Real ownership, real numbers, no corporate sludge
Pros
Small team, so the work you do actually shows up. No layers of approval, no one sitting on your decisions for a week. We're bootstrapped and profitable, which sounds boring until you realize it means we build what customers ask for instead of what a board wants to see before the next round. The product is genuinely ahead of the market and you feel it on calls when prospects go quiet because they haven't seen anything like it. Leadership shares the actual numbers. You always know where the company stands.
Cons
You wear a lot of hats. If you want one clearly defined job with clean edges, this isn't it. Priorities move as we learn, so something that mattered Monday can get parked by Thursday. Some of the internal tooling and process is still held together with tape because we've grown faster than we've documented. It catches up with you when you're onboarding someone new.
