Submitted application and a few days later, was contacted by recruiter for the role which turns out to be the Director of Marketing. Conversation went smoothly so was then moved on to speak with the VP of Operations and further on the COO. After the last conversation (I felt all of the conversations went fairly well), I was told I'd here back in a few days regarding next steps. Never heard back so I reached back out directly to my initial point of contact. I was then told I'd hear back in a week or so as they're still reviewing candidates (which struck me as odd considering these were all phone interviews--If you truly wanted to move forward and consider me, wouldn't you offer a face-to-face session or just be upfront that I'm no longer a candidate)---ghosted. Even though there are many great, competitive candidates in the market, best practices are to keep those who are in the candidacy process well informed on where they stand, whether that's moving forward or going with a better fit. Overall, the process became sloppy towards the end. I know you all are still in start-up stage but that's not an excuse to ghost candidates who've dedicated over three weeks of discussing this opportunity with you.