging networks like Snapchat and Instagram, have almost put the app in its grave.<\/p>\n Yik Yak\u2019s\u00a0current condition is weak.<\/a>\u00a0Data pulled from the company\u2019s site via Wayback Machine, indicates that Yik Yak had 23 open positions listed on their careers page this time last year. Today, rather than being higher, the company only has 7 open positions<\/a> \u2014 two of which are for contractors.<\/p>\n Ranking statistics\u00a0pulled from App Annie don\u2019t\u00a0paint a much brighter picture. Though Yik Yak has shown signs of life at various points throughout its cycles of updates, trusting in the trend, the app has been unable to gain any meaningful traction \u2014\u00a0particularly in the last few months.<\/p>\n\n
![\"unnamed\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/1272c_unnamed1.png?resize=324%2C575\")
<\/p>\n![\"screen-shot-2016-12-08-at-1-21-17-pm\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/1272c_screen-shot-2016-12-08-at-1-21-17-pm1.png?resize=640%2C206\")
<\/p>\n