ClearSlide Reviews

There is too much to cover here. At ClearSlide it's not fair to point to any one thing, person, or department and call it a bad name. The blame is shared across departments, managers, buyers market, investors, historical culture, etc. It does not take a genius or MBA to understand why employees at Facebook and Google are happier - people are buying/consuming/adopting their products. This is the mechanism that often drives a positive culture. When the money is coming in, it allows a company to focus on retention and well being. At ClearSlide, the money is not coming in, and there was too much external investment to let it fail. I have never seen the sales department achieve a single investor goal set out for them. This is not a sales problem, this is a company problem - if people aren't interested in buying what you're selling at the price you are selling it, change. And that doesn't mean raise the price further. Here is just a small example. You designed a product, that stores a large amount of sensitive information for a company, in a single location, with little privacy and even less security. In doing so, you have just roped legal, IT and marketing into the conversation. 1 if not all 3 are going to be upset. All you were trying to do was sell to a VP of sales. Who, by the way, will have to borrow budget from one of these other departments. That = Tough sell.

ClearSlide was the undisputed leader in a new space since its founding in 1999, signing up big name clients and many early adopters. Hard nose reps accomplished this on their own with no help from marketing. Skip to August 2014. The company hit a road block since most early adopters had been sold to. Reps couldn't "cross the chasm" on their own without marketing help. Dustin Grosse (former CMO from Docusign) was brought on as COO to get the company over the hump. Within a year, Grosse recycled the marketing department twice (as in firing and rehiring the entire department) and made numerous changes to sales compensation and processes. Result: Reps still had no help from marketing. Sales were down 50% during his charge as COO and many tenured reps left. Skip to September 2015: ClearSlide was hemorrhaging cash due to lack of growth. Half the employees was laid off. Grosse was promoted to CEO because of his stellar results during his one year tenure. A day after the layoff, Grosse organized a companywide toast celebrating poor performance and the complete destruction of our company culture.