Long hours, terrible senior management, a warped "start-up" mentality, and no process or structure.
Pros
You are surrounded by smart, intelligent and highly driven coworkers who are dedicated to their roles. This is the reason Lottoland lives and breathes today. The product is also fantastic and the company will go far if it sorts out a number of individuals within the senior management.
Cons
Dealing with founding members. They decide everything and anything with "dictator syndrome". There is also a huge disconnect between the two offices in Hamburg and Gibraltar. The only way to communicate between the two teams is through one of the founding members and it's impossible to come up with any process, structure or get the team to work with you unless you have one individual on board. Any process is spoilt with ridiculous decisions from the just a couple of individuals. And there is no freedom or possibility to focus on what is needed. Their claim of a "start-up" mentality is absolute nonsense. I left the company 2 months ago and absolutely nothing has changed on the site in all that time. No products, no improvements, nothing. That's not very start-up in my view. The only "start-up" mentality that appears to be embedded is the long workings hours and the ridiculous 6pm meetings initiated by the senior management. It's not uncommon to leave the office at 8pm so if you value a work/life balance, Lottoland is certainly not for you.