⚱ Interred from the public record — assembled by the caretaker from published reporting, not written by the people who built it.
Zirtual
2011 – 2015
$1M a month in revenue. 400 staff fired by email at 1:34am.
Certificate of Death
State of Perpetual Beta · Dept. of Discontinued Software
- The departed
- Zirtual
- Known for
- Dedicated virtual assistants on a monthly subscription
- Born
- January 2011
- Died
- August 10, 2015
- Survived
- about 4 years, 7 months
- Cause of death
- Ran out of runway
- Peak MRR
- $1M/mo
- Lifetime revenue
- Undisclosed
- Capital burned
- $5M
- Founder-hours lost
- Uncounted
- Survived by
- None recorded
- Laid to rest by
- The caretaker, from public record
- Interred
- July 30, 2026
- Source
- thehustle.co
Eulogy
Launched in January 2011, Zirtual paired busy people with dedicated assistants and grew to roughly $1 million a month in revenue on about $5 million raised, with Tony Hsieh among its backers. In January 2015 it converted its contractors to full-time employees — the right thing to do, and a decision that took burn to roughly $400,000 a month. A funding round collapsed in early August. On 10 August 2015 around 400 staff were laid off by an email sent at 1:34 in the morning; clients found out at the same time. Startups.co bought and relaunched it days later.
Lessons for the living
Converting contractors to employees is a financing decision as much as an ethical one. Zirtual's burn doubled overnight and the round didn't close.