Great tech and support but poor business model that doesn’t support writers - CV Writer TopStack Resume Employee Review

August 2022 update: The initiatives I referred to below (in my initial response over a year ago) have been implemented, and we've taken the feedback seriously. The writer is incorrect to say that hardly any clients pay. The vast majority of clients that receive a CV end up paying for it, and that has been the case for years. But poor work won't get paid for by clients, and writers that do poor work will not last at TopStack. I have no idea if this writer did good work or not, and that's not the judgment I'm making. But it's one of the reasons we built the business model the way we did. Clients love it, and that's why we're consistently rated among the top resume/CV writing companies in each region that we serve. Additionally, we've built a really collaborative and supportive team of writers. We know that to win in this business long-term, we need to have a model that supports both sides... clients and writers. There is still much more work to be done... for both clients and writers... but we are making strides over time and hope to continue to do that. There are legitimate points, though, that the writer here has made. And we've implemented several changes in an effort to improve the writer experience. Among them include: (1) Senior writers on our team now get paid for every CV/resume they draft up, even if the client decides not to pay for the order. (2) We've introduced the option for clients to tip writers, with 100% of tip going to the writer (>50% of clients have tipped since introducing this!) (3) We've made big improvements to our processes in an effort to reduce the amount of time required for writers to complete orders. This job still won't be for everyone, and it's still contract work where earnings will be variable. For some, this will be exciting and the changes mentioned above are all additive. But if you're looking for an hourly job where earnings are capped (but guaranteed at the same rate), then this probably isn't the best fit. -Steve Marcum / Founder Original response: Thanks for the feedback. I do appreciate your perspective, and just because we didn't change our business model based on your feedback doesn't mean it's not important or that it wasn't heard. We have three separate initiatives in place to address the pay-after model and get more consistent income to our writers, but they take time to test and implement... and there are no guarantees any of them will work. We're still young as a business and open to change. I hope we never lose that openness to feedback and change as we grow. We're also really flat as an organization so any feedback we get like this in Slack from our team directly... or anonymously in a public channel like Glassdoor is taken seriously. I won't always agree with the feedback, so it doesn't mean it will always change. But I view feedback from our writers, customers, and other stakeholders and extremely important... particularly at this stage of the company. We're still changing and growing and hope to continue to strengthen the work opportunities for our writers.