# Crema Crema Reviews (20), Pricing, Services & Verified Ratings - 4.9 out of 5 average review rating - 7 connections joined Crema's Network [Visit Website](https://crema.us?utm_source=clutch.co&utm_medium=referral) [Get a Custom Proposal](https://clutch.co/profile/crema) **Innovation, design, and technology that transforms** **Crema is a design & technology consultancy that helps companies build the custom software they need to compete in today’s market.**   Our product teams blend business strategy and technical expertise to create solutions for our clients’ most pressing needs. Whether companies need to automate processes, make more data-driven decisions, or prep for growth, they come to our team of experts to craft a world-class product experience. We offer a wide range of services from problem framing and business strategy to UX/UI design and development.   Crema is not a "dev shop" that churns code without regard for the outcomes that follow.  Our clients will tell you that our greatest service is not only providing high quality designs and code, but also bringing the critical thinking, collaboration, and spirit of partnership that carry the experience beyond its intended impact.   Unlike other product agencies, our approach is highly bespoke and strategic. Our methodology is based around small cross-functional teams collaborating towards business outcomes. This agile-oriented model minimizes distractions, emphasizes impact, and provides clear communication paths to focus on the work at hand. ## Company Information - Minimum project size: $5,000+ - Hourly rate: $150 - $199 - Number of employees: 10 - 49 - 1 Locations: - Kansas City, MO (Headquarters) - Founded in 2009 ## Services, Focus Areas, Industries, and Clients ### Service Lines - 20% UX/UI Design - 20% Web Development - 15% Custom Software Development - 15% Mobile App Development - 10% Business Consulting - 10% Low/No Code Development - 10% Product Design ### Focus Areas - Low Code Development: - 100% Airtable - Mobile Platforms: - 90% Hybrid & cross platform apps - 5% Android App Development - 5% iPhone iOS App Development - Frameworks and CMS: - 65% React - 10% Flutter - 10% React Native - 5% Django - 5% NodeJS - 5% Ruby on Rails - Application Platforms: - 60% Heroku - 20% Other app platform - 10% Amazon Application Development Framework - 10% Google app engine - Programming & Scripting: - 60% JavaScript - 20% Redux - 5% Objective C - 5% Python - 5% Ruby - 5% Swift - User Experience Focus: - 60% UX Strategy - 30% Usability Testing - 10% User Research - Mobile Focus: - 50% Sales Enablement & CRM Mobile App Development - 20% Learning & Education Mobile App Development - 10% Business Intelligence Mobile App Development - 10% Productivity Mobile App Development - 5% Financial Mobile App Development - 5% Health & Wellness Mobile App Development - Business Consulting Focus: - 25% Business Intelligence Consulting - 25% Due Diligence Consulting - 25% Operational Change Consulting - 25% Strategy Development Consulting ### Industries - 25% Information technology - 25% Other industries - 25% Business services - 25% Financial services ### Clients - 20% Small Business (<$10M) - 40% Midmarket ($10M - $1B) - 40% Enterprise (>$1B) ## Pricing Snapshot Average rating for cost based on this provider's reviews: 4.6 out of 5 **What Clients Have Said** *(This summary is based on verified Clutch reviews.)*: Crema offers competitive pricing with project costs ranging from $50,000 to $500,000. Clients appreciate the value for money, noting high-quality work, timely delivery, and effective communication, which contribute to strong project outcomes. **Most Common Project Size**: $10,000 to $49,000 based on 12 reviews *(Pricing information for this provider is based on reviews where the project size was available.)* ### Pricing by Service - UX/UI Design: $10,000 to $49,000 based on 5 reviews - Business Consulting: $10,000 to $49,000 based on 3 reviews - Custom Software Development: $200,000 to $999,999 based on 2 reviews - Application Testing: $10,000 to $49,000 based on 2 reviews - Web Development: $50,000 to $199,999 based on 2 reviews - Application Management & Support: $200,000 to $999,999 based on 1 review - Mobile App Development: $200,000 to $999,999 based on 1 review - Other Application Development: $10,000 to $49,000 based on 1 review - Product Design: $10,000 to $49,000 based on 1 review - Web Design: $200,000 to $999,999 based on 1 review - AI Development: Confidential based on 1 review ## Reviews Clutch investigates each reviewer's identity and work history. Every review goes through a rigorous, human-led verification process to confirm the reviewer's identity, and reviews that we verify are visibly marked as 'Verified' so you can trust that they come from a real client. [Learn More](https://help.clutch.co/en/knowledge/how-clutch-verifies-reviews) ### Crema Review Insights Overall Review Rating: 4.9 - Quality: 4.9 - Schedule: 4.8 - Cost: 4.6 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 ### Top Mentions - Timely (12 mentions) - Communicative (8 mentions) - Great project management (5 mentions) - Transparent (5 mentions) - Well-organized projects (4 mentions) - Exceeds expectations (3 mentions) - Creative (2 mentions) - Flexible (2 mentions) - Great team (2 mentions) - High-quality work (2 mentions) - Honest (2 mentions) - Open to feedback (2 mentions) - Proactive (2 mentions) - Team players (2 