A lot of video meetings that start with a lot of idle chit chat and don't seem to go anywhere until the CEO starts talking about the latest change he is implementing. A lot of ideas are abandoned and a lot of work goes down a deep well without any real input from the team. In other words, you might be working on a specific idea for some period of time and come in to work Monday morning to learn that your idea has been abandoned in favor of something the CEO hacked together the night before. I got the impression that happened even more often than I was exposed to.
Very seldom will the CEO check in or remark on what you're working on. Even more seldom will you get a response from him when you try to initiate a feedback loop, so expect emails and slacks to just sort of drift into the ether.
In the time I spent with Petline, the launch date was pushed out numerous times, and unsurprisingly was pushed out yet again after I left. Looks like they finally did get the program off the ground.
Ultimately I enjoyed interacting with a lot of employees I worked with and met. The same can not be said for the CEO. I didn't dislike him however he was, in my experience, neurotic, uncommunicative, and incapable of taking criticism regarding his ideas. If you didn't effusively believe and preach that the product was just going to click and make sense for buyers, you weren't speaking the language of the company culture. I'm fairly certain I was let go because I did what I thought was expected of me, which was to think critically about the plan to go to market.
Sadly, I don't think that Petline is going to make it. It will almost certainly fail without some wholesale changes from the top down. First things first, the Founder and CEO needs to step down and bring someone in with a little distance and perspective, and more finely honed leadership skills. Someone who will look at the product offering critically and start poking holes in it, because it still lacks refinement and needs continued touching up (just like literally every product I've worked on).
Last thought, if you want to take a risk on Petline, just go in knowing that if you get on the wrong side of the CEO (and you may not even know you've done so, I sure didn't) you will be let go without warning, fanfare, or consideration. I've never quite experienced anything like it.
