CobbleWeb

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-Founder of Fanpass

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Fanpass is an international second hand marketplace where fans buy and sell tickets for sports, concerts, festivals, and theatre. The platform offers secure payment, buyer protection, and a stated 100% order guarantee.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CobbleWeb to accomplish?

• We needed advanced features to help us test the market and help the platform grow.
• Build a seamless user experience
• Improve business KPIs such as turnover, conversions and retention rates
• Create trust in the platform by both buyers and sellers

SOLUTION

How did you find CobbleWeb?

• Online Search
• Clutch Site

Why did you select CobbleWeb over others?

• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned
• Product expertise

How many teammates from CobbleWeb were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

CobbleWeb was hired by FanPass to build a custom B2C marketplace for buying and selling tickets to sports and entertainment events worldwide. Various advanced features were implemented to test the market and grow the platform. Key deliverables included:  Ticket search: Users had to be able to find the right event tickets in a quick and easy manner. Various criteria had to be considered to filter the constantly changing inventory. Features included autocomplete search and personalised recommendations.Events management: Adding events had to be made as easy as possible. Functionalities included the ability to reuse venue maps for new events and dynamic forms that auto-fills account information. Automated shipping: Buyers had to be kept in the loop about their ticket status and shipping costs, while sellers wanted shipping options. Functionality included automated notifications that advise buyers of delivery times and shipping costs. Listings management: Adding tickets had to be an intuitive process. Sales management: Financial flows (payments, payouts, refunds) had to be automated and tracked. Functionality includes the integration of Stripe Connect, which takes into account variable commissions and markups, and a sales dashboard that updates every 30 minutes in multiple currencies. Trust mechanisms: Buyers had to be assured of valid on-time ticket delivery, while sellers wanted secure payouts. Functionalities included an algorithm that highlights trusted sellers, as well as a hold on funds until tickets are delivered.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

User feedback

Threefold increase in conversions (within 8 months)
Hundredfold increase in turnover (within 8 months)
50% decrease in churn rate (within 6 months)
Seven-figure monthly revenue

KPIs

Website technical performance

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They consistently deliver high quality results. It’s not just about delivering on time, but making sure the product road map is aligned with the company strategy. They’re good at understanding the reasoning behind our business KPIs and interrogating our requests. We appreciate their constant improvement mindset which includes robust discussions to get to the best possible solution.

What was your primary form of communication with CobbleWeb?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

CobbleWeb often comes up with good suggestions that we didn't consider. They don't just execute the client roadmap, but help us build it and prioritise it.

We also like their data-based approach. It helps us build a better business. 

CobbleWeb has constantly evolved in the time we've been working with them, adding new technology like React and APIs. This has had a big impact on our value proposition.

Are there any areas for improvement or something CobbleWeb could have done differently?

We could have done with additional resources in the beginning for faster development. It seems that they have now solved the bottleneck. This has improved their ability to meet deadlines. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at Vittle Apps

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide online ordering sevices for businesses in the restuarant and takeaway section.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire CobbleWeb to accomplish?

• Replatform the existing product marketplace (from off-the-shelf solution to custom built marketplace)
• Improve the User experience
• Improve the Business flow
• Increase Revenue

SOLUTION

How did you find CobbleWeb?

Online Search

Why did you select CobbleWeb over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned
• Sufficient competency to accomodate our requests.

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The work involved the building of a bespoke platform from scatch to replaced our current 3rd party provider in order to improve the product experience and also reduce a lot of admistration work we currently did with automation. 

Key deliverables include

   1) Bespoke market place on 3 platforms (web, android, ios)

   2) Integration of android app with the hardware used by our clients.

   3) Steamlining and automating a lot of admistration in the admin backend.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• The final product were to our specificatons and in intial live testing with users. Unforeseen issues were resolved quickly. 
• Platform Performance such as speed load, scalability, etc.
• Quality of the delivery

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Cobbleweb were quick to respond via email or if I requested, via video call. 
• We were kept up todate with the progress of the project with access to the design and when the status of each epic of the project.
• Broadly items were delivered on time.

What was your primary form of communication with CobbleWeb?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Our project had quite a broad range of requirements, web, android/ios app development and software integration with printer hardware. CobbleWeb had the expertise to accommodate all of our requirements.

The fact Cobbleweb specialise in marketplace development were particularly attractive to us as it fit our niche.

Are there any areas for improvement or something CobbleWeb could have done differently?

