Shell company. Headcount was cut down to a skeleton crew.
Pros
* Workplace culture was phenomenal. I have lifelong friends forged from my team & others at the company. Not a single peer whose call I wouldn't take in the middle of the night. * First (/only) product shipped on time, under budget, to evangelical customer & media reviews. * Good brand. A future generation can re-start this when smarter management comes in.
Cons
* Sexism especially among the clique of foreign-born managers. * Poor communication to the team. * Demoralizing to watch the spiraling incompetence: When we built the product there was big talk -- celebrity CMO!, national branding launch! -- but after launch, our product never went anywhere. The managers were completely surprised that a consumer product wouldn't launch itself. This led to a series of panic moves. Marketing will report to the COO! Marketing will report to the CTO! Fire the CTO! Cut agency spending to $0 and launch fake new products on Kickstarter! Let the intern run brand advertising! We did work on the next product, but managers had gotten distracted & promised completely different tech to a completely different place. When this became a conflict, they threw expensive consultants in without making any choices. 2/3 of my team was cut on a surprise murder, and the rest of us left within two months. A skeleton crew is left -- intern runs the social media, support takes care of existing customers, and the CEO sleeps in the office. There is no actual product being built.
