Furnished Apartment-Rental Firm Landing Restructures, Lays Off 110 Employees

The company told employees that it is restructuring and laying off employees.

In a note to staff that he shared with Forbes, founder and CEO Bill Smith said that as the company scaled, it moved to a "field-based operating model" that required more people in the field.

Over the last month, he wrote, "nearly 70 of our existing team members have accepted new roles in field operations and moved across the country to live and work in the communities that we serve." A number of roles at Landing were reduced as a result of the company's restructuring. Smith told Forbes that there were over 100 layoffs. Home-quality specialists and customer-service representatives were some of the jobs listed on the careers board.

When Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced that Landing was moving its headquarters to Alabama from San Francisco, the company said it would create more than 800 jobs.

The revenue projection for this year was not changed.

Smith made a fortune with his previous business, online grocery delivery service Shipt, which he sold to Target for $550 million. He wanted to appeal to people who wanted to live in a variety of places. It gave its members fast access to move-in ready apartments with the flexibility to rent for a month.

Landing, which we profiled as part of this year's Next Billion-DollarStartups list, raised $237 million in venture funding.

There is huge potential in new models of real estate and huge risk. Which cities could have a profit? How could he save money? Pricing and marketing may be adjusted for the season. Smith, who owns roughly one-third of Landing, had been working to solve complex problems with data. He told Forbes in July that he gets bored quickly. I'm drawn to solve complicated problems.

Smith wrote in the note that the company moved to a field-based strategy after realizing it wouldn't scale.

Woo left the company in late August. In an email last month, Woo, who had previously worked for WeWork, said he was leaving amicably.

Competition in the short-term rental space has been increasing from companies that include New York City-based Blueground and San Francisco's Zeus Living.

As many tech startups have done layoffs this year, landing's restructuring and layoffs comes as a result.