MarketSmart (Maryland) Reviews

Ouch! Sorry you feel this way. My oh my! However... several things don't add up with regard to this 'review' including the following: 1. We have never hired a full-time employee as an Admin. Assistant at MarketSmart so I don't think this is truly a past employee. In fact, I know who wrote this and it's sad. (a) This person is involved in creating tools we don't recommend because they aren't all that useful but they are convenient. Plus they give nonprofits a false sense of hope that money will fall out of the sky if they just subscribe to use them. It's an attractive pitch, and that's why fundraisers subscribe. But, in the end, their tools don't work and are the kind that greedy private equity investors like. In other words, their strategy will generate tons of money for their owners and investors but it's not so good for nonprofits or society as a whole. (b) This person approached me twice to buy MarketSmart (with private equity money). But I said no. 2. If this person worked at MarketSmart, they'd know the following: I decided long ago to avoid any funding from venture capitalists or private equity firms. Instead, I self-funded this enterprise (a much riskier way to go). I maxed out my credit cards, used my kids' college savings, and put my house on the line to get the company going. Why didn't I raise capital? Because I didn't want to see our vision warped or broken by profit-only-minded bankers. In fact, people come to work here because I self-funded the business, not because they want us to seek funding. When we interview prospective employees who want us to go get funded, we tell them that's not our plan. With me leading the charge, we have independence. Plus for our employees there's no fear that I'll sell to a banker who only wants to flip the business for profit a few years later (driving instability for our employees). Any 3-year employee would have known this. We explain our core values to every new employee so they understand what we're doing and where we are going. Every employee knows about our disdain for private equity funding, except for this so-called 'reviewer.' So, again, this is not a real employee review. 3. Flat headcount is part of our strategy. We focus on revenue generated per employee and profit (both of which keeps growing exponentially), not vanity metrics like total revenue or headcount. We see the business as a way to provide security for our employees. It's not about the kinds of growth metrics that only CEOs and bankers care about. That's why the employee reviews talk about culture so much. Our culture is real. If you worked here you'd know that. And if you're considering working with us, just ask any employee. 4. Sorry you don't like our website. Most of our business comes from referrals. So we invest heavily in generating serious results for our customers, not in building flashy websites to coax sales. I think ours is good enough. It does the job. This isn't an art contest! 5. Gravyty is not a competitor and they are not really in business as an independent enterprise anymore. They were private equity funded (yes, with a lot of money) but they were 'acquired' recently. If this person was truly involved in our business for 3 years, they would know that Gravyty is no longer what they were. And the fact that their founder and CEO no longer works there only further supports my reason for staying independent and free from banker meddling. Again, we are not interested in high flying private equity plays. We are a traditional business that cares about our stability and our employees' sense of security. Also, with regard to Gravyty, they do use emails too, but theirs is a completely different use case. They focus on transactional giving, we focus on relational giving. Very different. Relational automated emails generate meetings with wealthy benefactors. Transactional emails generate small 'pat on the head' donations. We're swinging for the fences on behalf of our customers. Only face to face meetings can drive huge donations. Again, this 'reviewer' would know this if they truly worked with our team. 6. I have lost trust in Glassdoor. The past couple of so-called reviews just aren't real. Glassdoor really should do a better job of making sure these kinds of fake posts are not fake. 7. Lastly, if you are reading this review and feel tempted to believe it, call any of our current employees. They'll laugh out loud. This 'review' is clearly fraudulent and the result of sour grapes. It was written because I didn't want to let this person and his bankers acquire MarketSmart (and mess it up).