Pros
Where do I even start? Monthly is an extremely collaborative place to work. Everyone at the company is smart, dedicated, and empowered to contribute their best where it's needed, and even outside of comfort zones and areas of expertise. Everyone is so quick to build each other up, give each other kudos, and provide each other with help - and this feeling of support makes coming to work each day feel really good. There's a huge culture for ownership. As a small team where all of us are generalists, no single task is too big or small for anyone here. Everyone is truly committed to our mission, and everyone I work with will go the extra distance to take something across the finish line. The work itself is super cool and interesting. We're at the intersection of education technology and a social or community based platform. As a result, there's a lot of first principles thinking when coming up with new ideas, whether that's on the curriculum development side or on the product experience. These kinds of challenges are what get me excited every morning to start my day. Finally, it's amazing to see how creative and well rounded everyone is here. The reason why we're all at Monthly is because this is something that we all believe can fit into our lies. Many of us have taken Monthly classes, and have creative pursuits outside of the 9-5. From painters, illustrators, music producers, musicians, tinkerers, and more, it's really comforting to see that the company outwardly encourages people to live healthily balanced lives. I'm so proud to be able to work at Monthly. I get to virtually show up to work every day, work with the most incredible people, and at the end of the day I get to sleep easy knowing we're creating profound learning experiences that help people feel like they've leveled up in not just their creative craft, but also their entire identity and perception of self. Honestly. What else can I ask for?
Kontras
Better pacing in some areas. We're a startup, and right now we're a 30+ person team operating like a 300+ person team. While it's amazing how much ownership people have, it's also better to be realistic about the bandwidth that each person has, while still feeling like they can create the best work they can. Cross team collaboration could improve as well. As a remote company, were still looking for ways of increasing transparency between as many teams within the company. Right now, the curriculum development team, the product team and operations and marketing feel a bit disconnected, and while this isn't intentional, I do think it's important to keep in mind as the company grows and we start breaking off into sub teams within these teams.