Spot Runner Reviews

Pros

very casual; new technologies; most team members are nice

Cons

company ran out of money soon

Pros

Overall good company,dynamic and young leadership,good salary

Cons

Small company.I worked for weblistic which was bought by spotrunner so lot of people were let go.

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership was excellent,probably should have given more idea about future.

Pros

Amazing culture, silicon valley level challenges but in LA, great engineering team, good sense of camaderie, lots of free dinners

Cons

Bad work life balance, became horrible and bleak as it was realized that the execs were just getting rich and the company had little future hope

Advice to Senior Management

Don't build a company just to sell it.. that clearly doesn't work. be more honest with the employees that are working so hard for the stock options.

Pros

Great group of people working on an exciting project.
Nice location and office
Good salary for a Los Angeles start-up

Cons

Allot of changes in the company direction
To many layers of management for such a small company
Not great benefits for their employees

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce the many layers of upper management
Improve your employee benefits
Drive the company in a single direction and strategy

Pros

It had a good story and alor of really smart people were involved. There was much excitement and plenty of resources.

Cons

They couldn't do what they said they could do. They were burning through money and trying to do something other than what they said.

Advice to Senior Management

shut down. rename, and use the good parts as something that can help local business

Pros

At first, it was exciting to be a part of a new project.

Cons

Lack of progressive structure and organization. Too many meetings and not enough execution.

Advice to Senior Management

The company had potential, bringing on board talented workers. Unfortunately, when not managed properly, the teams will not work to their fullest. It's important egos not trump teamwork and mutual respect.

Pros

Spot Runner uses latest technologies from ASP.Net world like VS Team System, TFS, WCF, Latest ASP.Net frameworks and RDBMS. The work time is more or less flexible. Competitive salaries. Bonus system.

Cons

So far no any significant downsides of working at Spot Runner. I bit slow with promotions and salary reviews, but it is explainable with this job market.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to advance in advertising, marketing and sales. Publicly promote the main product among potential customers. Need to build more clear chain of command on place.

Pros

new technology, good practices for web development, software architecture and databases. competent employees, good leadership qualities in most managers. decent pay

Cons

business model flawed and limited, new products not gaining much traction, company turmoil over lawsuit, hit hard by economy and layoffs

Advice to Senior Management

keep employees more involved in company issues, have a better defined strategy and stick with it instead of changing it constantly

Pros

Free snacks (when they were available).
Nice view of the city skyline (if you had a window office)

Cons

Incompetent directors/vice presidents who were always putting out fires. Management was done by looking in the rear-view mirror. Nobody learned from the mistakes, making it hard to move forward.

Advice to Senior Management

Spot Runner needs to have a better vision of what they are as a company, and what their role is in the landscape of media and advertising. I think they rushed too quickly into being a "google-killer" and inflating the hype of being a new start-up, and didn't focus on building a sustainable business. In the end, the hype died out, Spot Runner didn't become a "google-killer" and as it turned out, there was no sustainable business

Pros

The projects are always interesting and you get to work with plenty of competent people who many times have great talents.

Cons

Senior management's behavior has thrown the company into peril. With lawsuits and questionable legal dealings surrounding the company and its founders, it's tough to get a product off the ground.

Advice to Senior Management

Please, for the love of God, settle the lawsuit with WPP as quickly as possible. It's the only way the company has any hope of emerging from a rather dark, depressing place.