Flipp Reviews

Cons

Gets super busy around Black Friday but you sign up for that so you're aware.

Cons

Work / Life Balance
Lack of established policies
Too much inner management turmoil
Excessive changing roles, management and room switches on premises

Cons

- Office snacks have degraded over time
- Office is a bit dull compared to other startups, looks like a generic office workspace
- Location is meh, downtown Toronto or Waterloo could fair better
- You are locked to Goodlife when it comes to exercise benefits
- No transparent Education allowance
- Working remotely is not an optimal experience. Tooling for remote work is lagging. So many empty spaces everywhere, its may be time to adopt a desk sharing policy.

Cons

The company has grown rapidly and with that comes growing pains. While my team has an amazing culture, other teams in the company have suffered as we grown. This isn't surprising and teams are actively working to fix it.

Cons

Missing the mark on what needs to be done.
Sometimes it gets too into the startup domain that it never stops to think through products.
Lack of vision and long term plans.
Many people here never worked anywhere else or in bigger corps which makes their experience a little small and too specific, No exposure to what else is better outside that could be brought into the company

Cons

Benefit was okay, you can work from home pretty much anytime, unless you have a manager who doesn't like it.

Cons

Dear Candidate,

I write this review for you for two reasons - I think it’s important to read these reviews and understand the common themes between each one - even the positive ones will give you an inclination of what is wrong. The most recent ones claim things are great but still suggest a change in leadership. So we can take that as a common thread and build upon it.

The second reason I write this to you, and not to the organization specifically, is because I believe that no tangible steps will be taken by the organization as the changes they would need to make are too drastic to take hold in any reasonable amount of time. Instead, vanity measures will be taken that will not have staying power but will be lauded as the cure for all that ails.

Keeping those themes in mind, I think it's best to describe the cons of Flipp into 3 categories - Leadership, Focus, and Micromanagement.

Leadership - the organization is managed by the executive group that refers to themselves as servant leaders in one breath and ”lighthouse” in the next. Irony aside - the group while well-meaning are clearly out of their depth.

They have grown from a small company in which they were the heroes of their own fables to a much larger company in which those fables are told to remind others of how great they are (or were). They are no longer capable of taking this organization to the next level, but admitting so is unimaginable.

The principles Flipp lives by are for their people to be Hungry, Humble, and Highly Intelligent - the 3 Hs . These traits are very evident in just about every employee but are mere voids in the CEO. He is certainly hungry, but the others are qualities he expects of others but cannot be found in his own behaviours. He has a sheer force of will that overpowers those around him to be former shells of themselves - in which the options they have are (1) agree with him, (2) leave, or (3) be removed.

The organization is managed by the latest book that has been read but it is only ever mentioned during the period in which the CEO is mid-read, he regales the organization with his most recent thoughts or insecurities he wishes to dismiss in a Monday ritual called big scrum. Which is intended to be an update for the organization, but has devolved into an arena for the CEO to complain about the things people don't understand about him and the mastery he has over those subjects that have been called into question.

Focus - The lack of focus is staggering. New projects are introduced almost weekly, with entire shifts being made in the organization all under the guise of "reinvention". During said reinvention - the CEO will go to the respective team and will chastise them for their faults and then claim himself as the hero that can save them. It’s a tactic most often visible in an abusive relationship - where the abused must be broken down before help can be accepted. The group is given some high-level changes, a few members may be removed as blame for their failures - and they are returned pieces of themselves forced to figure out what is next by clinging to a high-level vision of clarity that has been bestowed upon them by their saviour.

This restructuring has happened on every team in the organization without any major exception. The cycle repeats quarterly where the latest failing team is chosen as a proverbial lamb to the slaughter under the CEOs impatient blade.

New projects are introduced, delivered in a prototype phase, forced into production, and then sold to the organization never to be iterated on again. The next thing gets done and if lucky you'll get to finish it.

Micromanagement - This can take multiple forms - in the first it is that the work that is being done is never good enough and needs to be corrected, in the other is the only way to do good work is to ensure that your peers and the various leadership groups are aware of what you’ve done.

Whole swaths of people are dedicated to providing weekly updates to the CEO. They may run on 2 or 3-week sprints but something must be reported every week without fail. Weekly is for those that are lucky - some poor souls are burdened with a daily activity. Work is questioned, methodologies confronted, and not for constructive development but to ensure that the model for the way things are going are maintained.

There are weekly meetings for just about everything as well. Most of the team's time is spent in updating on what is happening that it's no wonder that projects never really get to progress. That is unless you have a strong intermediary leader that can buy you the space to work. However, those are fleeting as many in leadership seem to be leavin more regularly and in numbers.

This constant busy work leaves no time to think rationally or strategically, and as a result, teams are forced to just accept what they are told as they do not have the time to know any better.

If you’ve reached this point, I do have a few final words of practical advice for you. Should you still be interested and this review doesn’t dissuade you ask the following questions of your interviewers:

1 - How long have you been building the same thing? How often does your focus shift?
2 - When was the last time someone on the leadership team left? Why did they leave?
3 - Why has growth slowed? What caused the growth in the first place? How do you get back to it?
4 - I have heard there has been a lot of turnover recently - how does Flipp continue to attract top talent given the perception in the market? (Ask this to your recruiter)

Ask the above to every interviewer and make note of the differences - you will be either shocked at the answers themselves or impressed at how an organization could grow to be this large given all of the deficiencies.

Either way, you’ll have some reflection to do before you choose to move on.

Good luck.

Cons

- Exec team gets their fingers into everything. It never goes well. CEO used to yell at people alot but that might have stopped.
- Most product decisions are failures. Spun to be great successes until someone needs to be fired.
- 50/50 your promotion to a senior role was so that you can be fired as a scape goat.
- Moral is aweful. People leaving all the time and no one is replacing them.
- Culture looks great from the outside but can be toxic. Drink the kool aid or get out.
- So much potential but the leadership isn't good enough lead the company to greatness.

Cons

Toxic culture, lack of transparency. Coaches are inexperienced and lack people management skills.

Cons

People are leaving by the truck loads with none of them being replaced. What was a fun and uplifting place to work is no longer a place worth being at. All the people who made the culture what it was are no longer there. A few of their floors are ghost towns. Moral is at a all time low. Yes it is very much true that the execs are to blame for the downfall of the company especially the under qualified CEO. I think now he has come to the realization he has sunk his own ship. It is really sad what has become of this place. What was once a place that was able to recruit and attain such great talent is no longer a place anyone wants to be at. Everyone is over worked and ideas for new product launches will not save this sinking ship. Many people from sales are leaving as really their technology is dying and major accounts have also jumped ship. 90% of there recruiting team have left and haven’t been replaced cause it is difficult to recruit for a company with such a bad reputation now. It really is sad what this place has become!