Arctic Empire - Out of Business

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We have developed a new crowdfunding social networking site. I am the Chief Operating Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Arctic Empire?

We needed help from a full development team with designing the backend and frontend of our site.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

 Arctic Empire was brought on to architect our site from front to back, and have been instrumental in doing so. Arctic Empire has built the integrations necessary for third-party vendors which we wanted to use, as well as PayPal and PCI [payment card industry] compliance companies. They built all other APIs, backend dashboards, user interface elements, and so forth. Arctic Empire also developed a mobile app for our platform.

How did you come to work with Arctic Empire?

Our Chief Executive Officer ran into a friend and mentioned the fact that we were looking for a development team. We were given the information about Arctic Empire through that person.

How much have you invested with Arctic Empire?

This is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Arctic Empire in January 2015 and have an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Arctic Empire has been very timely and did a good job overall. Arctic Empire's team is good at what it does. They excel at mobile and backend development, but are less adept at frontend user interface design.

How did Arctic Empire perform from a project management standpoint?

I've worked with multiple companies over the course of 10 years, and Arctic Empire has been one of the best in terms of project management. They're very good at keeping things on track.

What did you find most impressive about Arctic Empire?

As with any startup, our revenue flow was up-and-down. Arctic Empire has been extremely loyal to us, even when we weren't able to make a payment on time. Arctic Empire did work just to get our project completed. Without exaggerating, Arctic Empire has been phenomenal. They worked around the clock, handled every fire drill, and were unbelievably dependable.

Are there any areas Arctic Empire could improve?

Arctic Empire could improve in terms of frontend user interface experience. We've had to help their team on the creative side, and brought in our own designer for assistance. Arctic Empire did a good job of integrating him into the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a real estate company. I am the Office Manager and Marketing Director of the company. I lead the communications between Arctic Empire and our team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Arctic Empire?

We needed to design a new site using a new feature particular to real estate websites, a data distribution facility, allowing us to have access to listings from other brokerages and agents. We were looking for a company who could implement this feed into a website, allowing us to be more competitive in the real estate market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Arctic Empire developed the website for one of our brands, implementing our feed, providing UI/UX design, as well as SEO. We enter SEO information ourselves at the moment. Being in the real estate space, we know more about the keywords that people are looking for.

Arctic Empire is in charge of maintenance. We've recently had a WordPress update, which was a disaster. Arctic Empire has worked with us to fix all of the things that the update broke.

How did you come to work with Arctic Empire?

At the time, a fulltime photographer working for our company did some research on a few companies, gave us a list of 3, we met with all of them, and ended up choosing Arctic Empire.

How much have you invested with Arctic Empire?

The total cost of our project with Arctic Empire has been above $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Arctic Empire 2 years ago and have an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We don't have any stats or metrics for it, but we gauge our site's effectiveness by the number of inquiries we receive from people looking to buy or list properties. Inquiries have increased in recent weeks, so I guess that we're doing something right.

How did Arctic Empire perform from a project management standpoint?

Arctic Empire has performed great. When we first started, we were using Basecamp, but Arctic Empire moved us over to Teamwork, which allowed us to also see their internal sprints, and make comments on them.

What did you find most impressive about Arctic Empire?

We've worked with numerous developers for a number of websites, and keep them separate. Arctic Empire is the only local agency we've used, and we specifically chose them for their SEO capabilities.

Are there any areas Arctic Empire could improve?

Not really. Arctic Empire's owner has been great to work with. We meet all the time, he always answers his phone and provides updates in good time. We don't use the monthly maintenance package that Arctic Empire offers, so we get queued every time we need some work done. The work could be quicker if we had that package, but we didn't opt into it. We do a lot of the work ourselves and only go to Arctic Empire for more complex tasks.