Pros
The best part of Sugar has always been, and continues to be the people - we hire and value people who are autonomous, process improvement-minded, passionate and collaborative.
It has been exciting seeing how we invest in AI as a tool and form of development for teammates so we are comfortable and knowledgeable about the impact it can make in our daily lives, and by extension, for our customers.
I've seen an increase in employee recognition, with concrete examples celebrating how and why the teammate made a difference.
I think we have really great benefits with affordable health, Unlimited PTO, flexible wellness program. Absolutely love how international we are and seeing people share their holidays and celebrations.
And then looking forward, SugarAI is re-defining our positioning and category in the market - moving away from CRM (system of record) and pioneering Procession Selling which focuses on proactive guidance.
Exciting to be a part of a company that is pioneering a new category in our industry.
Kontras
The groundwork to relaunch has included critically assessing our systems/processes, investing in a new vision and executive team, priortizing different skills (e.g. expansion in CS, AI in Eng/Product, operationalizing vision in C-suite), getting honest about what is/is not working based on data/metrics and in a word - change. I would be lying if I said the changes haven't been frustrating or unfortunate to portions of our employee population - but the reason why I am still here, soliciting and advocating for people to join is because I truly believe in our vision and have a ton of faith in the executive team who are more ambitious, structured, scrappy and knowledgeable than we have ever had before.
In a nutshell - we are going through growing pains, but we already see the green shoots indicating we are on the right path, and I think the next part is the exciting bit where we execute and watch our work disrupt the industry.