innoPath Reviews

Pros

Keeps employees busy so there is never down time.

Cons

Expects everyone to work almost 7x24. Management is too controlling and micro-managing. Teams are silos no one works together - too territorial.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower the employees to do their jobs.

Pros

get experience in wireless industry,
expose to end-to-end mobile device management solution, both server-side and device-side.

Cons

compensation is not as good as I expected

Advice to Senior Management

streamline the process

Pros

Start-up company in an exciting industry.

Cons

Hard to get things to happen

Advice to Senior Management

Communication

Pros

As DoOnGo: company rating 4+ CEO (Luosheng Peng) 90+% He created the technology and speaks from the heart.

Cons

A TRUE SILICON STARTUP STORY
(The Little Engine that Could meets Office Space)

FADE IN

DOONGO STARTUP COMPANY – BRIGHT SUNNY DAY
Lean, mean, DEDICATED EMPLOYEES get out product in a hot, hot, hot market segment. They’re a little out of focus. But they’re standing on Gold Street, looking out at a world of potential. From the Sunnyvale landfill, a bad odor drifts in....

SMOKE-FILLED IP BOARDROOM – EVENING
Investment capital GOOD OL’ BOYS smile through clouds of cigar stench and backslap the CEO-from-hell, JOHN FAZIO (old white guy with all the charm of Chainsaw Al and none of the business acumen).

ALL-AMERICAN HOME – A DARK, STORMY NIGHT
A CONCERNED MAN (who fired Fazio from his previous company) paces and waits in vain for anyone from IP to call him for references. HIS WIFE (doe-eyed, innocent) stares.

INNOCENCE
What happens to bad managers?

CONCERNED
69% of them get promoted.

IP - ALL-HANDS MEETING – A DAY OF PORTENT
Fazio displays his corporate-ladder skills to THE TROOPS.

FAZIO
There are three important things here at IP. Number one...NUMBER ONE...are our people!

Faces brighten; hope soars. But just as soon as those words left his lips, Fazio spent the rest of the hour-long meeting on less important matters. On their way out, a SCRIBBLER leaned over to his friend.

SCRIBBLER
(concerned)
Number one is in trouble.

IP HALLWAYS – A DAY OF DECISION – WEEKS LATER
Frowns abound in a corporate atmosphere seriously jeopardized by too many going-away lunches for way too many GROUPS of people. SOMBER EMPLOYEES file into a meeting to address the black cloud. After he let a KISS-UP EMPLOYEE natter on about sugarcoating, Fazio lays it out, his way.

FAZIO
...In closing, if any of you feel you must leave, tell us. We'll arrange it.

What was the response to such snide rhetoric? It was put up AND shut for this crowd. Little did they know....

PACIFIC OCEAN SHORE – A BRIGHTER MORNING – FAR IN THE FUTURE
The scribbler, thankful the bad odor is behind him, smiles again.

FADE OUT

Advice to Senior Management

Reject the sins of your past, act professionally, and fall on your sword.

Pros

Seasoned startup with good financial standing: the flexibility and opportunity for significant contribution to the company's success with a moderate amount of risk.

As with many companies: the people are what make the company. In general, I enjoy working with the folks here who play relatively well together. For the most part I've been fortunate to work in a very cooperative group where ego takes second place to delivering product.

Cons

There seems to be a lot of office politics for a company of its size along with the usual finger pointing and back stabbing when things don't go right. The most frustrating thing is the lack of overall business communications: I understand that my role as a developer is to focus on coding and delivering product but it's nice to see at least some of the business and strategic rationale used when making some of the bigger company decisions...especially when it relates to product roadmap, demos and the like.

Advice to Senior Management

Standards stuff: communication, communication, communication. Often times decisions are made without much information leaving the rank and file to guess the reasoning. Give folks some credit: people understand hard decisions are often made for business reasons. We are not sheep.

