Pros
The Fable team are the best I've worked with (and I've worked in great businesses big and small) - everyone is not only smart and at the top of their game, but also fun, interesting and collaborative. Like all startups we work hard, but it's all made worth it because you get to work alongside brilliant people. We are a combination of a tech business and a data business, which means we are always evolving and learning and doing things that no-one has done before. I find this really exciting - some don't embrace the change, but I love that no day is the same and we all get to shape our future together. It feels like we are trusted to get on with things, and our opinions and ideas count. Admittedly we've gone through a lot of painful change this year as we deliberately moved from loss-making startup to profitable business. But the remaining smaller team is non-hierarchical and we get to be a 'start up again'. I'm loving this new world, it feels like a group project where everyone is running together to a shared goal. Excitingly this seems to be paying off as we seem to be making more sales than ever, at a faster pace and keep bringing in new data. Management are accessible, especially now it feels like they are grafting alongside us all and always have time for us.
Cons
It's hard work! I guess this a feature of all companies, especially startups. Because the work we do is hard, and because everyone around you has high standards of themselves, it means you push hard yourself which can be tiring and make you feel like an impostor. As mentioned above, we did have a rough time at the end of last year/start of this year as we went through a lot of change and shrank the team as part of top down mission to hit profitability. It's really sad to no longer be working with some of those people. It's a shame, and in an ideal world wouldn't have happened, though compared to these processes which I've been through before I thought it was handled well. Happily we do all keep in touch still, there are some friends for life. Pay is pretty low compared with bigger businesses, but I think this is standard for startups.