Was a great company - Director of Operations Lyris Employee Review

Great place to work and learn

Management direction sometimes not all there

Engineering is leading a remarkable change in the company, development of a very slick set of web services for direct marketing. The vision is not only a state-of-the-art marketing platform, but a way to smoothly migrate the existing customer base. The engineering teams are sharp, small and agile, marketing and sales are aligned. And the work environment is friendly, personal and informal, much more of an East Bay culture than the less-personal Silicon Valley experience. There isn't a lot of process, and with 150 employees, it's easy to know who to talk to when you want to get something done. The usual perks, free parking and drinks and a beer fridge you can hit whenever. I can grab a beer at lunch in the middle of a full day. Management is available for a chat, and I don't experience a lot of political activity. What you see is pretty much what you get.

The company is traumatized by several mis-steps over the last six years, which have left a mark. It's historically grown by acquisition, and must now innovate ahead of the competition. The sales and marketing teams are used to selling software and a website with features. The future will be a platform of web services, with a web interface but also capable of marketing automation in a big way. This is a tough paradigm shift, although the audience is the same, fortunately. There are bigger and better-funded players, for example ExactTarget is owned by Salesforce, and Responsys is now the Oracle Marketing Cloud.