I worked at a marketing company for 4 years that was massively successful at first but is now facing bankruptcy thanks to the 2 co-founders making a series of horrible business decisions
These egotistical douchebags cared more about hyping themselves up than actually improving their product
When times were good, they invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into courses, masterminds (so they could get selfies with ppl like Russell Brunson and Dan Kennedy), company retreats, hiring a bunch of new employees so they could get on the INC 5000 fastest growing companies list…
And they even dropped over 100k making a documentary about their company, and the doc did NOT generate ONE SALE.
It’s like they were high off all the schmoozing and marketing assets that propped them up as “industry leaders”
The team would be scrambling trying to finish one project at bare minimum quality, and then the bosses would be like “hey we’re gonna start another podcast” and it’s like BRO let us work on actually IMPROVING the service rather than feed your narcissistic shiny object syndrome!!
And then when the economy took a dive all the shortcomings in their business came to light and clients started dropping like flies.
The bosses blamed it all on the recession, but the truth is, they were so shortsighted they thought their business was recession proof
Turns out a lot of their initial success was due to luck and confidence, not actually providing a valuable service to clients.
So the layoffs started. I survived round 1. They actually gave me a raise shortly after, and then did temporary pay reductions 2 months after my raise lol. (They basically gave me a raise and then took it away.)
I worked my ass off trying to do my part to keep the company afloat but it was a sinking ship. There were several more layoffs after that, so I wasn’t surprised when my time was up. But get this:
During the call, I asked them “Ok, what do I need to know for off boarding?”
And they had no answer. They’d laid off dozens of people at this point and didn’t have the decency to write some bullet points on a google doc to go over next steps. Fucking unprofessional losers.
They literally said, “We hadn’t really thought about it, but what would be very helpful for US is if you could send over any information you have that could help us take over your assignments”
I responded, “No. I need to put my energy into finding a job, not teaching you how to replace me”
So yeah, these two narcissistic douche bags who ran their company into the ground and kept bragging about how they landed on the INC 5000 fastest growing companies list are now facing bankruptcy, and had to layoff their entire US team, except for two or three people.
Here are some more grievances I want to rant about:
They once threw a company retreat with the sole intention of making a documentary and use us as props to hype themselves up. They hired a videographer to record us for their documentary and got everyone on the team to give testimonial interviews talking about how amazing our bosses are. It was incredibly emotionally manipulative. The video is still on YouTube and they ended up laying off all but 2 employees in that video.
they would always say “we’re like a family here” and I begged them to stop saying that bc it’s a massive red flag to new hires but of course they didn’t listen or care.
One of my bosses thought he was a sales Psychology god and charged $500 an hour for his consulting.
(he always bragged about how he was once so poor he had to sell plasma to pay the light bill. He portrayed himself as a self-made man. Well turns out his dad actually wrote him a big check so he could start his first business lol.)
This douche nozzle used to always say: “Money is like a good woman. If you don’t treat her right, she will leave you and find someone else who will.” well, guess what his girlfriend left him and now he’s facing bankruptcy lol.
About a year into my employment, I lost a lot of weight and it was noticeable on a zoom call and my other boss said I had gotten a lot “sexier.” Fucking creep
That same creep once moved into a penthouse apartment in Chicago, and gave the team a virtual tour bragging about how he had “made it” Meanwhile, nobody on that call was making enough money to afford basic expenses.
Anyways, I’m just excited to be out of that industry. The whole “grindset marketing podcast bro” phenomenon needs to fucking die once and for all
EDIT: I’m not going to individually DM every last person who comments asking about the company it’s just too much I’m sorry guys