Cardinal Cryptography

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-owner and CTO of a company called ECOSOUND. I am the technical manager of the whole crew, responsible for the technical aspects of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cardinal Cryptography?

We had a couple of things that needed to be covered. We wanted to redesign our website which was pretty outdated. We wanted to improve it visually as well as add more information for our clients to be able to take from our website, describe more about what we do, as well as talk about which clients we have managed so far. 

We also wanted to have a better understanding of how our clients got in contact with us and how we could improve our marketing online to acquire more clients and to target them in a better way than we had been doing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cardinal Cryptography redesigned the site from scratch — it’s basically a new website. They only took our information from the old website and the description of some topics, but essentially, they created a new website according to my instructions and specifications. 

The team improved the website so that it could be easily searched from the web. They improved our keywords so that it would be more accessible for people trying to reach us. We needed a responsive version of the website so that it could be easily accessed from mobile phones and other devices.

I am not into the technical aspects of the website, but from what I know, they used JavaScript language. The website was previously done on WordPress and they added some additional things apart from WordPress default features.

As far as marketing, they provided the basics, optimizing the site for SEO. They created a blog that had more content and it had more words connecting us to the website. The blog posts should improve our positioning on the search engines. 

We’ve also talked about how we could improve in the future with our marketing, and perhaps we could contact them to maybe have some future contact for a deeper understanding around marketing our services.

What is the team composition?

I know that there were more people involved in the project, but I was in contact with Antoni (Co-Founder & CTO) and Mat (Digital Marketing Manager) directly. They were the ones leading the project. 

How did you come to work with Cardinal Cryptography?

I have known Antoni and Mat for a couple of years, even before Cardinal. I knew their work. I had researched a couple of companies in Poland to look for other options, but they had a really good portfolio, and I know that they would do it really well, so it was a simple decision. I know that Antoni and Mat put their heart into their work.

How much have you invested in them?

The project was valued at 5,000 Polish Złoty (approximately $1,300 USD).

We had a pretty limited budget for this website, but I am happy with the finished product. We will hopefully have a bigger budget next year to maybe improve even more.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started negotiating and adjusting the terms of the contract in June 2020. We were in contact for about two months. 

The website was finished two weeks ago, but there were still some issues regarding transferring this website to our server and they had to do some configurations on the site. Maybe in the future, we will have some things that will need some further development so we will see how it goes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Our clients are starting to notice the difference between the old and new designs, and we have received some positive feedback. We're still looking into positioning our website on the search engine so I am not so sure how well it went in terms of positioning, but we will see about that in the near future. 

We have had a little burst of views on the website during the last week, so maybe that is because of the redesign and adding some keywords to make it more visible but we are still gathering the statistics. 

I think it is too early to have a really good understanding of how it really went, but it’s on the right track. My employees have given us really positive feedback about the website. It is very visually pleasing, and Cardinal Cryptography did a really good job on it.

How did Cardinal Cryptography perform from a project management standpoint?

They met all our deadlines. There were some issues regarding transferring the website and configuring it, though the problem was on our side of the server.

Overall, it progressed without any further problems. The website was off for about a day and after that, it went live, and then there were some cosmetic corrections made. It went great after that.

Cardinal Cryptography really did a great job. There were a lot of details involved in the photos and the information put on the website, so we had to have day to day contact to discuss every detail, but they managed it well.

Tasks were dealt with efficiently and there were a lot of things that popped up during the project and they were handled quickly. From a project management standpoint, it really went great. Mat and Antoni really did their best in this project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They presented the product and told us about all the details. They have really great knowledge of how it works and how the marketing of the website could really improve our client database, and how to improve our contact with our clients. The most impressive thing is their knowledge of development and the marketing of the website.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they could maybe improve in technical aspects, for example, in my opinion, it was a pretty long time before the website was live. 

The period of time between our old website being offline and the new one going live was over a day. It was a little bit of trouble for our clients because they didn’t have contact with us because it was offline.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a blockchain platform. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cardinal Cryptography?

We needed a service contractor to do several tasks, including research, develop and design for the website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re the primary service contractor used to build out the platform. Their team also designs and develops the website, performs mathematical research regarding the protocol, and implements the research into working code, and much more. 

They handled the full design of the website. Their team included PR and anything relating to the actual content, design, story, and narrative. They developed a business whitepaper for the foundation, several general decks for potential contributors, and all the branding including logos. They also did software development and marketing, reaching out to various news agencies and media to increase our footprint.

What is the team composition?

There are three primary contacts I interact with on a near-daily basis, but there are another two working on the project.

How did you come to work with Cardinal Cryptography?

Initially, we found some of the researchers on Upwork. Through various interactions, they brought a team together.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The contract began in June 2019 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

I don’t believe anybody else could’ve developed the mathematical protocol and possessed the expertise to implement it. A peer-reviewed paper was created through the support of the foundation and presented at a tier-one computer science conference. It was accepted by the people who study the distributive systems theory.

How did Cardinal Cryptography perform from a project management standpoint?

They work well. There are hiccups from time to time, but we have an open line of communications and are able to adjust accordingly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The level of professionalism and support regarding research has been exemplary. I’m very satisfied with the branding and materials from a design perspective.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this point, no.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be willing to communicate. They’re reasonable people who want to help and do quality work.