Pros
I joined Yardzen because I, like many others in the company, live and breathe by their overall mission of helping everyone live better lives outdoors. Yardzen’s foundation is strong - from the founding story, to many of the hires that they have made over the past few years. I found myself inspired by many of the people that I worked with, and I think that came from a strong vision of what the CEO wanted to build at the company, starting with the people.
Cons
I think Yardzen as a company needs to take a step back and think “Who are we?” before growing too quickly. They’ve had exciting growth over the past few years, but I think there is a missed opportunity to define who they want to become. They are making a lot of hires from the same company, family, etc and I can already see a lot of copying/pasting of other cultures over to Yardzen. That, along with the CEO and COO being married and the CCO and CMO being sister-in-laws has created a very partial approach to how the company is lead. It’s beginning to feel more and more like “you against them.” It’s not always easy sharing difficult feedback with leaders, but especially when they are married and have a biased way of approaching things. This was somewhat mentioned in an earlier interview, but I do think that Yardzen struggles to invest in their people. It’s tough to know that they are spending a lot of money each month on Instagram ads, but when it comes down to budgets for management training, salaries, 401k, benefits, better parental leave policies, etc., the answer is always “we have more important things to focus on right now.” Yardzen pays salaries at the a low percentile (besides engineering/product roles) and offers equity at an extremely low percentile for all roles (except C and VP-level) and this is a philosophy that the co-founders wanted to stick to. This creates a lot of problems, mostly because often times people are okay accepting a lower salary since they know their equity will (hopefully) pay off one day. At Yardzen, you get a low salary and a very low equity offering. I think this is part of the reason why turnover is so high. There is a previous review that mentions employees being exploited for the co-founder’s financial gain. In one of the company’s allhands, when the COO was talking about the company going public one day, he said “think of how big this will be for (the CEO) and I” and that statement has stuck with me for awhile…no mention of what Yardzen can do for homeowners, or sustainability, but what it can do for the married cofounders financially. You frequently get the sense that the co-founders are in it only for the money. There are some opportunities on the Diversity and Inclusion side. Anytime anyone had voiced concerns with a growing white leadership team, the co-founders always said “now is not the time to be focusing on diversity hiring…we just need to find the right people.” Focus on hiring leaders from different backgrounds, not just within comfortable companies or families. Lastly, the COO can be a wild card and this is felt across the company. 2am Saturday morning Slacks, talking over people in meetings, and making people uncomfortable in interviews (see interview feedback on Glassdoor) is the norm. 80% of his team has been removed from under him, but I hope Yardzen still realizes the impact that weak leaders can make at the company. The answer to being able to work with a leader shouldn’t always be “just try to avoid him”.
