Utah is not in a recession ... yet: Some industries have floundered in the changing market, but others are going strong.

• Author: Swanson, Jacob

NO ONE LIKES TO HEAR THE WORD "LAYOFFS" But it happens--and it's happening.

In February of 2022, Homie laid off 119 employees in the face of changing real estate and economic conditions. The cuts amounted to 28 percent of the company's workforce.

Homie founder and CEO Johnny Hanna quickly took to Linkedln to offer reference calls for every employee laid off. They were good employees, he says; the company just didn't have the work it had hoped to. "When you're in growth mode, you hire with plans to have more and more work," he says. "When that work doesn't come, you've over-hired, and you have to pull back."

Hanna says the layoffs were part of a natural business cycle. For the past few years, the business has been focused on increasing revenue. Now, there's a focus on profitability. "I think that's the pullback in growth at all costs. We were rewarded. Everyone else has been rewarded as well, with increasing revenue," he says. "In business, you focus on revenue growth, and then profitability becomes the new cool thing, and then you get to profitability, and then profitability is rewarded, and then growth is rewarded again. It's just a cycle."

Homie's real estate system doesn't use a commission for its local agents but rather a flat listing fee to sell homes. It's a significant change from the traditional real estate industry. As a result, the company reported 150 percent revenue growth in 2019, leading to a $23 million capital raise announced in January 2020 that would help the company expand its Utah and Arizona operations into Nevada, Colorado, and Idaho. It was one of a growing number of emerging technology companies that raised large funding rounds in recent years.

"There's never been more dry powder than there is right now. There has never been more money to be invested in companies than there is right now, and there hasn't been over the last several years. It's just been amazing," Hanna says. "People continue to get round after round in high valuations without needing to focus on profitability. I think that's where we, and everybody else, had to cut back. Because we were all focused on growth and expansion, we were being rewarded for it."

It's true. According to Crunchbase, global venture investment shattered records in 2021, with $643 billion invested and 92 percent year-over-year growth. That has pulled back in 2022. Crunchbase reported that in the second quarter of this year, funding reached $120 billion, the lowest quarter since...