Scoutible Reviews

- Would have liked to work more closely in person--ugh, Covid! (Also led to lack of "social" interaction) - It is a small team, so sometimes folks are stretched thin on lots of projects

Since more than half the team (minus the co-founders) has voluntarily left recently, I thought it appropriate to write an honest review for anyone looking to join Scoutible. Keeping things high-level, the main problem areas are in the product itself and the management. To protect Scoutible’s privacy, I will limit my critique on the product. I believe every step in the product’s lifespan has reflected leadership’s mindset of prioritizing razzle/dazzle over practicality and/or product-market fit. Further worsening things is leadership’s insistence on routine strategy changes and a dismissal of objections by the team instead of tackling underlying issues. Management-related points: 1. As I alluded to earlier, Scoutible’s CEO does not like to be challenged - a problematic trait for the leader of a small organization. The CEO has previously scapegoated employees and routinely demoralizes team members for being critical (there is a distinction between expressing your concerns with valid alternatives and not being “aligned” with a vision). Instead of addressing team members’ critiques on strategy, she has dismissed them as being too negative or “cancerous”. And while it is one thing to gather a breadth of opinions from external parties, it is altogether another to selectively listen to people who agree with you without an accurate or holistic view of the business from the inside. The CEO has routinely soaked in and prioritized advice from people who have validated her opinions, people who have little to no insight into the truth under the hood, while sidelining team members’ opinions and research. 2. One of the most acute problems is that the CEO doesn’t trust the team. A former Scoutible colleague advised her that she needed to trust the team to do their best and allow for more flexible work options (e.g. work from home) to help with low morale, despite great work output. She refused by saying that giving people leeway and flexibility would lead to a loss in momentum. As you can imagine, this leads to a “butts in seats” mentality (as the other review pointed out, a strange hardset 9-6:30 minimum rule) and again, disgruntled employees who feel nervous to even take the time to go see the doctor/attend to personal issues. 3. A widely agreed upon opinion is that the CEO is inauthentic and lacks an alarming amount of empathy that is necessary for a good leader and a well-functioning team. When employees have had car accidents, family emergencies, etc., the CEO’s response has been to understand how that would affect their work hours first and foremost. As an example, while the CEO was on vacation, an employee went to the ER for an acute medical emergency. The CEO’s response was to question the meetings that employee would be missing the next day and asked her to come into the office instead of immediately seeking medical treatment.