6 months into this company I would've given five stars on everything below except for leadership, which would've gotten a four. Obviously things have changed.
It's critical to provide the context that it's a startup that has experienced insane growth selling a viral digital base-product requiring zero inventory planning, up front investments in units, or physical fulfillment infrastructure. They have a huge potential market and have been selling directly to consumers for a minimum order value of $199 at a week-delayed 50% COGS, and they earn even higher revenue and margins for a very in-demand selection of B2B services.
In that context, it should be somewhat bewildering that it has been hemorrhaging money. Frankly, the fact that they haven't figured out how they could achieve profitability with that core model and product or how to at least get their CAC down from ~$250 (or get a return purchase rate of higher than 2-3%) is a huge indication of something being wrong.
Executive leadership felt like they had either shiny object syndrome or a lot of pressure and conflicting inputs from investors. We were constantly having work "reprioritized" by leadership, but despite clear calls for explicit decision making we were unable to get cross-functional and multi-team work truly prioritized and we were not empowered to make those decisions as individuals or a team.
Strategic mid-senior employees were not leveraged by leadership for high-level strategic planning conversations even when we experienced months of vacant/absent/onboarding VP- or C-level leadership. Decisions would be made behind closed doors and then we would be expected to drop everything to adapt and get a plan ready to go in an entirely new direction. Cross-functional strategic coordination was abysmal at the highest level and only really done by individual project teams, while decisions were made elsewhere in the business that ultimately resulted in total growth stagnation. I saw the potential negative impacts of some of these from a mile away but never felt empowered or heard in any way that allowed my subject matter understanding to be put to use. I never saw a project through to completion to a degree that the ROI of the work was anywhere close to realized.
This resulted in significant thrash, turnover, and 3/4 of the people I saw hired while there being fired or laid off. The state of the company and the silent leadership an non-existent change management contributed unbelievably negatively to the work environment and culture, which resulted in everyone feeling overworked, insecure, and uncertain of how to make an impact or who to trust. As much as it sucks to have to find work and have a reduced income in this current economy, it was a breath of relief when I received the news that I was laid off.
I think this company and it's entire history should be studied and taught to people in business schools and startup accelerators around the world.