Webtrends – “Right the ship, it falls over...right it again...it falls over. Maybe it's not a ship.”

Pros

Hot space...as companies turn marketing spend away from more traditional forms of advertising, they are investing in technologies that help determine the value of the interactive side

Cons

6 VP's of Sales departed in the last 36 months, 3 CEO's departed in the last 32 months. Three CFO's in the last 3 years. Loosing deals to Omniture left and right

The product only somewhat does what it's advertised to do. Clients/customers very dissatisfied. New CEO has never been more than an inside sales manager in his career until he was promoted to CEO in the last 90 days. They have burned through (at one time or another) nearly every talented coder/programmer in the greater Portland area over the last 10 years.

Clearly the VC is positioning the company to be sold

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your people for once. Admit when you are wrong...both to employees and customers. Stand up to the VC and remind them that their job is to capitalize...not run the company from San Francisco. Smart managers hire smart, talented people then let them do what they were hired to do.