Silicon Valley is a metrics based world but StyleSeat isn't a metrics based company. The people that actually cared about data were either laid off months ago or left on their own accord (to join some of the top tech companies in the valley.)
The CEO, Melody, doesn't understand numbers at all. There were many impressive employees that would hit insane goals and run amazing, strategic tests and engineers were building incredible tools. Seemed like this company was going places!
Things seemed to change in an instant. People disappeared one-by-one and no one knew why. We always knew everyone's targets and accomplishments thanks to our Monday Meetings but people were really succeeding would suddenly be laid off. Whispers really started happening when a marketing employees were let-go, seemingly on a whim, and they were all replaced by a VP from a certain company and her team. They were really difficult to work with and we lost faith in Melody as we all saw that they weren't capable and that decision came from her lack of experience in operations. The new VP and her team were also let go after 3 months.
My main issue was that it seemed she wasn't interested in the product at all. It was tough because a lot of us put our hearts and soul into something we believed in. She would ask "Since when have we had this feature!?" and no one knew how to answer the question... because the feature had been there all along.
A few months ago, about half the company was laid off. We weren't generating revenue and the CEO invested in a new marketing team that had never driven revenue before. The campaigns failed. The money was gone. Now, I hear everyone is looking to leave. I'm so sad because I spent so much time on a vision that could change the world. In the period of 6 months, things changed and the only thing I can point to as to why, is the CEO. She's also NASTY to people and about people. After she hangs up the phone, she'll say really rude things about the person she was talking to.
I'm still in shock.