Crea Sixteen

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a business owner who owns multiple bars and restaurants in addition to a real estate company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crea Sixteen?

I hired Crea Sixteen to set up my digital presence for my restaurant and real estate businesses. This involved developing websites, designing logos, and implementing marketing strategies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After establishing my requirements, Crea Sixteen developed websites and logos for all of my businesses, linking my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to each site.

They then suggested additional ideas to drive site visibility, including promoting specials at my restaurants, executing targeted advertising campaigns to attract potential real estate investors, and managing our SEO.

One of their recommendations involved having restaurant patrons log in to use our free Wi-Fi. This allowed us to compile their email addresses to send promotions. Crea Sixteen now continues to oversee our digital marketing and SEO efforts, keeping us prevalent on our keywords.

What is the team composition?

I mostly work with Xavier (Owner, Crea Sixteen), but there is also support staff involved in our emails.

How did you come to work with Crea Sixteen?

I found them through my personal network and got in touch with them. They provided a list of past clients, and I checked their portfolio. Other colleagues have also told me good things, so I felt that they were reliable.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $20,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work started in January 2018 and is ongoing. While each site only took about a month to complete, they still handle the maintenance and oversee our keywords.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Currently, more people are visiting my sites, and I’m definitely getting out there from an advertising perspective. I’ve also noticed that I’ve gotten more reviews on Google for my businesses.

How did Crea Sixteen perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate as needed via phone and email. Whenever I reach out, Xavier always replies within the hour. As for scheduling, they’ve met all of our agreed timelines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve had a great experience working with Crea Sixteen and plan to continue using them. I’d recommend them to anyone looking for web development or digital marketing services.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always room for improvement, but I have no complaints so far. If we have any issues, we talk about them. They’ll either fix the problem or explain why they’ve done things a certain way, so we’re always on the same page.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder of a digital marketing education firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crea Sixteen?

We engaged Crea Sixteen to develop a mobile app to complement our website, so users could easily access our training videos and affiliated links from their phones.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Crea Sixteen created a mobile app for iOS and Android that mirrored our website, providing additional input on wireframes and designs as needed. They've since added more features to customize the app and are waiting on one of our third-party providers to integrate an API.

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with Xavier (Founding Partner, Crea Sixteen).

How did you come to work with Crea Sixteen?

I'm good friends with Xavier and I knew that in addition to his technical expertise, he's very good at designing UX/UI. They're also affordably priced and work very efficiently.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested in the range of $20,000–$30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on the project from February–May 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Crea Sixteen delivered a high-quality app with a lot functionality that we can't wait to offer our users. Even though we haven't launched it yet, it's tested very well internally thus far.

How did Crea Sixteen perform from a project management standpoint?

Xavier was great to work with; he's very diligent and on point. He turned around tasks quickly and was accessible through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very talented and turn tasks around quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear on the goals and details of the project in the beginning, because they're very quick to execute.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO for a logistics company called High Grade Gypsum. Essentially we mine agricultural products, transporting them using our own fleet of trucks to different locations and making them available to farmers and other customers. In my position, I’m responsible for anything tech related, from our software and internal applications to our processes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crea Sixteen?

Because we have a unique business that’s involved in far more than a typical transportation company, there are several in-depth operational logistics that we have to manage. This includes scheduling routes, driver tracking, asset management, and preventative maintenance on our trucks and trailers.

We initially used a combination of software, CRMs, and spreadsheets to coordinate our business before realizing that we needed a more centralized system. As a result, we contracted Crea Sixteen to build a custom ERP app to manage our operations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They spent a couple of weeks with us at the start to understand our business’ concepts and goals. The team worked closely with us, developing the preliminary wireframes and handling the UI design. They then built the ERP with a MySQL database. The tech stack also included PHP, JavaScript, HTML 5, and CSS 3.

Because our staff’s technical skill level varied, we wanted to make sure that the app was simple and intuitive. Crea Sixteen focused on usability, creating features that were easy to use. We’re still rolling out features on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. They’re currently working on a clock-in system.

What is the team composition?

Their founding partner serves as our main point of contact, but I’m not sure if there are other developers working in the background. He understands what we need, gets the job done, and has even worked with us on site.

How did you come to work with Crea Sixteen?

A mutual colleague recommended them to us, so I decided to reach out to their team. Because we were trying to build an entirely new system, we wanted to know if our project was even possible. They assured us that they could handle everything we asked for and helped us figure out exactly what we needed.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent about $104,000 in development and have been able to budget accordingly. We use an hourly pricing structure for small tasks and project quotes when rolling out new modules.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work started in March 2018 and is ongoing. The project went live around mid-July, and we’ve since continued to release functions piece by piece.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Crea Sixteen produced a state-of-the-art ERP using the latest technologies. Not only is it fast and accessible from anywhere, but it also gives us a level of visibility that we’ve never had before. We’re now able to generate a variety of reports for all of our resources such as the number of available trucks, driver schedules, inventory, and daily customers.

We currently have about 200 live users, from the drivers and yard workers to the upper-level staff; everyone interacts with the app in some way. Because it’s a custom built solution, we’re able to modify it on demand. People in our industry have never seen anything like it, and we get so many compliments on our app.

How did Crea Sixteen perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re exceptionally responsive, keeping us up to date on all projects. Typically, we assign tasks in Trello with a description of what we want. They follow up within the hour with a timeframe and call if they need more clarification. At times, I would call them to handle a task immediately; they would complete the task, test it on a staging server, and push it live before we knew it.

In terms of communication, we interface via Slack, email, phone, and Skype. They document everything, so we always know exactly what they’re working on. This also helps us manage pending and future tasks. It's been a good experience so far, and we haven’t had any issues where we've gotten stuck.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Despite the complexity of the project, Crea Sixteen has adapted well to our requirements. Our app is a new concept, so we often make quick changes and sometimes don’t think things all the way through. Their team keeps up with us, doing the best they can with what we give.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The initial development was a bit slow, but this was due to the immense learning curve and the nature of our project—it’s a huge app. Now that we’re in production, we have a solid framework and have built so many tools that we can produce faster turnarounds. Crea Sixteen has written so much accessible code that we barely have to start developing from scratch anymore.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Write out exactly what you need and provide organized specifics. While initial meetings are important, their team works well when just given tasks and clear descriptions of the end goal. They’re able to produce the desired results without extra communication and often get it right on the first try.