This is where you really want to pay attention in the reviews. If you’re thinking about joining Nextworld, read all of the 2 star and below reviews. You always find someone who is disgruntled but most of them offer grounded reviews that represent really what goes on.
**Group-Think**
I’d summarize what happens at NW by describing the two sides that exist:
1. The executive team and their “friends”
2. The rest of Nextworld
Because of familial connections or long-standing friendships, there is not much diversity of thought or background amongst leadership and key managers. It represents a pattern of hiring and promoting those on the “inside”. Many of the other leadership positions are filled by friends of the executives from their time at Oracle or JD Edwards. Normally it’s not a problem when founders hire people they know from past companies and respect. In this case, it’s a problem because they aren't/weren’t A+ players who brought fresh perspective. They brought mindsets from how things were done “at JD Edwards” which was really successful back in the 80s. Is it all bad? Of course not - they’re smart folks. But it’s led to a subpar workforce. It would have been far better for NW to hire people from modern tech ERP companies (Netsuite, Workday, Salesforce), pay them well, than use the “good-ol-boy/girl” network.
This feeds into my next point.
**Leadership Incompetency**
I’d give the executive team Cs across the board and a D for the Chief Operating Officer (COO). Do they make some good decisions? Sure. Have they squandered millions and millions... very likely.
The CEO has a really good heart. She cares about making a difference. In the right setting, I’m sure she really flourishes. Unfortunately, leading NW is not that. None of the NW executive team has built a business before and it’s very clear.
They’ve hired too fast, let poor performers stay, and most importantly, lack business-sense. It’s a group of technical people trying to figure out a business. But years into the business, with just a tiny number of customers, they didn’t have a clear business or sales plan.
Without firing themselves and bringing in outside expertise, it will continue.
I’d wouldn’t board a ship with captains who don’t know how to sail across the ocean or over-sold seats. You might fall overboard.
**Missed Goals**
This one is simple. They have missed almost all of their sales goals every year since they were founded and it’s not even close.
Before taking a job, ask them how many paying customers they have and what their goals were the past few years.
While past performance doesn’t necessarily guarantee future performance, you certainly should be very wary.
**Lack of Integrity**
Reading through the other reviews (again, which I recommend), a lack of integrity is a consistent theme. They will refute this but it’s continually brought up which gives its truth much more weight.
- Early customer failures (read other reviews to see what happened to the first customer)
- Equity rollout
- Bonus plans
- PTO changes
The company has always rejected the idea of anonymous feedback. They want employees to be confident enough to speak up. Unfortunately, the CEO doesn’t realize that many people are too afraid to speak up or feel it will be ignored based on the experience of other employees who have spoken up before. They flat out won’t do anonymous feedback and, therefore, based on the culture they have created, continue in blind ignorance.
**You Won’t Work with A-Players**
Early in your career the two most important things are:
1. How much can you learn, what you will learn, and how much can you be challenged
2. The people who you work with - this becomes your work network
Talking with some of the people who have been at NW since early on, most of the top young talent that joined NW based on the grand vision and excitement, have left. That is very telling - an early stage startup with lots of funding will often maintain their early employees. Oh wait, all the other companies in the entire startup-tech universe have offered equity..... something constantly requested and asked for and only finally starting to be talked about. It’s a total shame to hear about the quality of people who have left.
Historically, bonuses are given out in a socialistic way. If you’re a top-performer you aren’t compensated as such. They feed the beast of poor performance.
**Pay and Upside**
- It’s really sad. A number of people who have left shared that they don’t have anything to show for their time at NW except a wrinkled forehead and grey hair. What many thought was going to be a life-changing experience, turned into an experience they’re glad they moved on from.
- After 5 years of existence, they had still not rolled out an employee equity plan. It had been talked about for years in vague terms. Like a carrot on a stick. Eventually, many of the driven and smart team members left because there simply isn’t incentive to stay if you have big career visions.
- Except for those who got involved really early (and stayed), promotions are pretty much time-based. You may be 3x as good at your job as a coworker but you won’t be promoted because you haven't hit the "timeframe". This is almost unheard of in the startup community... sure, maybe when you have 30,000 employees but not when you essentially have no revenue, few customers, and the entire future of your business to figure out. Rather than promoting and encouraging those who can make a difference in the business, they’d rather fill the seat with someone who says yes to everything and doesn’t push the company to be better.
**Financials**
This section is simple: there is very little financial accountability. You should hear what their burn rate is.... I’d definitely ask about this during the interview process and then follow that up with 1) how many customers they have 2) average customer contract value per year 3) how much funding they have left.
They may not tell you because it’s bad news.
**Conclusion**
There are some good people at Nextworld. They care and do work hard. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make up for all the other issues that exist. A number of those issues have been brought up directly with the leadership team (several times) over the years and they still remain.
If you’re looking to join a startup and really want to grow, don’t join Nextworld.
If you’re looking to put in 9 to 5 and make decent money, it could be a good place for you.
I’d encourage you to read the responses that the “Marketing Coordinator” writes to the 1 and 2 star reviews. They don’t address most of the big issues and encourage people to use the “whistle-blower” policy which was not a public thing or communicated to employees.
It’s probably how they will respond to this one. They will apologize that my experience wasn’t great and that they strive to have a strong culture. It’s really all you need to know... they hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see. This review will be ignored by the CEO and leadership team just like all the others have been. Which, ultimately, is the exact reason so many great people have left, why the business is struggling, and not much will change.
I hope they prove all of us wrong.
