Honest review from a non-Sales, non-disgruntled former employee who was part of the recent exodus
Pros
I remain passionate about Weedmaps' original mission to champion for the cannabis industry and to be a leader for the legalization movement. There are bright and thoughtful people in this company who work very hard every day to advance this vision. I have really enjoyed working alongside these people and have learned a lot from them, despite all the cons I'm about to list below.
Cons
To start off, I would like to state that I did not work in the sales org, did not get laid off, and I am not a "sour grape"so to speak. In fact it is very disappointing that the company chooses to point fingers at former employees who are voicing consistent, legitimate concerns about the leadership's capability to steer this company through its early years of being a public company, instead of taking a minute to reflect and be thoughtful around opportunities to improve as an employer. To me, that complete lack of introspection and willingness to actually improve is very representative of how the management of this company chose to approach almost every single challenge and obstacle that it has encountered during my time there. I belonged to the awkward layer of middle management at Weedmaps, where I was privy to the chaotic and ineffective decision making process of the executives and at the same time completely aware of how unhappy, unfocused, and unmotivated the rank and file employees were. Remember the boulders and sand exercise? Me neither, because weeks of work were poured into it and it was promptly forgotten about by the entire c suite and the company an hour after it was announced. Product roadmaps were decided on and re-decided on over and over again. Every conversation about resourcing prioritization stopped at how soon the revenue impact could be materialized, instead of how our broader, long-term company vision could be realized. Product requirement documents were written and rewritten and re-edited, but at the end of the day all the execs cared about was if it meant we could squeeze an extra million dollars immediately tomorrow. When you point out how impossible some of our targets and goals are, or at times point how short-sighted they are, the only response you will get is not how the execs are all ears and want to hear what ideas you can bring to the table, but how you either get on board with the impossible targets or you are just noise they are happy to ignore. The targets I refer to here aren't just revenue targets. They include our MAU targets, our GMV targets, etc. It seems like management feels that the only tool they are willing to use to incentivize its employees is an endless targeting exercise, rather than concrete resourcing and support to set people up for actual success. And then let's talk about our rank and file employees. I would group our rank and file staff into 2 categories - the problematic OGers and the bright-eyed, soon-to-be-defeated newcomers. The OGers have been there since the Doug and Justin era, many of whom got very rich during the IPO process, and historically speaking there has been little to no performance management of many of them. Then there are the newcomers (like myself) who often come from big tech or traditional professional services backgrounds, excited about participating in the cannabis industry, and join Weedmaps because we believe in the company's potential and mission. During my time in Weedmaps, I've witnessed an entire business ops team, made up of newcomers who were all from blue chip backgrounds (think Mckinsey, Bain, etc), come and go within 2 years because they so quickly realized how dysfunctional this company was and became completely disillusioned. It is truly heartbreaking to see this company making an effort to attract all these really talented individuals, only then to completely neglect to set them up for success, and upon failing to retain them, so quick to label them as disgruntled, sour-grape employees unworthy of complaints grounded in reality. I am not going to go into how ill-equipped our execs are to deal with the growing challenges this company faces and the elephant in the room which is the plummeting share price. Every company faces unique company and industry challenges, and short-term share price noise is not the only thing that indicates whether it is the right place for your career. Instead I urge you to take everything I say here, everyone else says here, and how management has decided to respond to these criticisms in aggregate, and ask yourself if Weedmaps is the spot for you.
