I’m writing with some sad news. Out of financial necessity, the cooperative is preparing to say goodbye to three of our fellow worker-owners. We are also announcing the end of Feeling Seen, one of four shows on the network that MaxFun pays for in its entirety, and a show that we love, but were never able to make financially sustainable.
With their permission, I want to share a little about the folks who will be leaving MaxFun.
Gabe Mara produces Sleeping with Celebrities and engineers TV Chef Fantasy League for us, and before that, produced Depresh Mode with John Moe and One Bad Mother. He has a great idea for a podcast that I hope he gets to try out.
C.N. Josephs is our Communications Specialist, and chances are you’ve heard from him if you’ve written us an email, read one of our newsletters, or attended our HQ Access Events. You may also know him from our MFD finale show “Chore Lord.” He is open for freelance fiction or non-fiction writing, as well as graphic design work, and can be contacted via his website, sparrowjosephs.com.
And finally, Laura Swisher is a Senior Producer at Maximum Fun. She is an irrepressible source of ideas, jokes, and insight. She has done so much at Maximum Fun — helping to launch Maximum Film!, Go Fact Yourself!, Reading Glasses, FANTI, E Pluribus Motto, Eurovangelists, and many others, running live shows, and making sure we remember how to laugh.
Gabe, C.N., and Laura have contributed a lot to Maximum Fun, and we will miss them.
Likewise, Feeling Seen is a wonderful show, and Jordan Crucchiola is an incredibly smart, warm, and wise host. We will be transferring the rights to the show to Jordan and wish her every success with it.
This is a step that no one wanted to take, and one that we came to after a summer of spreadsheets and meetings where the Board and the staff of MaxFunHQ discussed the gaps in our financial performance and brainstormed ways to close them. Ultimately, the non-staff cost savings we could identify were too small, and the revenue opportunities too distant and uncertain, to allow us to avoid taking this step now. Simply put, we were on track to spend more than we make, our expenses (like everyone’s) are growing and our revenues are shrinking, and we can’t run a company like that.
While we are not acting precipitously, we are acting early enough to be in a position to offer our departing colleagues a severance package and continuation of healthcare, to hopefully ease their transition. We do not pretend it will be easy for them, though.
Right now, our focus is on celebrating and aiding our departing colleagues, and working through some complicated feelings for those of us staying behind. Going forward, our focus will be on the many shows that have chosen to partner with us, and the many, many fans like you who love those shows.
In my note to our community during MaxFunDrive, when we were falling short of our goal, I made an argument for the goodness of growth, without buying into the compulsion for growth-at-all-costs that governs so much of business. Growth is needed because our costs — healthcare, technology, computers (!!) — are growing. Growth is needed because our existing fans change their habits or move on and we need folks to replace them. But mostly, growth is needed because we believe in our work and we believe that it is good, and we want more goodness in a world that seems increasingly bad. If you’re reading this I have to assume that you care about the cooperative in some capacity — maybe you love one of our shows, maybe you went to MaxFunCon back in the day, maybe you know we are a pretty good follow on Bluesky.
Today we’re losing three valued colleagues, and we are shrinking, and there is no getting around the fact that it feels terrible, especially for the folks who are leaving. But with the help of people who care about us, and believe in us, we will grow again, and put more good into the world.