Growing company with clear upside potential, but need to improve culture and come together as a team
Pros
- Unique position in a very attractive market -- the transition from traditional cable bundles (Time Warner & Comcast) to digital subscriptions is undeniable and poised to accelerate. Crunchyroll is one of the largest digital video businesses in what will become a very crowded area where many new entrants will fail. Crunchyroll is well-positioned to capture a sizable portion of the value transitioning from traditional cable to new digital models. - Numerous business challenges to overcome, providing an exciting work environment and one in which employees can have a noticeable impact on driving growth. - Lots of awesome, passionate, smart people.
Cons
- Lack of shared values & culture. Crunchyroll has undergone a huge transition in becoming "Ellation". Crunchyroll hovered between 25-40 people for a long time, but then ballooned into a 150+ team within a year. If the new additions were asked why they joined the team, or the mission/vision of the company, I imagine there would have been a wide variety of answers -- this further muddled the "culture". This is not unique in the Bay Area, and Crunchyroll/Ellation went through the same struggles others do when trying to scale quickly, mainly putting immense pressure on communication throughout the organization and a shaky foundation of systems & processes (i.e. hiring/recruiting, compensation/leveling, feedback/mentorship). All of these challenges are alleviated with a strong cultural backbone. There has been progress in communication and systems to help scale the team, but still lots of room for improvement in defining the vision/mission to align the team, and building a more robust "culture" defined by a shared set of values. These are just the first foundational steps -- the mission, vision, and values have to come from a genuine, authentic place and permeate everyday decisions and actions.
