TL;DR: I forwarded to the founder some harsh criticism from the users on the UX of the app that he designed .I also gently suggested him to be more involved in user interviews in the future. Two days later, he “temporarily” dismissed the whole team of 10+ people to have time to “think” and not be distracted.
What's temporarily dismissing anyway?
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Over last weekend I approached the founder of the startup I’m working at about a few issues raised by the users of our app. I also convinced him that he gotta be on the user interview calls with me sometimes because our company is still in an early stage (the team has ~10 people). My perspective is that as a founder he gotta be close to his customers to make the right decisions. He can't just rely on the only external person on the team (aka me) for knowing what the users want or for product roadmap decisions.
He admitted that true, it was important to talk to users and he is not doing enough of that. We also had a really long discussion about the product and those feedback entries from our users, where I went in-depth on some of the items I got and especially what the team was not seeing about the product that the users weren't so happy about. This is where I did wrong I think. I forwarded everything the customers said including some (a bit too harsh) criticism on the UI/UX and look & feel of the app, not remembering that the founder had proudly shared before that he designed it himself after self-teaching UI/UX.
After the call on Saturday, he went silent for two whole days . Then today he came back to me with a “radical decision” (his own words) that he will “temporarily dissolve” the whole team of 10+ people including myself. His reasoning is that there are critical technological problems that he personally needs time to think through based on the user’s feedback from my reports and he “doesn’t want to get distracted” by other things :
TBH I don't know what “temporarily dissolve” means but he said he’ll “ask everyone back” and I can choose to go back in a few months if I want. Naturally I’m very annoyed by the fact that this probably means I gotta start looking for another job after only 10 months in this company; I have ADHD so job interviews usually don’t bring out the best in me. But there are other things.
What struck me more is that I felt like I was to blame for the consequences of the whole team not just myself. I felt like I should have been more delicate and cautious in planning the communication (but he had told me I could be straightforward and not spending time planning how to broach a topic like I would have in a corporate setting). I couldn’t help but feel like this drastic, “radical” decision was brought about by my radically transparent opinions (that he should know what users are saying) and I was also too brazen about it that I’ve unleashed something on the rest of the team as well. I feel guilty about the way I talked to him and about not deliberating things through properly before sharing my “honest” opinions.
Do you guys feel like this should be the lesson for me to learn to hold back some of my perspectives and be more cautious next time? Trouble is, I always tell myself to shut up and not share all of what I know but then these guys came along and told me I could be transparent and they need straightforward, strong feedback & opinions from me. How am I supposed to know what consequences are waiting for me and other people when I share everything?
EDIT: Grammatical errors.