Big changes have come to Zoosk in the past few months, with a leadership shakeup and the company shelving their plans to IPO.
Last December, co-founder Shayan Zadeh was replaced as CEO by former Zoosk COO and CFO Kelly Steckelberg, and co-founder and President Alex Mehr stepped down.
The company’s new leader, Kelly Steckelberg was recently interviewed by Fortune, where she gave some insight into the company’s eventful few months.
Steckelberg makes it clear that her appointment was a financially-minded decision, and that her leadership will be marked by growing the company as a profitable business.
Speaking of her new position, and the exit of Zoosk’s co-founders, she says: “Alex and Shayan were talented product visionaries. Now I’m able to take the foundation they had in place and bring a broader perspective around business and the customer.
“I want to lead the company into the next era. I think I was the right CEO for right now because of my business and finance background. And I think that being female, I bring a new perspective.”
In 2014 Zoosk had revenues of $200m, but the company was losing money, having previously been profitable in 2013.
Steckelberg tells Fortune they decided to heavily invest in growth, even if that meant incurring losses.
In addition to this, Zoosk was planning a $100m IPO.
This all changed in December, when Steckelberg took over, and cancelled the plans to IPO.
Steckelberg said at the time that market conditions around comparable companies has not been good, with subscription businesses suffering.
She tells Fortune that when they filed, the market was rewarding growth but not profitability, and this switched when they were ready to IPO.
This led to the decision at the end of 2014 to cut staff, with Zoosk losing 15% of their workforce – 25 people.
They also switched to a premium model – making profiles free to browse, but users must pay to contact other singles, like Match.com.
And now, three months into her leadership, Steckelberg says that Zoosk will announce it is profitable in Q1 2015.
Read the interview here.