BEYOO ONLINE - Mathieu Gouanou shows first signs of fraudlent activity

Mr. Mathieu Gouanou stayed for three days only during his first visit in Sofia, Bulgaria, as being an official head of the Bulgarian Online Reputation Management company - BEYOO ONLINE.

While his stay was not long, the emotional density was high. The first still unemployed researcher & blogger got humiliated after she has been paid a significantly less commission, different from the one she had initially agreed upon. After asking what are the reasons for this change in her payment amount, BEYOO ONLINE's CEO - Mathieu Gouanou told her that she doesn't deserve more, for that she has taken a day off on official National holidays.* The rest of the team members (again, unemployed by BEYOO ONLINE, but working full-time for the company) have worked on the National holidays, but were not paid in accordance with the Bulgarian laws and regulations.

After her brief talk with BEYOO ONLINE's head of business - Mathieu Gouanou, the researcher & blogger went out of the improvised office upset.

This situation was the first serious sign that BEYOO ONLINE and Mathieu Gouanou are nothing, but trouble. Abusing the power that the missing labor contract is giving you over the people you work with, or the people that are getting a huge amount of work done, so you could make money for yourself, I should say, is a moral and federal crime. Apparently Mathieu Gouanou did not care about that, because that was just the beginning of a long, painful journey, full of disappointments.

*In Bulgaria, all national holidays are officially considered as a non-working days and are paid by the employer. If a person works on a national holiday, his employer should pay him double the amount he pays his employee on a normal working day. 

BEYOO ONLINE - Meeting Mathieu Gouanou in person

He came to Sofia, indeed. I was quite surprised when I got a SMS on my phone from Mr. Mathieu Gouanou, saying he wants us to join him for dinner.

When all of the BEYOO ONLINE team members gathered, he asked us to do a challenge. What he wanted us was to tell him our values and imagine they are bricks. We all stand in front of a river where some crocodiles are hiding under the waters. You cannot kill them with the bricks, you cannot sacrifice team members, and you cannot even kill yourself. Metaphorically, of course.

Ultimately I revealed the answer of the logical game.

He said he believes in us. He said he wants to empower us more. He said he has huge hopes for BEYOO ONLINE and especially the team in Bulgaria.

The next two days I spent running from one side of the city to another. I made sure everything was flawless and the tasks he had written down were completed. I became a translator, negotiator and a city guide.

Everybody were excited, because we met the behind-the-skype CEO – Mr. Mathieu Gouanou in person. We thought BEYOO ONLINE will succeed. We showed him around the city, we had some ice cream and cheesecake. Everything was great. Nobody expected the huge disappointment which eventually came not long after our first meeting with him. 

Until something else happened.

BEYOO ONLINE - First Signs of Poor Management

The first project I received was beyond exciting for me. It was the overall online reputation creation of one of the best surgeons in Switzerland. I was thrilled! Medicine has always been something that I was interested in, even though I chose another path in terms of professional development.

I did my homework. Research, report – done. Creation of his social media profiles – done. The frame of his website with a great amount of information, both for him and his field of expertise – done.

Then my boss – Mathieu Gouanou decided to intervene. He set his priorities like that: 1. BEYOO ONLINE’s corporate website; 2. Clients.

This was the first sign of poor management that should have make me think is staying at BEYOO ONLINE a good career start.

My excitement was high, so I decided that since I am the one who has almost no experience, I should listen to the person who decided to develop a business himself. Big mistake. Remember, when your gut feeling tells you something, the years of experience do not matter.

The team I was working with at that time was great, but unfortunately we did not have a professional wordpress developer, who could help us set up the corporate website. At that point, our SEO specialist was doing his best to create something from scratch, even though he is good at optimizing the content, not creating the page itself. He was spending nearly two thirds of his time reading about the development process, so he could put what he has learned to work. The results obviously were not impressive, but were not shockingly poor. He did his best.

Even though we kept telling the BEYOO ONLINE’s CEO Mathieu Gouanou that the company needs a professional WordPress developer, he kept refusing to look for that specific specialist profile with the excuse that he will want a higher wage. The tricky part was that all of the company’s potential clients would need this type of specialist to work on their websites in the future.

Meanwhile were still working without contracts.

Mr. Mathieu Gouanou promised he will come in Sofia, so we could work on that aspect of the company’s further development.

BEYOO ONLINE - The Team in the Beginning

The two weeks at BEYOO ONLINE left me with mixed emotions. The beginning I spent on Skype without taking any break. Ten hours straight. No lunch, no time to chill. My eyes were blood red from the time spent in front of my computer. I was dehydrated, moody, tired, but really excited. I wanted to leave an excellent first impression, because hey, I was in a desperate need of a job.

Mr. Mathieu Gouanou introduced me to two other BEYOO ONLINE team members, who were also working from home. One of them was a girl currently living in Germany. She was "dealing" with the German region, building a strategy to target the businesses there. The other team member was living in my town - Sofia.

Apparently their work time was different the one they have previously discussed with the company owner - Mr. Mathieu Gouanou. The girl who was living in Germany was supposed to work 4 hours due to her busy schedule. She has spent more hours than what she has agreed on working.

The other girl was busy writing a content for one of the BEYOO ONLINE's clients. She was the one who was supposed to give me something like a skype training, even though I have spent a great part of the time, talking with Mr. Mathieu Gouanou. This was the reason to nearly faint in the end of week 1, after all. No lunch breaks, remember?

I was full of hopes. Eventually, all of them got broken a year and two months later.

BEYOO ONLINE - The CEO Mathieu Gouanou

After the first week of the so-called training and introducing me to a bunch of strange software was over, I started to learn more and more things about the BEYOO ONLINE's CEO - Mathieu Gouanou.

He claimed he has extensive experience in developing different IT solutions across the globe, including projects in Asia and Africa.

He said he was fortunate enough to study in Princeton. Fancy, huh? I was impressed. I thought I was lucky to have the chance to work for an Ivy League student. Well, turned out he was nowhere close to that. But I had to learn this the hard way.

Mr. Mathieu Gouanou told me different stories about projects he has been managing before BEYOO ONLINE. He said he has worked for the tobacco industry and was originally an engineer. He had the skills to sell, though.

I was left with the impression that as a Swiss citizen and an Ivy League he is very rigorous, strict and demanding. He was constantly pushing and pushing everyone.

"BEYOO ONLINE is not a management school", he said. Even though I have applied for the position of Researcher & Blogger I had to start performing completely different tasks, such as image editing and SEO. "We are in a startup mode and I have no time to perform my own tasks, because I am spending way too many time coaching you, guys", he said. We never managed to satisfy his obsession to get everything out of everything.

Nobody saw what was coming. Mathieu Gouanou was about to turn into his employee's worst enemy within a year.