Pros
An amazing team of very capable individuals, talent which is sadly enough wasted under extremely incompetent management
Cons
If there ever was a toxic startup culture that confirms all the stereotypes in the book, this would be it. They preach transparency, but don’t fully understand what that actually entails. Management lacks the vision needed to turn a sinking ship around, lack any form of proven track record, yet are super confident and stubborn in their own beliefs. For a start-up, everything moves very, very slowly - which is completely detrimental to the future of the business, if it even had one, considering the poor business plan. Management culture is just a matter of who speaks the loudest, who has the highest rank or who is willing to argue the most - the best idea will rarely win. Major incompetence, manipulation and a ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude among the leadership team too; resulting in very unprofessional (embarrassing even) communication towards customers and a major lack of integrity and business ethics. Ironic for a business claiming to invest in CSR. Example: while preaching ‘recurring revenue’, they promise customers to reimburse non-activated gift cards, and then blatantly lie - claiming they’ve all been activated - burning vital relationships by prioritizing short term profit over long-term viability. That's no business plan. Poor financial management and a lack of a solid business plan means they fail to raise funding over and over again, while still not being profitable after almost 10 years of being a 'start-up' - although they prefer to call themselves a scale-up. This means you’d essentially be leaving all job security behind, in exchange for… well, no variable pay or stock options. And a depressing, filthy office with broken, worn-down chairs that will ruin your back for good. All the while, management likes to mock and make fun of competitors and fail to see they’re miles ahead of them. In terms of career and personal development: quite simply, there is none. Career plans and internal mobility are non-existent. There are no cases of people making vertical moves within the organization, which is quite rare for a start-up. Management cares about one thing and one thing only: themselves. People are hired and fired again shortly after (if they don’t leave on their own) because there’s simply no thought out plan for the nearby future. To make matters worse, they’re intransparent about these events - they’ll even twist words and facts to fit their twisted internal narrative. Nobody on the management team ever takes responsibility, and instead, they’ll simply blame their team. Sacrifices and contributions made by employees remain undervalued and unappreciated, which is ironic considering it’s exactly what the founders claim to stand for as a business. Valuable, talented employees that meet or exceed expectations in consecutive performance reviews and express their desire to commit to the business long-term, are left completely blindsided when they get fired without valid reasons. The ‘CFO’ who doesn’t know the first thing about solid financial management even considers it OK to call his own employees ‘l*sers’, while throwing tantrums and losing his temper in meetings, even getting aggressive when people don't bend to his will. Batsh*t crazy. Steer clear.
