A perfect case-study on a terribly run startup - Anonymous employee Backbone (CO) Employee Review

1.0
11 Jul 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- On paper, it's a cool concept (that several other startups are already doing) - Opportunity to work with some "cool" brands - Nice coworkers for the most part - Cool city to work from

Cons

- Company is insanely wrought with nepotism (leadership team is 90% family and very close friends and the only people to get promoted are these people no matter how valuable another employee might be to the company.) This is not a startup where the best and brightest work - it's where you get a job if you're related to or close buddies with the CEO (therefore this startup is not thriving or destined for startup greatness.) This was a concern of mine when I first joined, though, I went against my better judgement only to be proven that this simply is not good for any company. - CEO and the leadership team lacked demonstrated leadership skills OR the ability to hustle as you would expect in ANY early stage company. It was truly disappointing to see in action. Instagram personas are more important to these "co-founders" than actually working hard. This is evident by the actual promised product being well over 2 years late. (clients left as a result of this.) - CEO does not possess the ability to actively listen to anyone. He lacks general authenticity and or the ability to exercise good judgement in running an early stage startup. It would be nearly impossible to create something great with someone who lacks the vision, judgement, and ultimately the hustle.

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Backbone (CO) Response
5y
We are certainly sorry that this was your experience and wish you had shared some of these thoughts with us while here. In launching the company, it’s true that Backbone leveraged personal networks for finding talent- as many startups do. Since taking our Series A, we have had the capital and opportunity to broaden our recruiting channels, and our recent hires are experienced execs from external sources with strong technology expertise that complements the current industry-relevant experience our founders bring to the table. These are not ‘friends and family’ hires. We will continue to diversify our recruiting sources as we grow! To some of the other points, thanks for sharing those thoughts. We discussed them among management and believe the root cause is honestly us dropping the ball on clearly communicating how team member responsibilities have shifted as we added execs. Visibility into either a peer or a manager’s workloads have shifted, and - especially in moving to a remote WFH situation over the last 4 months - that has sometimes resulted in a lack of transparency on what team members are working on. That’s something we intend to improve on to address what you’ve noted - providing clarity into each team member and member of managements’ roles and responsibilities so that this doesn’t feel like others aren’t doing work while you are. Thanks for sharing these thoughts with us.

Explore other reviews about Backbone (CO)

5.0
29 Dec 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The culture is great inviting environment and they really want to make sure you know the product

Cons

Not many cons to be honest

1
4.0
8 Nov 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Backbone is a tight-knit family based in the foothills of the Rockies in Boulder, CO. As an original team member, I was able to see the beauty of a small but mighty team achieving big results!

Cons

The ups and downs of the last few years provided challenges as the team shrunk, grew and shrunk again in size. It was a bit of a rollercoaster.

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