Pros

Very interesting mobile space company with a lot of potentials. It is the right place that you want to move into mobile space and learn all kinds of mobile technologies. I read a lot of reviews about how bad it is the management team. Actually it is not that, most of time those legacy managers don't want you work on issues. They just want to finger pointing each other. Now all bad guys are gone.

Cons

Startup company, pay is not high as big company like Google, Yahoo. Sometimes you have to dive into all kinds of details by yourself, you know. :-)

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management did a great job that reduced the cost, use limited resource to complete very big task.

Pros

InnoPath has solid technology in a field that will be growing. Furthermore, their technology, Mobile Device Management, is a technology used to manage/reduce support costs for wireless carriers. The economy is tanking right now, so things like OPEX cost reductions etc are a higher priority than ever.

Cons

Expectations are high, it is a startup environment after all. If you like startups and are highly motivated, confident and competant and don't need everything presented to you on a silver platter then you will likely find it a good place. If you need Cisco/Sun/HP style coddling and mothering then you should probably find a job at a big company.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to focus on the opportunities that the company is targeting now.

Pros

InnoPath had signficant potential in the mobile space. It has a relatively strong presence on the carrier side as well as the handset side. It also has reasonable IP & dedicated employees. It has potential which it needs to exploit.

Cons

The company is driven from the top by the CEO. He is a complete micro-manager, even though he claims that he wants to let go. Additionally, he has a temper which has manifested itself on many occasions. The exec staff is not cohesive & tends to be disfunctional as a result. Because the fear that the CEO instills in the organization, his VPs are unwilling to stand up to do the correct thing for the business. The CEO also believes that he is a subject matter expert in all areas - engineering, marketing, HR, sales, and operations. He has overrriden his organization multiple times with little information; this has sometimes had disastrous results.

The exec staff, particularly the CTO, is quite political. The CEO allows this type of behavior and on occasion fosters it.

ICs tend to be demoralized because of years of promises of doing an IPO. Fostering this have been promises of salary increases but most people have not seen an increase in 3+ years.

Advice to Senior Management

To the BOD:
- Do an intensive review of the business plan.
- Review the senior mgmt team for their ability to lead their departments, focusing on measurable metrics and bench strength
- Review the financials of the company.

To the CEO:
- Let go: empower your team.
- Get an exec staff that knows its stuff, can work together, and is apolitical
- Stop managing through intimidation and fear.
- Show some humility

Pros

I guess if you need a job really bad, and you can tollerate an extremely hostile working environment where you will struggle for every shred of information just to do your job, it would pass for that. Even then, it will have a very limited shelf life for all but the most sadistic of employees.

Cons

CEO hires cronies.
Hostile working environment.
Transfer of business knowlege (peer to peer learning) is non existent.
Lack of leadership at the top.
No recognition for the hard work and effort you put in.
The worst office politics I've encountered in Silicon Valley.
QA department being driven into the ground.
Over-confident, arrogant Developers (not all of them of course) that seem to be driving the ship.
No support from direct management.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management is the problem in my view, so I wouldn't give any advice to them. This company needs an overhaul of Sr. leadership all the way to the CEO.

Pros

At best it is a job. Actually I was able to develop some professional friendships with the workers. Their parties were ok!
There are some really talented and wonderful people working at Innopath, just none in the management chain.

Cons

1) Management needs to remove their heads from... you know the rest
2) Lack of vision and technical expertise in the CTO office
3) Politics, for such a ridiculously small company, the politics are completely out of control
4) Micro Management is their only focus
5) Top brass' only concern is lining their own pockets
6) Hurry up and rush offense with no plan on where to go
7) Constant firefights, usually the same fire as the day before
8) Integrity is something not spoken here (within management)
9) Two faced lies to their employees and customers
10) Churn and burn, this is a meat grinder

I would give John Fazio and his Senior Management Team a -5 if it was on the bingo score.

Advice to Senior Management

Grow up, take responsibility. Your BS really stinks and does not fool anybody.
Do the right thing and resign! The board will thank you as will your customers.