Hustle, the Political Text Messaging Service, Fires One-Third of Its Staff
Its post-election woes illustrate the difficulties facing political startups.
Hustle Inc., a text messaging startup that worked with more than 1,300 Democratic campaigns in the 2018 midterms, has fired over 35 percent of its staff in the wake of the election.
Hustle has regularly been heralded as one of the biggest success stories in the nascent industry of politically minded tech startups. It raised more than $40 million in venture capital funding to date, from investors like Social Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Alphabet Inc.’s GV. The company’s stumble illustrates a fundamental weakness of businesses who count electoral campaigns as their primary client base. Hustle’s chief executive officer, Roddy Lindsay, first disclosed the job cuts in a blog post Thursday.