UpHabit Reviews

Working with leadership was extremely difficult. often felt like nothing I said or purposed mattered, it was usually brushed off or forgotten about very quickly. Features were planned based off of what management (the CEO) wanted and very little if any user research or data was taken into consideration when a new feature was developed. Features changed at a whim, it felt like every week something new was added or a feature out of nowhere needed to be urgently put into the app with no clear reasoning as to why other than "I want it". When a feature that was dictated to us tested poorly or received negative feedback, management denied all responsibility and blamed us for the poor performance. There was an obsessive mantra of wanting to listen to users and always being open to feedback but it often went nowhere. Saying you listen to users only works when their feedback is incorporated into the product. Micromanagement was common. Getting messages from management at all hours of the day about some new idea was a weekly occurrence. I clearly remember getting messages Christmas morning while opening gifts with my family. Management would ask for things and if you didn't immediately respond you'd be bombarded with messages asking to see it. It created an extremely anxiety-filled office, and it's something that still impacts me today. Seeing co-workers cry, being extremely upset/angry, or venting after work happened far too often. Management would always bring up how much things cost and spend staggering amounts on things that felt had little impact and it definitely made us question why these investments were being made (thousands spent on merch, fancy toys for the office, weekly catered lunches, very expensive work parties etc...) Money seemed to be the thing used to solve a lot of problems rather than thinking things through and creating a plan. We were always told to go with the most expensive option for software/services or contractors, and it really felt like money was being flaunted just for the sake of showing off. After a lengthy period of time working there had lost all confidence in the product and in leadership, had given up trying to make an impact with the skills have and really just went along with what leadership told me to do, which benefits no one and ultimately left the product in a poor state. I don't regret my time there, it gave me experience of knowing what not to look for in a job.

The founder is in denial of the 1 star review “It's just one line of code”, and made the claim that it’s completely fasle. Let’s look at the data to outlay the facts. Is this true? “company fired all it's full time employees then offered them contract positions at ridiculously below market rates. When few people accepted, overseas contractors were used.” While I can’t prove that the company did this without disclosing private information, anyone can look at the number of employees listed under UpHabit on LinkedIn (currently at 4). Followed by applying a filter to see how many employees list UpHabit as a previous company (currently at 20). Reviewing the employees listed here indicates that most left in Q4 2020, so draw your own conclusions. Is this true? “management claims to be data driven but all product decisions are made based on the CEOs gut feeling no data involved.” Anyone can verify this by talking to any one of the 20 past employees in UpHabit’s short history. People talk in this industry. Denying the truth only makes management look evil instead of merely bad. Is this true? “Every time you brag to others publicly and to the team about how most of the team are immigrants it makes everyone on the team more resentful. Stop trying to make us feel like we owe you for being in Canada.” The founder loves to virtue signal about his team consisting of women and minorities, as evidenced by this tweet: > "As of this morning, @uphabit’s team is 40% women. I couldn’t be happier (well, even higher would be better)." Is this true? “does not offer a option/share plan but a convoluted plan that is designed to penalize anyone who leaves the company ever. Options only vest if you're employed at a "qualifying exit" even if you stay for 10 years but leave the day before an exit you get 0.” Yes, yikes! The tech industry standard is a 4 year vest with a 1 year cliff, regardless of when an exit happens. Every one of the best startups offer this. Once again, the founder’s tweets verify that he doesn’t offer that: > "We have no options at the moment. I just allocated 15% of an exit day one to be distributed to the team as bonuses using their total company earnings as the weighting factor. So if we’re sold tomorrow, 15% goes to them. No un-allocated options. By design it’s fully allocated." Finally, in the founder’s response of empty rhetoric, he attacks the reviewer instead of the issues, and emphasizes the negativity of the previous review. Funny how negative experiences create negative reviews, but there is also a term that the founder is unaware of - toxic positivity - where any negative attributes are shoved under the rug or lied about, to maintain the false perspective of "positivity". That's even worse for people, and is a form of abuse by a sociopath.