As a client with little technical knowledge or experience in projects of this nature, probably at the start of the project Cobbleweb could have ascertained this earlier so we could match each other's level in communication.

This was not a problem as time went on and we got to know each other and we learnt more about the technical aspect of how these projects are managed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Switch2Zero helps business and individuals understand, reduce and offset their carbon footprint. Making it easy, affordable and rewarding. I'm a co-founder and the CEO of the business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CobbleWeb, and what were your goals?

CW acted as a core part of our team, working with our developers, designer and product owner to design and building out the technical solution for our platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

A lot of Googling and research to shortlist. We liked them because of their marketplaces and ecommerce experience and then Ramdane nailed it when he spoke with us and gave us the confidence we needed to proceed with CW as a key partner.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

It was a full front end and back design and delivery in partnership with us. The key milestone recently achieved was the go live of our MVP, a global offset solution for ecommerce, businesses and consumers accepting payment in over 135 currencies worldwide. The stack built and designed is a highly sophisticated and scalable modular cloud based stack with a headless CMS and ecommerce platform sat on an AWS foundation with a proprietary front end and externally exposed APIs

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

It varied throughout the project based on our needs and timeline. Ramdane acted almost as the product manager working closely with me, while Paul worked closely with our CTO, Tom on the technical architecture and delivery. CW supplied design, frontend and backend talent throughout the programme.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

It's too early to see impact. It's the launch of our MVP. It's a complex solution delivered to great quality in less than 6 months E2E. Having been an exec in the banking world for 25 years, this execution was at twice the speed with half the resources and delivered to a similar quality.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had weekly phone catch ups, demo sessions at the end of epics and regular contact by email, slack and VC when ever we needed. The CW team we're really responsive and accommodating to our needs but also happy to challenge us where they felt we were creating inefficiency. Jira, confluence and gitlhub were the primary foundational workflow tools.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Can do attitude, very organised, came with lots of ideas not just 'order taking'. Challenged our thinking a lot. reacted quickly to our requests, pivoted quickly when needed. Kept a sense of humour when things got tough. Focused on the solution not the problem.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

This is difficult to answer as it would be very specific to our needs and level of sophistication. What I would say is CW are happy to learn and evolve and responded well when we made suggestions and requests to evolve how we work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at a neobank. We provide MasterCards with bank applications for immigrants. We also white-label our cards for distributors, like gasoline companies. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CobbleWeb?

We used to have internal IT and development services, but we decided to outsource to CobbleWeb. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CobbleWeb provides us with IT and development services. Over the years, they’ve provided website and app, end-to-end, and backend development services. For website development, I know they’ve used WordPress and AWS. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around €300,000 (approximately $299,000 USD) 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement began in October 2019. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve continued to work with CobbleWeb because they know our company and product well — they offer great services. They’re clear about their results and move their work into production quickly. 

How did CobbleWeb perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team provides us with roadmaps for each project. They follow deadlines, which is very good. Most of the time, we communicate through emails, text messages, phone calls, and Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

CobbleWeb is a good developer. Their CTO sits down with us to talk about their outputs — I have a really good relationship with them, which I appreciate. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m happy with the partnership we have with them. However, my shareholder told me that their invoicing could be better. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

New customers should collaborate with CobbleWeb’s C-level leadership. They’re not only good developers; their team also provides great advice. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Nestify, a real estate management company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CobbleWeb?

We needed help with software development to increase our productivity.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CobbleWeb developed our website and an app for iOS and Android. To start the project, we explained CobbleWeb what we wanted and had a couple of meetings over the phone.

They finished the deliverables in March 2018, but it’s an ongoing project. There are always upgrades and improvements to make.

What is the team composition?

We work with 4–5 people. We speak with the project manager, a lead developer, and the head of the company.

How did you come to work with CobbleWeb?

I was introduced to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2017, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The retention rate is better, and we’ve got more users on our mobile apps and website. We also spend less time educating them because our digital presence makes it easy to understand how we work. Overall, CobbleWeb has been good for us.

How did CobbleWeb perform from a project management standpoint?

When we have an issue, they take care of it. The team is transparent, and they don’t hold information from us. All in all, it’s quite easy to work with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They know the technologies, so they know which solution is best for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can always reach them, and everything works well. I don’t have anything bad to say.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You can count on them. They won’t try to take advantage of you. We’re happy with the return on the money we spend.