Good people, slow-moving culture - Anonymous employee CrowdRiff Employee Review

- They have always been great at sussing out hires who are pleasant to work with and very good at what they do. I really liked my team. Company events were great when we still had them because everyone was so nice. - Flexible work environment, understanding that some employees are more productive at home and others are not. They used to have a much larger office and chose to downsize instead of forcing RTO so that employees could keep having a choice instead of being expected to upend their lives. - Vacation and PTO benefits were great. 4 to 7 weeks of vacation, 6 sick days, 5 personal days, a weeklong winter holiday shutdown, and for a couple of years alternating Fridays in the summer were company holidays. Every year you got a generous travel stipend based on tenure. People who lasted five years got a one-time gift vacation. - For a while, there were actionable growth tracks and a solid investment in junior employees. - Management (HR included) was flexible and understanding about extenuating circumstances, illness, etc and at times went above and beyond to support you. - Layoffs were more ethical than you hear about these days. Impacted employees to the best of my knowledge were given good severance and opportunities to keep in touch with their colleagues. This is not somewhere where you will find out you've been let go by having your laptop password or office keycard suddenly stop working. - The products are best-of-class. Customers hated having to downgrade to cheaper competitors. It was easy to be proud of the quality of your work. - The market base is just the right size for you to really understand your impact. Feedback from customers makes its way back to everyone involved. - My work was interesting and there was always something new to learn.

- SaaS market is unstable, customers’ budgets year to year are unpredictable and non-negotiable. Competitors swoop in to siphon them away with lower quality alternatives. When I left this was not getting better. - For employees, unstable market conditions translated to reducing or rescinding some of the best job perks, stagnating wages, growth opportunities disappearing, and if you'd reached your max vacation entitlement you had reason to expect that your time there was going to end soon. I have questions about how and why some of these things were arrived at as a response to declining ARR. - There were corporate restructures where employees found out during a town hall that their role was changing into an area/domain that was not always a good fit. It comes off as making some roles redundant in preparation for an upcoming downsize. Transparency and discussion ahead of time would go a long way here. - Restructuring was usually part of a pivot. Pivots were so frequent that at times it felt like some teams had no direction anymore. - Low confidence for new and prospective hires. Some employees would be hired and then impacted by mass layoffs before finishing probation. This looks bad on a resume and will make their job hunt more difficult. I'm not a finance expert, but something seems off if there isn't enough foresight 8 weeks into the future to know which business areas need a hiring freeze and for this to happen in multiple rounds of layoffs. - PD approach is incoherent at times. Expectations set by upper and middle management for employees are not always in sync. This includes PIPs where for some employees it does what it’s supposed to do by addressing a gap but other employees seem like they were being set up to fail. - There used to be a commitment to salary band transparency but this fell to the wayside. - Flexibility around extenuating personal circumstances kind of disappeared over time, or could be inconsistent depending on who your manager was. - It was hard not to notice some favoritism in recent years and inconsistency around how different employees in similar roles were treated for the same actions.

Remote-friendly setup Exposure to the tourism marketing space/creator economy Opportunity to work cross-functionally due to small team size Good place to learn what NOT to do in a startup environment

For anyone considering applying... it’s really not the time anymore. There was a large round of layoffs recently, and this isn’t the first time. Growth opportunities are extremely limited, roles tend to be lateral, not developmental. The management style leans heavily toward micromanagement. When I say there is little to no real career development support, I mean that managerial “support” tends to focus narrowly on task execution rather than meaningful growth, mentorship, or support for employees as whole humans. While startups are usually fast-paced in a good way, at CrowdRiff it often feels chaotic and directionless. Priorities shift constantly, pivots rarely make sense, and resources are minimal; limited tools, tight budgets, and unscalable products. Many people find themselves asking, “Why are we doing this?” It doesn’t feel complex in a structured way; it feels dark. You often don’t know what’s happening outside your own little world, which can be demoralizing. Communication and visibility are poor, strategy is unclear, and smart ideas are often ignored. Another major concern is the loss of key people. Several of the individuals who originally built the products, processes, and internal knowledge were let go. This isn’t the first time something like that has happened. Many genuinely brilliant people who contributed a lot to the organization have either left, let go, or been fired over the years. It’s hard to see how the company can maintain momentum or innovate when this cycle keeps repeating. If you prefer very heavy oversight and being told exactly what to do, you might find it a fit. Otherwise, it’s frustrating. Micromanagement is common, and the once-relaxed culture is gone. Benefits have declined, products aren’t profitable, and momentum feels stalled. If you’re between jobs and just need a short-term stop, this could be fine temporarily. But for anyone looking for growth, innovation, or stability, I’d recommend looking elsewhere.