No Focus + No Consistency + Poor Management = No Product - Anonymous employee Vareto Employee Review

1.0
12 Nov 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They pay is good and you'll meet some great people. Remote work is nice too. The times are good when you're empowered. That's honestly all I really have to say for pros.

Cons

The cons stem solely from poor management and poor product development practices. somehow management has instilled a toxic political culture in a young company, while simultaneously not being able to focus on building a core product that its customers need. the result is a house of cards floating on a limping sales and marketing motion, which is not sustainable. I found the team's heavy focus on sales and marketing odd considering that the product was nowhere close to appropriately serving its customers. There is very little consistency. Every week the priorities change due to a particular piece of customer feedback. The only channels I could see that drove product development were the CEO's vision (which was limited and not validated at all) and bits and pieces of customer feedback. Any deep customer research work the product team conducted was ignored from what I saw. The result was no real progress made on developing a product that actually solves a customer's problem. Additionally, every couple months or so there was a reorganization or someone mysteriously "mutually parted ways" with the company. One week you could be given a special bonus for stellar performance and the next you're border line getting PIP'd; all depending on management's feelings at the time. Overall, the main con is the inability to focus on/identify a customer need that they are able to execute against. Management's vision is not supported by any sort of deep experience in the area, which is a major issue for this type of product. Bonus: management would actually beg team to repost content on LinkedIn and leave good reviews on sites and sometimes offer gift cards in exchange. Very lame.

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Vareto Response
2y
Thank you for taking the time to share your insights about your experience here. We genuinely appreciate your feedback as it helps us strive for continuous improvement. We put a lot of thought into designing our compensation philosophy and are pleased to hear that you found our compensation packages competitive. We’re also happy to hear you’ve enjoyed your interactions with our team members and our remote-first work environment. Regarding your observations on management and our product development practices, we acknowledge the importance of fostering a healthy work culture and aligning our strategies with our customers' needs, and we invite all employees to take an active role in flagging any misalignment or areas for improvement based on their individual experiences and observations. We are sorry to hear that you did not have visibility into the business value that Vareto provides to our customers. Perhaps as a former employee, you worked with us in the early days and didn’t have the chance to see customers start to engage with our product. Today, we are proud to have one of the highest customer ratings on a popular review platform and also numerous case studies with our happy customers. Your feedback on frequent reorganizations within the company and the potential impact on team morale is duly noted. We do our best to create stability and clarity in roles and expectations while also acknowledging that fast-growing startups often experience growing pains and frequent operational changes. Your advice about trusting our hired team, listening more attentively to customer feedback, and aligning our actions with our stated values, resonates deeply with our commitment to continuous growth. We continue to take steps to ensure that we foster an environment of trust and open communication, where all team members' voices are heard and valued. We have implemented several tools to achieve this, including but not limited to establishing an anonymous feedback process, monthly company town halls, and regular prioritization discussions to ensure everyone is aligned. We realize that no organization is perfect, and we’ll continue to work on improving in this area. If you have any additional comments or questions about the efforts we’re making, please reach out to me at sasha@vareto.com. Thank you once again for your valuable feedback and for being a part of Vareto’s journey for over a year. We wish you success in your future endeavors. Best regards, Sasha Martin, Head of People

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5.0
11 Apr 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Amazing co workers, founders are truly dynamic and inspiring individuals, not to mention they are also immensely empathetic, and exihbit high EQ which is rare in tech these days. - Awesome challenges and problems to solve, the FPA and space is truly ripe for disruption. Disruption is not easy, there are challenges, and interesting problems to solve. - Management is very transparent about runway, wages etc.

Cons

It is an early stage startup. Startups can be choatic, with people leaving etc, although Kat/Lalit are incredible founders, I have great faith in them.

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5.0
29 Nov 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Vareto is the most transparent company I have ever worked for and leadership takes people and culture very seriously. The founders are very open to receiving feedback and are proactive about sharing information with the rest of the company on topics like board meetings and fundraising. The senior leadership team is made up of ambitious and strong operators with diverse backgrounds. There are very few big egos both in senior leadership and the company as a whole. From an individual perspective, there are lots of growth opportunities at Vareto for proactive individuals who are able to embrace the company's remote-first culture and enjoy engaging in synchronous and asynchronous discussions across a variety of tools and mediums. People who succeed at Vareto and whom I most enjoy working with are "audacious and humble", meaning they are always striving to do better and are honest with themselves when they fall short of their goals.

Cons

Vareto is a young and hungry startup and its also a proudly remote-first company. This combination is not for everyone and it requires a balance between a willingness to engage in work conversations after local working hours as well as enough confidence to set healthy personal boundaries.

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