Corporate structure and politics behind the "Start up" name - Anonymous employee BookRenter Employee Review

2.0
8 Mar 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Really passionate people who care about the customer both B2B and B2C - Solid product, great engineers and product manager - Savings students money and helping bookstores regain market share in today's cut throat retail world

Cons

- outrageous amounts of politics for company with 100 people - very little transparency, execs don't care to trickle down messaging to employees - paying employees below industry rate, if you're not an executive, prepare to be low balled - heavy on executes and not enough people to execute When Bookrenter changed its name to Rafter, the startup culture went with it. Execs care more about their wallets than their employees. All start ups have to do more with less but when you skim on your team while throwing lavish parties, it sends the wrong message.

Explore other reviews about BookRenter

5.0
21 Jan 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

What a great team, mission, and culture. Some of the best people I have ever worked with.

Cons

The industry is very outdated and tough. Not easy being a startup in EdTech these days.

2.0
9 Apr 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Passionate people, driven and really unified around the mission to make higher education more affordable for all. Great feeling about working for a company that's making a difference. Also a very high focus on customer satisfaction and going the extra mile on service. Used book inventory pricing, buy back etc really stacked against the student and Bookrenter turns that tide around saving students thousands of dollars over 4 years.

Cons

Business model is tough, growth threatened by Amazon rentals and this is a nearly impossible inventory management problem. Pricing is dynamic which seemed cool at first but can't get a handle on being competitive or not, some customers complain of prices changing every day.

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