mentions) - Trustworthy (2 mentions) - Collaborative (1 mentions) - Efficient (1 mentions) - Hard working (1 mentions) - Reasonable pricing (1 mentions) - Unique expertise (1 mentions) ### Review Highlights **Collaborative Team Environment** The collaborative nature of Crema's team is frequently highlighted. Clients feel that Crema integrates seamlessly with their own teams, fostering a sense of partnership and shared purpose. This collaboration enhances project outcomes and client satisfaction. **Challenges with Prototype Maintenance** One client mentioned the challenge of maintaining a fully functional prototype during a project. While Crema delivers effective design iterations, keeping an end-to-end prototype running throughout the process would enhance the client experience and project continuity. **Areas for Improvement in Speed** Some clients noted that Crema could improve in terms of project speed. Although they deliver high-quality work, there are instances where clients felt progress could be faster. Crema has shown a willingness to adjust timelines based on client feedback, indicating a proactive approach to improvement. **Positive Client Relationships** Clients consistently express satisfaction with their relationship with Crema, citing the team's sincerity, honesty, and transparency. These positive relationships contribute to successful collaborations and long-term client partnerships. **Commitment to Continuous Improvement** Crema demonstrates a commitment to continuous improvement by actively seeking client feedback and implementing changes based on constructive criticism. This approach helps them refine their processes and enhance service delivery. **Alignment with Client Values** Many clients choose Crema because their company values align well. This cultural fit is seen as essential for successful partnerships, fostering a collaborative environment and mutual understanding. This alignment often influences clients' decisions to engage Crema over competitors. **Proficiency in Custom Software Development** Crema excels in developing custom solutions, including databases, mobile apps, and web platforms. They effectively address client-specific challenges, such as creating a custom presentation tool for an insurance firm or a mobile app for a plant delivery service, showcasing their technical prowess. **Cultural and Geographic Proximity** Clients often select Crema due to their cultural fit and geographic proximity, which facilitates smoother communication and collaboration. This proximity is seen as a significant advantage in building strong working relationships. **Effective Project Management** Crema is praised for delivering projects on time and managing them efficiently. Clients highlight their ability to communicate effectively, resolve issues promptly, and maintain transparency throughout the project lifecycle. Their agile approach and organized workflows are frequently noted as strengths. **Strong Industry Expertise** Crema has demonstrated strong expertise across various industries, including insurance, legal technology, data centers, and SaaS platforms. Clients appreciate their ability to tailor solutions to specific industry needs, such as custom insurance systems, AI-driven legal services, and mentoring platforms. Their industry-specific knowledge is a key asset. ### Crema Reviews #### UI/UX Design for Tech Solutions Company **The Project** - Services: AI Development, Product Design, UX/UI Design - Project size: Confidential - Project length: July 2025 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: Crema has designed and prototyped a new AI-driven legal services system for a technology solutions company. The team focuses on a user-centric interface and experience. **Review Rating**: 4.5 - Quality: 4.0 - Schedule: 4.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Head of Product Management, Tech Solutions Company - Industry: Legal - Client size: 201-500 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Oct 29, 2025 **Feedback Summary**: Crema has delivered timely design iterations, quickly incorporated feedback, and maintained strong communication. The client has appreciated their ability to turn abstract ideas into effective prototypes. Maintaining a fully functional end-to-end prototype throughout would have improved the process. ""We're impressed with Crema's ability to take abstract ideas and suggestions and turn them into reality."" **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there.I’m the head of product management at Lineal. We provide eDiscovery and legal technology solutions using our proprietary Amplify platform to help law firms and corporations efficiently manage and review large volumes of electronic data. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish for your legal technology project?We hired Crema for new product design and prototyping. **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement?Crema has designed a new AI-driven system for legal services and review. The team has been responsible for UI/UX design.What is the team composition?We work with 2–5 teammates from Crema.How did you come to work with Crema?Someone referred Crema to us. We chose them because they were close to our geographic location, their pricing fit our budget, and their company values aligned with ours.How much have you invested with them?The project cost is confidential.What is the status of this engagement?We started working with Crema in January 2023, and the engagement is ongoing. