Pros
It's quite common/trendy for a company to talk about its values - as if stating a set of values automatically means they are recognized and characterized. SquaredUp is the first company I've worked where they are so clearly more than words. "Passion" - A ten year old company, SquaredUp has been persistent with its vision of connecting and surfacing data for better insights. In the last 12 months, the vision has been resparked with a much larger scope and ambition - driving the development of its first SaaS product, which aims to solve a broader challenge and unlock a broader market. This persistent vision and the rejuvenation of it is motivating and exciting. "Integrity" - I've seen consistent under-promising and over-delivering - from the way employees are treated/rewarded to the results the company delivers. Communication is a key aspect... a lot of thought goes into the way goals and decisions are communicated, and with a lot of thought for the team. This makes the company feel very well-aligned and empowered to make decisions/take action. Togetherness - Each aspect of the company knows what the others are doing. We all meet for Friday wrap-ups with each week bringing a theme (a team in the spotlight, a stats update, etc.). In a remote-first world, this has been critical glue. The way the company has handled remote work has been exemplary. The decision to go remote-first wasn't made lightly - weighing a lot of feedback from everyone. And what it means to be remote first has been given a lot of thought. Probably an A+ example of executing this.
Cons
Developing a new product is rarely a straight line (there's a term for bumps in the road ... the "trough of disillusionment"). So it's taken longer than we anticipated to validate product/market fit. But we've made great strides and we've built a killer product, getting a ton of awesome feedback from early customers/analysts. So much of the company's future now depends on the goal of achieving exponential adoption and growth.
