Productboard Reviews

CEO has a massive ego, lack of strategic vision and is an awful communicator which has resulted in at least four rounds of layoffs and entire executive team turnover multiple times over the last couple of years. GTM has been blamed for lack of growth and has been gutted on multiple occasions despite almost no meaningful product development over the last 2-3 years. CEO stated during company kickoff that the company was “burning the boats” of the core product to focus on a new AI product, but the new AI product is actually more like an add on that lacks any commercial viability on its own. Considering Productboard markets itself as a tool for PMs to understand customer needs and ship products that address them, it’s mind blowing that all of the product decisions have been based on the CEO’s “vision” and have been at the expense of what prospects and customers have actually been asking for which has in parallel tanked win rates and sent churn through the roof. CEO only trusts a few people in his inner male-only circle who do nothing but agree with him and pump his ego. Head of product growth is CEO’s right hand man and a great example of this - he’s been promoted and given tons of additional responsibility despite revenue contracting by double digits, activation falling through the floor and churn skyrocketing.

The company has a worrying pattern of overhiring, followed by massive layoffs. Specifically, they ramped up headcount from barely 200 to over 500 twice in the past four years, only to slash it back down. As a startup in a very unstable economy, chaos and heavy workloads are nothing new. What is odd, however, is that leadership never seems to learn from their frequent re-orgs (pretty much one per year since 2022) and rolling layoffs. This is likely because no one in a key leadership role stays long enough for a strategy to stick. Constantly shifting the core strategy and silently gutting teams in the background has led to low morale and a culture of distrust. Innovation requires stability, but this company is stuck in a cycle of constant disruption. It is hard to recommend working here until leadership breaks the cycle of overhiring and firing.