Pros
I worked at Textio for a long time and truly love the Textio family. They hire amazing people who are smart, genuine, hard-working, and creative individuals. I was honestly impressed by how amazing everyone was (still are) that it pushed me to work harder/smarter and at their level. People at Textio want to help and create the best culture in a tech company that they put a lot of pressure on themselves to create utopia. Textio is a true start up and you're on a rocket ship! The pace is fast, they value having a sense of urgency, creating fast experiments, and love people who can "wear many hats" and are collaborative. Therefore, in order to really thrive and enjoy working here, you'll want to be open to constant change and are flexible. What drew me to Textio in the first place is the amazing product, the beautiful design, and the way they want to change how people see language and the impact it has. While it's been a roller coaster of understanding the buyers, I think people understand the mission Textio has. In general, I'm grateful for Textio and the people I've worked with and have met. Textio opened a ton of opportunities for me to grow, learn how to build processes, understand the nuances of building a start up, and it's shaped me as a manager. I'm forever proud to be part of the experience and was very sad with my decision to leave.
Cons
While everyone agrees and values to create an amazing culture at Textio, sometimes there's so much focus on avoiding conflict that communication is less direct than it needs to be. When there is direct communication/feedback given, it's taken very negatively and can actually slow down important decisions. Something I wish could have been better is aligning goals throughout the company, into each department, and trickling down into individual goals. Kieran and Jensen do a fantastic job of sharing company goals and being transparent but our sales leaders didn't do the best job of creating concrete/tactical plans for departments and individuals. Therefore, it created some disconnect for ICs and middle management; "how do I make impacts and help with the company goal?" A lot of the sales managers were very new to management or inexperienced. I believe this contributed to the confusion of how to take company goals and build plans for smaller teams & individuals. A lot of the managers (I can speak to sales best), were new to developing their teams, planning for changes, on-boarding new reps, and creating opportunities for growth. With so many new/inexperienced managers, it created a lot of anxiety for ICs as they felt they were being "jerked around" or blindsided when new decisions/changes were made rapidly. I think these things that happen due to a company's rapid growth and I'd label them more as "growing pains."