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?Crema has made progress through design iterations of the major functionality of the new product. We’ve seen positive user and stakeholder feedback and a quick turnaround time for implementing changes in the prototype based on that feedback. We’ve completed two feedback cycles, and the average turnaround time is two days for each cycle.How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?Crema delivers on time and is highly communicative. We communicate via virtual meetings, emails, and messaging apps.What did you find most impressive about them?We’re impressed with Crema’s ability to take abstract ideas and suggestions and turn them into reality.Are there any areas they could improve?Crema could keep a fully functional prototype running as each feature is reviewed so that there’s always an end-to-end prototype available with the features that have been signed off on. --- #### Product & UX/UI Design for Hyperscale Data Center Company **The Project** - Services: Product Design, UX/UI Design - Project size: Confidential - Project length: Jan. 2024 - Sep. 2025 **Project Summary**: Crema provided product and UX/UI design services for a hyperscale data center company. The team was responsible for building the GUI for an AI-powered identification tool and providing strategic guidance. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 4.5 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** COO, Diode Ventures - Industry: Real estate - Client size: 11-50 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Oct 28, 2025 **Feedback Summary**: Crema's efforts resulted in a working platform that met the client's objectives. The team consistently showed prototypes, received feedback, delivered work on time, and was communicative about roadblocks. Crema's responsiveness, skill level, enthusiasm, and organization were hallmarks of their work. ""We were extremely pleased with their work product and style."" **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and position.I am the COO of Diode VenturesDescribe what your company does in a single sentence.Hyperscale data center site development **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish?Build the GUI for an AI site identification toolProvide project management and strategy guidance for the tool **SOLUTION** How did you find Crema?Existing RelationshipWhy did you select Crema over others?High ratingsClose to my geographic locationGreat culture fitCompany values alignedHow many teammates from Crema were assigned to this project?6-10 EmployeesDescribe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.The tool is a custom-built GIS platform designed to be a best-in-class data center siting system. Crema performed product management, product design, technical planning, facilitation, and leadership. At a granular level, this included product vision workshops, technical planning, journey mapping, landscape analysis, design UI concepting, user interviews/testing, and roadmap planning. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?At the end of our engagement, we had a working platform that achieved our goals. Crema consistently showed us prototypes and received our feedback throughout the process to efficiently guide development.Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?Crema was always on time and very communicative about any roadblocks that would impact our target schedule. They responded 100% of the time to our questions, often with the hour. They learned our goals so well that by the second half of the engagement, they were making suggestions to us about features and using our vocab in a way that made them an extension of our team.What was your primary form of communication with Crema?In-Person MeetingVirtual MeetingEmail or Messaging AppWhat did you find most impressive or unique about this company?Skill level of the team, enthusiasm, organization, communication, commitment, flexibility, quality of work, ability to surprise and delight, team mindset.Are there any areas for improvement or something Crema could have done differently?No, we were extremely pleased with their work product and style. --- #### Mobile App Design & Dev for Scholarship Application Co **The Project** - Services: Mobile App Development, UX/UI Design - Project size: Confidential - Project length: Aug. - Nov. 2023 **Project Summary**: Crema built a React Native mobile app experience for a scholarship application company, using their existing web app as the starting point. The project included a GraphQL backend integration and UI/UX updates. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Executive, VU Scholarships - Industry: Education - Client size: 1-10 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Apr 7, 2024 **Feedback Summary**: Crema successfully delivered a working iOS and Android app for the client, exceeding their goals and expectations with their exceptional development and project management plan. The team helped the client understand and take ownership of decisions, demonstrating impressive transparency and honesty. ""They are not afraid of having hard conversations and working through any hurdles that arise."" **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and position.I am an executive at VU ScholarshipsDescribe what your company does in a single sentence.VU is a groundbreaking platform that revolutionizes the scholarship application process. VU empowers high school students to dream beyond their perceived limitations. The sign-up process is streamlined and effortless, ensuring that both students and high schools can participate seamlessly.Through a unique approach, VU collaborates with partner universities, enabling students to receive instant scholarship offers. These scholarships not only recognize academic achievements but also pave the way for a future that might have seemed unattainable. The heartfelt testimonials from students and educators underscore the impact of VU, making it a beacon of hope for aspiring scholars. