Satchel Reviews

- Sub-industry salary (especially for junior team members who don't know any better) - CEO is an ex deputy head, and you can completely tell. He runs the place like a school. Literally has a register to check people are in on time. As a personality he is unpredictable, immature and aggressive. As a leader he's suffering from founders syndrome and finds things hard to let go of - Product strategy is haphazard - have diversified too early into Tutoring, but more bizarrely into something called FrontRow which seems to be trying to be a new youtube for schools - Sales leaders are like desperate car salesmen. They panic when their teams aren't making targets but don't give them proper support or training to improve. Sadly refer to team members as B and C team players. But if that's the case, you get what you pay for - Unable to keep senior team members - CTO, CMO, Head of Growth & Customer Success all left after challenging the CEO - Expansion into US was planned but they've partnered with a local hardware company. Have absolutely zero chance of winning a much more competitive market

Most importantly, the CEO is wildly unprofessional and has zero experience in running a business before starting Satchel. Every attempt to improve staff wellbeing is performative and disingenuous at best. Long-standing members of staff are brainwashed and are used to the status quo. They are likely still there because they feed the egos of the executive team, by being obedient, and never challenging the toxic business practices in place. This is highlighted even further by the operations and sales directors describing things as “a bit gay”. Casual homophobia isn’t exactly common at Satchel, but it wasn’t a surprise. There is also no HR team to report these things to, probably by design. Often, the person you had to report issues to was your line manager, which is incredibly unhelpful if you have complaints about your line manager. The company values are used as a stick to beat you with. Members of staff are remunerated, by way of bonus, based on how they meet these values. One of these values is optimism, which puts anyone who may struggle with mental health issues in a position where they are paid less than colleagues with a sunny disposition. Opportunities for career progression are non-existent and there is literally zero scope for training or development. If you have any professional experience then I would avoid working for satchel at all costs. If you’re fresh out of uni and desperate for a job then apply, but make sure to be looking for better opportunities in the meantime. That being said, with fierce competition and appalling staff retention, satchel may well have closed its doors within the next year.