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Artesian Builds, a custom PC company with a relatively good relationship with the online world, has frozen all of its assets after a failed giveaway. The event took place in late February, leading many to speculate that the company would be shutting its doors for good.
But how did one event cause the company to go under? This article will take a brief look at the events that may have led the company to fire all employees.
Everything started after they held their monthly custom PC giveaway, where anyone who is an ambassador for their company is elligible to win a completely free PC. The giveaways usually go great, with the winners being chosen by a raffle held by the CEO of the company Noah Katz.
However, this raffle would be quite different than the others, as the CEO claimed that the streamer who was picked was "too small" to win the giveaway, causing many to become confused with the reasoning. The contest had no rules about how big a creator had to be, the only requirement to win was to be an ambassador, which the streamer was.
The streamer took to Twitter to share her frustration, along with a clip of the giveaway livestream in an effort to spread awareness that the company did not keep its word.
Artesian Builds faces public backlash after a botched giveaway
Naturally, the online community was furious with the behavior exhibited by Artesian Builds, creating a large conversation about the company and their previous misdealings. Many complained that they faced similar experiences with the company, while others claimed that their products were subpar at best.
The following day, the streamer group One True King, one of Artesian Builds' biggest partners, announced that after the events of the giveaway, they decided they would no longer be doing business with the company.
The group has had two very custom PCs built for them in the past, but according to one of the founders of the group, Mizkif, the computers had extremely noticeable flaws, such as no proper ventilation system and poorly thought out designs for their specialty models.
Artesian Builds freezes assets and allegedly fires all employees
After losing one of their biggest partners along with the public's favor, the company would slowly spiral downwards into where we are now. Starting with a tweet from the official Artesian Builds Twitter account, stating that they are open to being bought out by anyone with the money to do so.
After the tweet, many speculated that the company would be taking a turn for the worse, considering that at this point, public relations were basically past the point of repair.
Three days later, the company made a public statement claiming that they have frozen all assets and activities performed by the company, something a company does before either being re-evaluated for a potential buy-out or before announcing bankruptcy.
After this announcement, many started claiming that the 50+ employees who worked at Artesian Builds had been laid off. The video below shows an email allegedly sent to employees before the announcement was made on Twitter.
The alleged email reads as follows:
"Hello everyone, as I mentioned yesterday, I have been spending the past week working relentlessly across many areas on the back end, attempting to secure the vital funding necessary to sustain company operations. While that process is continuing, I have an important announcement to share: Effective immediately, Artesian is imposing a full freeze on all business financial activities.
It adds:
"To ensure fair treatment of everyone involved with Artesian, including customers, creditors and employees, Artesian is undergoing a financial analysis by outside counsel for reorganization purposes and is freezing all payments of any kind, pending the recommendations made by counsel."
The letter continues, stating that employees will be suspended immediately following this message.
"Sadly, as part of this freeze, all employment for all employees is suspended, effective immediately and until further notice. Artesian hopes that it can reverse these layoffs in the future, but at the same time, Artesian simply cannot continue employing anyone until the outside analysis is fully completed. We do not have any further information to share at this time but expect to learn more by the end of March. I want to sincerely thank every single one of you on this talented team for the hard work and dedication that you brought to this company. If financing DOES come, then we can potentially get back in action. We'll see."
With this still being unconfirmed by the company, it is currently unknown if this email is legitimate or not. If this is a real email sent to employees of Artesian Builds, then the company might be done for, as they state multiple times in the message that funding may or may not come.
What is the future of Artesian Builds?
Even if the company finds new funding from a buyer, will the public go back to buying their products, or will the internet hold this controversy against them? Will the employees return to the company once they find funding, or will they seek a competitor?
With little known about this latest development, we will have to wait until the company makes its next official statement to discern whether or not Artesian Builds will be known as the company that lost everything over one giveaway.
