Pros
There were some nice stuff but trust wisely and most the good ones don’t last long.
Cons
They were getting so many bad reviews that all agreed and reflected the truth of the company that they have rebranded multiple times to avoid the appropriate backlash. Firstly, go to tvwatercooler.org and have a look at the write up on Cowshed and its owners George and Ryan. For years they have been a mess, not paying freelancers when they should, lying and pointing the finger. The above has gathered evidence from multiple sources, keeping ‘receipts’ of all the late, overdue and missing payments and the behaviour and attitude towards those who have simply done their jobs. The bosses only care about their image, how they themselves are perceived. So much so, that loyal members of staff have been shafted and forced out on occasion so that they can continue to live in their fantasy world. They have even on occasion walked away from the company and just left it to run itself, only coming back to scrape what more money they can take from it after the hardworking staff have kept things a float. On one occasion they brought someone in and told the team that they would be MD. Then they disappeared and when coming back, scolded and forced out some of the senior staff for listening to the person they had left in charge. Also, the company has attempted to “talent manage” but honestly this is as much of a shambles as their business management. They are renowned in the industry to be incredibly difficult to work with and over inflate their importance and worth to the world around them. You can tell how unhappy the talent is by how often they lose talent and then scrape the bottom of the social media barrel to get the next victim to use up. Companies that I worked at since laugh at how they try to avoid booking any talent through cowshed cause of how awful it is. The only consistent talent they have on the books is lo and behold the partner of one of the founders. Then we get onto their contracted work. They pride themselves on being the most knowledgable on social media content and entertainment content, however they have had many many occasions where they lose out on contracts being renewed or extended because of shoddy work and business practices. This includes promising brands a specific output, only to take all the money and then realise that what they promised isn’t actually possible, so providing something completely different and losing out on hundreds of thousands in the process, through to spending an entire budget at the start of a full term contract, partly through over spending and also founders pocketing cash, only to then not have enough money to make any of the rest of the promised work, leading to the unpaid freelancers and scraping by on what other smaller work they can get in. It is genuinely remarkable that they have managed to get the Sidemen to use them for Inside, but honestly, keep an eye on things cause you’ll see the relationship quickly sour and Sidemen finding a more reliable partner, just like Chelsea, Sports Direct and KFC did, to name only a few of the many that will no longer work with them. It is a shame, cause there are some talented staff that come and go and some who are still there, but those in the know, know just how rotten the core is and feel bad that so many more fall into the trap.