Pros
I've worked at start ups and scale ups in a few different countries and Safewill is genuinely building a high performance scale up. What this looks like is: 1. A high bar for talent - you'll work with super strong low ego colleagues 2. A clear long term strategy thats also pragmatic to adapt to internal and external inputs 3. A heap of ownership for individuals, with high expectations for impact 4. A super exciting growth trajectory 5. Clear values and behaviours which are directly linked to how performance is measured The pace of change within the business has been rapid. I've been her 12-18 months and I'm super impressed with how the business has moved forward during that time - mainly in terms of strategic clarity, the talent bar, the impact that individuals are driving, and the general culture of the business.
Cons
A lot of the historical reviews have been spot on - the business went through a period of ambiguity and uncertainty. Like a lot of start ups, moving from 0 to 1 is tough, you make mistakes, get things wrong, and often don't have strategic clarity because you actually don't know the path. Over the last 18 months I've seen a huge shift here and believe a lot of these issues have been flipped from Con's to a Pro's. Having said that, it's important to note that if you join Safewill, you're joining a scale up - like most scale ups its worth being prepared for: 1. Expectations are high - it's not a sit and cruise kind of a role. You'll be pushed hard to deliver impact. Some people loves this, for others it's not quite right for them. The trajectory of the business means you need to be developing on a steep curve to keep up. 2. Things change - the business is constantly evolving, that’s a feature, not a bug. For people coming from large corporates this can be a shock. 3. There has been turnover as the business has moved from start up to scale up. It's natural for startups to go through this, but it can be hard at the time and the business hasn't always done the best job of managing this change. 4. The office has been average - the business has been in a shared office space in a tired old building, which wasn't ideal. We recently moved to our own space in a Surry Hills warehouse conversion - being able to get the team together in our own space has been a big level up - we now to more frequent events and are able to invest in a space that people can come to and do their best work.