Hello everyone! About three months ago, I started a science forum, and although it was initially supposed to be an individual passion project, I decided to expand our base, hire people, and turn this into a think tank where many people could contribute. As I am a student and due to the fact the company has no clear income stream, all of the applications I posted on LinkedIn were volunteer ones that did not provide compensation. I had anticipated students, such as myself, to apply with no pay for college, experience, etc.; however, I was surprised to see that a majority of our applicants were adults who were all comfortable working for free. Everything has been going great, we have amassed 100 employees, we are growing tremendously on a variety of platforms, and through it all, I have never had a reason to question the ethics of the situation, until now. I just came across a post on LinkedIn of someone writing a long message that the think tank was corporate scum, we were evil, and that we were taking advantage of innocents. I was deeply taken aback, as it is the first time something like this has happened, and in fear of jeopardizing the think tank’s future, I want to know what the following steps are. Am I in the wrong, and if so, what should I do to fix it?
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I’ve built and sold SaaS businesses that worked with fortune 100s (who had PR good days and bad days). That is all to say, I’ve seen a lot. As you grow, the loudest folks tend to be the unsavory ones. I’m not saying someone can’t disagree. Rather, it’s the people who are unreasonable or just nasty… it’s those people who will keep popping up.
A good fix I found over the years was just being extremely open, transparent, and honest. Don’t over explain or defend yourselves. Just concisely explain your position and be transparent.
In the future, if you get big enough, you could set up a “corporate social responsibility” type committee that focuses on important social, governance, etc. type issues and tracks/improves them. Then go a step farther and put an annual report out about all the things you do. Just a little preemptive strike.