Pros
Weedmaps was once a useful resource for cannabis consumers to connect with legacy markets. However, due to the gradual softening of cannabis rules & regulations in the U.S. and Canada, the company is rapidly becoming irrelevant in the world of legal cannabis. One could describe the style of leadership at Weedmaps as: “A fast and loose game of Russian roulette where the weapon is perpetually aimed at the staff.” The exclusive cabal of executive ‘leadership’ are completely devoid of any vision for the company and have repeatedly failed to create a viable plan to grow the business. Targets are completely arbitrary and not based in reality whatever because a greedy, inept executive team dangerously overcommitted growth targets in order to IPO. Despite polished messaging from the CEO and his comrades across internal & public channels - specifically Slack & quarterly earnings calls - Weedmaps routinely proves that they are unable to compete in the spaces where they go head-to-head with Google, Dutchie, Uber, and nearly every comparable cannabis software provider on the market. The aggressive focus on revenue production in recent years separated the company from their core values and caused them to fall into severe tech debt. Employee morale is non-existent, the tech debt is overwhelming, app users are dwindling (publicly reported MAUs are extremely questionable), the executive suite is comically ineffectual, and tenured employees like myself are hastily resigning. Despite prevailing narratives, the business solutions offered by Weedmaps are far from best in class when compared to competitive POS/e-commerce solutions. If this seems far fetched then speak with some dispensary owners directly for confirmation. Lack of integration partners, clunky tech stacks, diminishing user engagement, poor ROI on ad spends, and negative end-user experiences are just some of the challenges suffocating Weedmaps as they continue to be outmaneuvered by their competitors.
Cons
There are some tremendous people working in the lower/middle ranks at Weedmaps but ultimately their efforts are squashed by an overbearing and incompetent management team. The juice is not worth the squeeze.