Path laying off 20% of employees

It seems that Path, a private social networking service company(URL below) ,
laid off 20% of the employees.

https://path.com/

Source below.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/dave-morin-laid-off-20-percent-of-path-employees-today-1445867435

Company spokesman saids,
"We're working to realign the company to support continued innovation and Path 4.0."

I've worked for a startup company and would say, that it's a very important thing to reconstruct, realign the company before it gets too big.

Especially in Japan, it becomes harder to fire people as the company grows larger.

So it might be one good choice for the innovation.
But on the other hand, Path doesn't seem to have a very good way of making money.
I had used Path(like a year ago), but at that point, I really didn't have a need for it.

Maybe it's optimized to use within really really close people, like families.
But as for the family use, I already had LINE, which could almost do the same.

So what would I do if I were in Path, and were to make innovation ?
It's a tough question....

I would start using Path again, and think, but it might take some time.
So before that .... let's see what I can think of ...
I think the main concept is to

"Bring people closer together".(From the Path's web site)

And the sub concept, following three.

- Authenticity
- Happiness
- Simplicity

Let's not forget that.
One thing is that Path has only week reason for the user to come back.
There's almost no interesting post if no one posts it. (of course...)

How bout posting some interesting news to the network.
If target is family, maybe kid's clothings, toys news or ads might start some chat in the network.

Recently, there are some news curation services using data mining, like gunosy, smartnews.
Those might help as an idea.

Another obstacle might be, that it's hard for grandma's and grandpa's to get joined in Path.
I believe they are the ones that mostly wants the kids informations(and pictures!).

So if it's possible to get them involved in the network in some way, retention rate for
other families might popup.

Well, I've made some thoughts, but it's just a thought.
I would start using Path again, and I look forward to seeing them get bigger.

Last thing I wanted to mention was their about capital info.
But I'll right that on next blog.