AppSumo Reviews

Before working at AppSumo, I read reviews here on Glassdoor from around 2019-2021 containing warnings about the company's culture and the lack of opportunities for growth. After working at AppSumo for 2 years, nothing much has really changed on that front, and I can attest to the accuracy of those reviews. If you look at LinkedIn profiles of people who have been at the company for 4+ years, you'll see that they may have had a recent change in title, despite never having any experience in that type of role. If you aren't a part of that core group of individuals who have been at the company for a number of years, then your opportunities for growth will be limited, and eventually, you will plateau, and be discarded by the company. The company made some Google Slide of the company's culture, which they'll share with you during your first week, but it's all just a bunch of fluff, and it doesn't mean anything to them. They like to think of themselves as a scrappy startup, so you'll be expected to work more than 40 hours a week, without ever being compensated for it. You'll maybe get a $20 gift card if you're lucky. Additionally, because of this, most teams will be "lean," aka understaffed. So although there's "unlimited PTO," you will either 1) feel guilty taking time off because the rest of your teammates will be slammed and will have to work longer just to try and hit company goals or 2) you will have even more work than when you left, so you won't really be able to rest and recover during your time away (which should be the whole point of PTO), as you'll dread coming back to work or 3) Both. The company goals keep changing, and even after adjusting financial goals, the "Owners" of these goals (the people in leadership who had the responsibility of hitting these targets) were unable to fulfill the duties of their job. AppSumo loves to preach about taking accountability, taking responsibility. What does that look like? Well, instead of these leaders owning up to their underperformance and incompetence, people at the bottom of the organization continue to be let go. Yes, this is how it works at most companies, but if you're going to preach about taking unlimited accountability, own up to your failures. During my time there, the company upgraded health care plans to Humana, only to then change it a couple months later to a cheaper plan as part of a cost-saving measure. They switched to worse software because it was cheaper than what was being used, another attempt to save on costs. They also cut down on reimbursable lunches, as well as other quality of life perks and benefits that made working at the company a little bit more bearable. If you look on social media, you'll see how Noah talks about running AppSumo, a "$100M company." The fact of the matter is that the company is tens of millions of dollars off from this mark, and even then, isn't even making a profit. This is a sinking ship, and more and more people continue to leave and/or be let go because the company is failing to truly take care of its people. I won't be surprised to see AppSumo return to the state it was in before the pandemic started (back to ~40 people), except with even less revenue. There also seems to be a number of fake 5-star reviews here. It's probably AppSumo's attempt to try and improve their public image. If you're super desperate for work or you're a recent college graduate, this might be a decent pit stop for you or an entry way into the "tech" space. Come in, get as much money as you can, and jump ship. This company will not take care of you, so do what you need to do to take care of yourself.

Severely inexperienced leadership team running a fast growing company. They base their entire “strategy” on books they’ve read and anecdotes they’ve found online about ‘unicorn’ companies, which they so desperately want to be. It begs the question whether any of them actually has an original thought. Everything this team does is highly reactionary which is a telltale sign of ineptitude. The people on this team have inflated titles for their level of experience. For example, if you were formerly managing a social media account for a company, you are now qualified to be the VP of Operations. Or if you’ve been in recruiting for a few years, you are now qualified to run an entire HR department. These are all easily searchable on Linkedin. There’s a giant lack of cross department cohesiveness, as well as any sort of top-down communication. Anyone not on the leadership team often finds out important and impactful information in a water cooler type chat via Slack (gossip) or in the middle of a company meeting without warning. This is causing mass confusion and frustration in all departments. The majority of the recent departures are all higher level employees with years of experience, which is a huge red flag. They clearly recognize something that no one else is seeing, or they’re tired of a company unwilling to own up to the real issues, which is the more likely scenario. Benefits are just okay. Health insurance is subpar, no bonus, no equity, it’s nearly impossible to unplug on vacation or even at night. The word ‘culture’ is force fed by people who have been at the company for a while and think that serving free alcohol on Fridays is what creates inclusion. That might have been cool 5-10 years ago, but it’s pretty played out at this point.