Pros
I joined Retool back when we could fit all of our employees in the same conference room in our Hayes Valley office. We're now approaching 200 employees and are about to open our new SF office. We've navigated COVID, two rounds of fundraising, two new offices, and way more than I can include here. It's been incredible to see what the team has built—from our product, to our own tools, and beyond—but mostly I'm excited by the value and impact all of this has had on our customers and all of the ways their businesses are supported by what they've built using Retool. There's so much more to do, but I'm beyond excited to see what else is ahead of us. Beyond how we've gotten here, I value that Retool is transparent, focused on serving our customers, and laying a lot of the foundation that we need in order to scale. This has included moving offices so we can literally grow, compensation benchmarking, and we've rolled out leveling across the business. We've also rolled out some best-in-class benefits, no small feat for a company of our size. We do hard work and we're rewarded for it. It's a *lot* for a company of our size and I'm really happy with the progress we've made. We've also done some fun stuff despite being temporarily distributed—we just had our first hackathon, we donated time and resources for a community event, and have gotten together (outdoors) to get to know each other. It's been a lot and I'm really proud of what we've done.
Cons
This isn't so much a con as a caution: Retool is not for everybody. People who struggle with ambiguity or putting the business first may not find success here. We're also growing—this means growing pains. I don't think this is so much specific to Retool as it is to companies of our size and stage, but worth noting. If you're looking for a ton of structure and a playbook, Retool may not be for you, and that's ok.
