Blast Radius Reviews

Pros

+ opportunity for those who want it.
+ always learning, always new challenges
+ great people
+ casual environment
+ hours are completely reasonable if you manage yourself
+ lots of great little perks
+ fantastic clients, will make your resume

Cons

- big clients can mean some big pressure sometimes.
- frequently at the whim of clients
- if you don't manage yourself well can get burned out.

Advice to Senior Management

Walk the floor, start working more closely with your teams.
Figure out how to navigate the new relationships / operating realities with our owners quickly.

Pros

Free junk food on wednesdays
Vacation benefits are greater than most employers
Casual work environment
People were generally fun and nice

Cons

Upper Management often has no idea what really goes on in the office.
Directors and Managers have poor communication skills and don't give feedback properly, if at all.
Office morale is extremely low due to poor communication from mid-upper management about anything (literally).
No recognition for a job well done and feedback from managers on work was often only given when negative.
Support from managers is minimal, if existent at all.
Management does not listen to employees at all.
Social committee severely lacking.
Reception/IT staff weren't attentive with the exception of a few people
The CEO's glass door rating speaks for itself, but not a great leader and extremely demanding.
The HR Department does not take employee concerns seriously, and someone's seniority has often been known to override HR's decisions on anything.
Directors, VPs and Managers of different departments are constantly at odds and don't work together at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the employees when they speak, because they have a better idea on improving leadership than you know. The leaders of different departments need to work much more cohesively. Upper management needs to choose better leaders, many of the leaders at blast are not fit to be managing their employees because they do not have the proper management experience or training. Blast Radius needs to mature as a company and a team before they can grow any further.

Pros

Flexible work schedule
Autonomy
Goodie Wednesday (treats every week)
Great IT team who are more than willing to help out with technical issues
Ability to get involved with aspects of the business that are outsode your usual competence
Learning how to work in a chaotic and fast paced environment (you become a master a juggling tasks)
Great for the resume when adding some high profile brands (Nike, Starbucks, Microsoft) that you might have worked with

Cons

Terrible project managment. Because each project is siloed with its own PM and you might work on multiple projects at any given time, each PM expects you to work 80% for them and when informing each PM that you don't have the time it isn't taken very well (it just makes you look bad)
Very young crowd which is great sometimes but can be a bit of an immature environment.
Senior technology management (some of whom have already left) are disingenuous. Watch out: They will clearly articulate one thing very passionately for you to get behind but unfortunately they rarely support it after the fact.
Filling out expense reports is absolutely ridiculous. You can lose half a day getting it right and trying to make sure it doesn't get rejected 2 weeks later (where you are out of pocket the whole time)
From a technology perspective not much excitment takes place. Most projects are so brief you barely get to build anything interesting.
You will work with some great people who will most likely leave Blast Radius fairly quickly once they realize the environment that they are in.
Due to the short nature of projects, the actual code and systems in place are very messy, poorly designed and most times not there. No time or money to do it the right way.
Tons of meetings (I can't tell you how many meetings I have been forced to be at where we're simply discussing how to schedule the actual meeting)
Reviews rarely translate into promotions and pay raises. Many employees openly discuss this dissappointment amongst themselves.

Advice to Senior Management

Employees are clearly dissatisfied. Instead of doing the same thing over and over again listen to them and find out why so many have already left the company.

Pros

Fast moving. Top brand clients

Cons

Moves too fast at times.

Advice to Senior Management

ID great talent and challenge them. Don't hold people back

Pros

The people are very nice. "Canadian" atmosphere. Great location.

Cons

Sr Management has no clue. They are incredibly cheap. They overpromise to clients and fail to deliver on their promises. Work is below top industry standards.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve communication, work and be more transparent about your goals and people's roles.

Pros

Moves with the fickle wind of buzz, sometimes for the better
Survive or die attitude works for the entrepreneurial
Still possible to drive innovation within
Still possible to create your own adventure
Resilient due to focus on profitability
Incredible launch pad to advance career elsewhere reflects market strength of BR brand in NA

Cons

Moves with the fickle wind of buzz, sometimes for the worse
Suffers from annual identity crisis
Company & Revenue size has exceeded existing mgmt's capabilities
Guinness World Record for worst string of new external sr mgmt hires
Survive or die attitude does not work for the cattle, but this is agency life. Deal with it or go back to anonymity.
Finding inspirational mentors are getting harder to find

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it real. Everyone can poke through the sugar coating to see what flavor of cake it is.
Stay sexy. Don't be so defensive to criticism.
Loosen the handcuffs on chargeability a bit. You might find a positive impact on churn.

Pros

- Amazing people! The personal connection and community is the best I have ever worked with: Savvy, passionate, friendly, culturally diverse and a little crazy.
- Incredible clients (NIVEA, Bacardi, Starbucks, etc.)
- The opportunity to carve your own carrier and expertise within the company (but you need to push it yourself- don't expect someone else to do it).
- Freedom. It doesn't matter if you start at 11, leave at 4 or work from home as long as you don't miss meetings, client presentations and get you work done well!
- We're growing and establishing a name for ourselves int he industry (which is exciting and active).
- After 3 years of employment, you get an additional 1 month paid sabbatical!!!

Cons

- Long hours! And because our offices are in Vancouver as well as Amsterdam, you are expected to constantly be available.
- We are growing too fast (especially in Europe) and haven't figured out all the process (daily life is chaotic, expense/time sheets are a nightmare to complete, etc.)
- Although we have big, name clients, they are often risk adverse to out of the box creative concepts.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more often with the staff! There are so many incredible things happening in the company and I often feel like the employees are the last to find out.

Pros

the people i work with are great, and the sabbatical is pretty cool

Cons

work/life balance expected is not so great.

Pros

The people - a collection of the most interesting, curious and challenging people from around the world.
The dynamic work - it can be crazy and hectic, but I like that the work is always different and challenging. I feel like I've learned more here in 2 years than I would have in 5 years elsewhere.
Good benefits package (including the sabbatical!)

Cons

It can be a lot of work when deadlines are tight and teams are small.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your people (junior people too, from smaller officers and less illustrious accounts), they know and care a lot about the brand - and would do a lot to build it if given the opportunity.

Pros

- starbucks, nike, bacardi, ea, nivea, michelin, tommy hilfiger ...
- cutting edge work; always pushing into new areas
- the people. Only join if you have serious game - this is a shop that is demanding yet respects talent
- fanatics for emerging technology
- good at promoting within...lots of chances to move (NYC, London, Vancouver, Paris, Amsterdam)
- the work. A chance to influence...v trendsetting

Cons

- difficult for the wrong people. Hard working environment
- more work than hours in a day; always super busy
- v demanding culture
- internal comms need work

Advice to Senior Management

Over communicate for a while. The sr team is not as visible as they could be (heavy travellers). A better sense of the state of things will go a long way for the team, especially post-earn-out.