Questionable business practices, ethically-challenged management
Pros
Appier is a company well-positioned to take advantage of the surge of interest in AI technology, being one of the few AI companies outside of China in the APAC region. It has a top quality team of AI and data scientists on the engineering and development team. Its competitive base salaries have allowed it to recruit top talent across APAC across various functions. Amazing CRO who took the company very far with superior industry and technical knowledge, and professional network prior to leaving at the end of 2018.
Cons
Working at Appier was very challenging for the following reasons: 1. As a managed advertising business, there was almost zero transparency in terms of knowing where and how ad dollars were spent and what inventory ads ran on. As a seller, I never saw any of my ads "live" and in the wild, and unfortunately I knew for a fact that a number of campaign screenshots to clients were in fact photoshopped. 2. While this was never validated, the performance business (app installs) was often questioned by clients under suspicion of fraud. Install numbers rarely tallied between what would be tracked by Appier vs. what was measured by say Google Play or iTunes. One of my clients had a 100X discrepancy that was never explained. 3. Commission structure and final payouts upon exit: Appier has a very deceptive commission structure for sellers, wherein you are paid a % of commission when the company invoices a client, and a % of commission after the client pays Appier - and the latter piece has an validity date that is unlikely to be fulfilled by media agencies. As such, you are hard pressed to obtain your full commission payout as a seller. Upon exit, according to Singapore law, you are supposed to be paid your final paycheck on your last day of employment. Instead. Appier will withhold final payment until the last day of the month for the company's convenience. In addition, to add to financial strain, Appier does not pay out the final month's commission based on invoice issued, claiming that this "should go into the next month's payout", further reducing any chance of ever getting a full commission payout for work done and owed. This, in addition to the lack of transparency, possible fraud and poor campaign performance due to cheap and low-quality inventory being bought, as well as fundamental lack of market understanding, leads me to conclude that the company is aiming for a quick exit with the end goal of being quickly listed on the Tokyo stock exchange, at the expense of clients and employees wellbeing. In addition, C-level management is unable to trust employees with anything, not even naming of conference rooms in the Singapore office. If the CEO is concerned with such matter, I have to question the effective use of his time and overall business acumen.