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish?Creating a react native experience for our existing web application. **SOLUTION** How did you find Crema?Existing relationshipWhy did you select Crema over others?Great culture fitCompany values alignedThe team we got to work withHow many teammates from Crema were assigned to this project?2-5 EmployeesDescribe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.A grant from Digita Sandbox KC funded this project. As a result, there were several hoops that our team and Crema had to jump through to get this engagement approved. Crema's flexibility and expertise helped us to create a project plan that met our needs and the requirements Digital Sandbox KC required of us.The scope of this project was to create an MVP mobile experience for our existing web application. It needed to be connected to our existing GraphQL backend and update our existing UX/UI without losing the spirit and brand identity we had already created.Because we knew the grant money would not cover the development of a fully completed mobile application, we relied on Crema's guidance on what technical features needed to be implemented during the engagement due to their high level of complexity and which features we could scaffold creating a road map our team could fast follow on after the engagement was completed. Crema developed a React Native application that provided us with the following requirements:Authentication flow that used our existing backend frameworkNavigation flows for each of the three main flows or the application:new user onboardingscholarship discovery and managementstudent profile managementMockups of future UX/UI for features we would complete after the completion of the engagement. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?With our limited budget, the goal was to get an MVP that would help us springboard off of in the future. Instead, with the help of Crema's exceptional development and project management team, we walked away from this with a working mobile app in iOS / Android and a development project that has been straightforward to enhance and build on top of our own.Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?The project management team was amazing! No question about that. They helped us understand and take ownership of all the decisions we had to make while developing our application. Because our project was atypical, Crema helped us plan sprints that would tackle the majority of features we needed week to week and devise contingency plans for how to navigate working on the application on our own after the engagement was over.Put a different way, Crema helped us meet the needs of today, while keeping an eye on the needs of tomorrow, helping us achieve our short-term goals without sacrificing the flexibility to meet the needs of the future.What was your primary form of communication with Crema?Virtual MeetingEmail or Messaging AppWhat did you find most impressive or unique about this company?Crema has a unique culture of transparency and honesty. It permeates into every one of their engagements. Ours was no different. I believe that because they are constantly working in this environment, they are not afraid of having hard conversations and working through any hurdles that arise.When there are hard conversations that need to be had, they stay relational through the whole process, making sure the tough decisions are timely and that stakeholders fully understand how the path forward has been impacted and what is being done to mitigate any adverse effects.Are there any areas for improvement or something Crema could have done differently?Not really. This project was super short and to the point. We got soooo much bang for our buck. --- #### Technology Consulting & UX Design for Art Service Org **The Project** - Services: Application Testing, Business Consulting, Other Application Development - Project size: $10,000 to $49,999 - Project length: Feb. 2023 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: Crema is helping an art service organization navigate technologies for launching a ticketing program. The team has also helped create a technical UX blueprint and guides the client on technology improvements. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Director Audience Dev, ArtsKC Regional Arts Council - Industry: Arts, entertainment & music - Client size: 11-50 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Jan 3, 2024 **Feedback Summary**: The client is happy with Crema’s work and praises the keen insights they share. The team has earned the client’s confidence, and they manage the relationship expertly. Their resources listen closely to the client’s needs and provide adequate support. Overall, the partnership has been successful.  ""I was impressed with their ability to quickly focus and understand our challenges and needs."" **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and position.I am the Director Audience Development of ArtsKC Regional Arts CouncilDescribe what your company does in a single sentence.ArtsKC is the only arts service organization that has a dedicated strategic focus to promote, support and advocate for the arts in the Kansas City metropolitan region. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish?Help us navigate the what technology we would need to launch a regional access ticketing program.Create a technical blueprint for a user experience.Guide us on how to improve existing technology for the pilot,while also considering what we may need to build from scratch for the full rollout. **SOLUTION** How did you find Crema?ReferralWhy did you select Crema over others?High ratingsPricing fit our budgetGreat culture fitCompany values alignedHow many teammates from Crema were assigned to this project?2-5 EmployeesDescribe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.We engaged with Crema for their expertise and leadership in developing a UX and backend process for a regional arts and culture access ticketing program. They meet with us on a weekly basis and provide key insights into all of our questions while also helping us navigate difficult conversations with other vendors. Tucker and Tyler have an intimate knowledge of our program, and have consistently been the voice of clarity in the room. They are always prepared to share keen insights and quick to diagnose and provide options when hurdles arise. We trust them implicitly, and would not be where we are in our project without their expertise. On top of it all, they are incredibly generous humans and we always come away from our interactions feeling heard, supported, and more knowledgeable. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?We are still in process during the pilot program.Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?Yes, always!What was your primary form of communication with Crema?Virtual MeetingEmail or Messaging AppWhat did you find most impressive or unique about this company?I was impressed with their ability to quickly focus and understand our challenges and needs.Are there any areas for improvement or something Crema could have done differently?None. --- #### Product Design & Prototyping for SaaS Company **The Project** - Services: Product Design, UX/UI Design - Project size: $10,000 to $49,999 - Project length: Nov. - Dec. 2023 **Project Summary**: Crema provided product design and prototyping support to a SaaS company. They conducted an alignment workshop, developed user personas, created a user journey map, built a clickable prototype, and ran QA tests. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** CEO, Mentor Mentee - Industry: Other industries - Client size: 1-10 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Dec 14, 2023 **Feedback Summary**: Crema delivered the outputs ahead of schedule and exceeded the client's expectations. Their team leveraged an agile approach and several online tools to address the client's feedback and quickly implement changes in the prototype. They were also very prepared, highly organized, and communicative. ""They came very prepared and ready to get started, which reduced the learning curve and timeline."" **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and position.I am the CEO of Mentor Mentee.Describe what your company does in a single sentence.Mentor Mentee is a SaaS company providing a technical mentoring platform to enhance the skills and retention of new automotive technicians in dealerships, collision centers, and heavy-duty diesel companies. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish?New product design and prototyping **SOLUTION** How did you find Crema?ReferralWhy did you select Crema over others?High ratingsClose to my geographic locationGreat culture fitGood value for costCompany values alignedHow many teammates from Crema were assigned to this project?2-5 EmployeesDescribe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.Scope of Work: Milestone 1: Conduct an alignment workshop. Outcomes will include: Understand & document the problem statement for Mentor Mentee & their customers.Understand the business's hypothesis on what elements are included in career pathways. Align on the goals for the prototype & focus on key flows needed to be designed and tested. Milestone 2: Initial research and design strategy Develop & document user personas.Create a user journey map/story spine.Design exploration of comps, existing landscape, and land on a look and feel. Deliver several career pathways mockups. Milestone 3: Prototyping career pathwaysDeliver the first clickable prototype to the client for feedback. Figma file with components and styles defined. Milestone 4: Final prototype & product roadmap Deliver the final clickable prototype to the team, including the Figma file with components and styles finalized. Product roadmap and prioritized feature list (for your product team to consider)Final Quality Assurance was conducted to minimize bugs or errors in the delivered prototype. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?The team used an agile approach to the design of the prototype. By leveraging several online tools, they could seek and implement our feedback to implement changes in the prototype quickly.Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?Crema's team was highly organized and communicative throughout the project. They exceeded our expectations and delivered a final product ahead of schedule.What was your primary form of communication with Crema?Virtual MeetingEmail or Messaging AppWhat did you find most impressive or unique about this company?I was very impressed by Crema's team and the research they conducted about our company and industry before our first meeting. They came very prepared and ready to get started, which reduced the learning curve and timeline.Are there any areas for improvement or something Crema could have done differently?Nope! They've done an excellent job. --- #### Software Dev & UI/UX Design for General Contracting Company **The Project** - Services: Application Management & Support, Application Testing, Custom Software Development, UX/UI Design - Project size: $200,000 to $999,999 - Project length: Jan. - July 2023 **Project Summary**: A general contracting company hired Crema to collaborate with their in-house developers in building and testing their new app. The team also designed the UI/UX for the client's proprietary internal tool.  **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Sr VP, JE Dunn Construction - Industry: Other industries - Client size: 1,001-5,000 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Jul 5, 2023 **Feedback Summary**: Thanks to Crema, the client witnessed an immediate and substantial boost in usability and engagement. Crema ensured excellent project management and communication via biweekly prints and virtual check-ins. Their professionalism, responsiveness, and organized and engaging approach were commendable. ""We were delighted with Crema's approach to open communication."" **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and position.I am the Sr VP, National Director of Preconstruction and Estimating of JE Dunn ConstructionDescribe what your company does in a single sentence.General Contractor **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish?New and engaging UX/UI for proprietary internal and client facing tool. **SOLUTION** How did you find Crema?ReferralWhy did you select Crema over others?Close to my geographic locationGreat culture fitGood value for costCompany values alignedHow many teammates from Crema were assigned to this project?6-10 EmployeesDescribe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.Engagement included research and understanding of our current application, design milestones for simplification and update of User Interface along with intuitive step by step User Experience, co-development with our in-house developers for rapid build and testing of new application. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?End user testing of the new application that immediately increased useability, engagement, and will drive adoption proves the success of this team.Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?Project management staff kept all staff on schedule and highly engaged. Biweekly sprints with full team check-ins (virtual) always started with a Team Health assessment. This drove both a positive interaction between all team members along with open, honest, and transparent communication. No challenges or miscommunication led to a very smooth process; almost all due to a professional and well facilitated lead from Crema PM.What was your primary form of communication with Crema?Email or Messaging AppWhat did you find most impressive or unique about this company?We were delighted with Crema's approach to open communication. Also, their presentation of challenges always with associated solutions and incredibly quick responses. Their well-organized approach and project management made the entire engagement an extremely easy and enjoyable process.Are there any areas for improvement or something Crema could have done differently?No areas of improvement needed; challenge will be to continue to replicate this high level of service and standard set. --- #### Website UX Audit Services for Technology Company **The Project** - Services: Business Consulting - Project size: $50,000 to $199,999 - Project length: Feb. - Mar. 2022 **Project Summary**: Crema performed a UX audit for a technology company to improve their website. Delivering a 78-page document, they identified areas for improvement on the company’s website and ensured it was user-centric.  **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** CIO, CarePortal - Industry: Other industries - Client size: 51-200 Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — Feb 9, 2023 **Feedback Summary**: The company implemented Crema’s suggestions, resulting in a new and improved website and an interactive map. The team met deadlines and budget expectations, and their members were truly receptive to feedback. They were humble and eager to guide the company to reach their targets and UX goals. "“They went above and beyond to earnestly produce something that made a difference for us.”" **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there. I’m the founder and CIO of CarePortal, a connecting technology that drives actions for local kids and families. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema? We realized that 90% of our website visitors were first-time visitors, and 78% didn’t return. Given that, we had an opportunity to improve our UX to mainstream levels. Our team needed to find ways to do it and understand the roadblocks we might face.  **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement? We had a five-week engagement with Crema, and it was solely a UX audit project. We spent the first couple of weeks with them trying to learn about our team and what we were trying to accomplish. They did a ton of research on their end about us and other things in the marketplace relating to us. As we kept rolling, the engagement culminated in a document that laid out their findings and recommendations for how we could move forward with a mainstream-level platform.   To elaborate, the final deliverable was a 78-page document that gave logic and reasoning for our UX design. We did an internal review process where we brought in five teams to review the document. Our team prioritized Crema’s suggestions and built a two-year roadmap based on them.  For pain points, one of the main shortcomings Crema discovered was that our voice was confused. Sometimes, we talked like a technology platform; sometimes we talked like a ministry. Our audience was vast, and we tended to overfocus on one audience type versus another. As a result, we had to clean all that up to get a crystal-clear message across. From there, we had to create an experience for the users coming to the platform for the first time. Crema also evaluated our onboarding process and how clunky it was. Besides that, they assessed our in-line training or lack thereof, our CTAs, and many other things. Some of the strategies they recommended included streamlining our website so that it spoke to an audience in a simple and technology-focused manner. We also needed to roll out clarifications within the system so that users wouldn’t struggle with what they could and couldn’t do with our platform. There were 78 pages of suggestions, and all of them pointed toward making the platform user-centric as opposed to organization-centric.  What is the team composition? We worked with 3–4 teammates from Crema, including a project manager, a designer, and a developer. Another person handled the strategic oversight.  How did you come to work with Crema? Crema was referred to us by a common friend who had used them and spoke highly of their work and how they did their job. That reference was super important to us, and I trusted our friend. I then had a discussion with their senior management. Rather than trying to sell me something out of the box, they focused on listening to us and helping us understand what we truly needed. From there, we came up with a unique engagement setup with them.  How much have you invested with them? We spent around $50,000.  What is the status of this engagement? The project lasted from February–March 2022.  **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?  The roadmap wasn’t our endgame, but it was necessary for us to get there. It was one of the biggest things Crema accomplished. We implemented several of the things we set out to do. For instance, we’d released a brand new website recently, and it was heavily influenced by the learnings and insights we got from Crema.  Besides that, our team released an interactive map, which was an update from what we had previously. It was made using direct feedback from Crema. How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint? They met our deadlines and stayed within our budget. We used a combination of Slack, Zoom, and in-person meetings to communicate.  What did you find most impressive about them? Crema was willing to listen to our needs and didn’t force us down a path that wasn’t for us. Moreover, the team had humility in the process. When we gave them some pushback and told them we needed to pivot, they listened and did it. Overall, they went above and beyond to earnestly produce something that made a difference for us. Are there any areas they could improve? There were a few points when I felt that we weren’t moving as fast as I thought we needed to move. There was a lack of progress in some moments, which was a little frustrating. However, they adjusted this when I gave them my feedback. Everything was smoothed out.  Do you have any advice for potential customers? Trust that Crema has experts who truly care, and clarify your expectations as much as possible.  --- #### Custom HubSpot Database for Growth Consultancy Company **The Project** - Services: Custom Software Development - Project size: Confidential - Project length: Oct. 2020 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: Crema is developing a custom HubSpot database to help the client with data analysis and tracking. After creating prototypes and getting feedback, the team developed the MVP. They're now finalizing the product. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 4.5 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 3.5 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Chief Product Officer, Growth Consultancy Company - Industry: Business services - Client size: 51-200 Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — Jul 1, 2021 **Feedback Summary**: Crema's methodical approach, expert knowledge, and keen understanding of the project have allowed them to develop a highly successful MVP. Furthermore, their promptness and excellent communication cement them as reliable partners. Their skill, transparency, and flexibility truly make them stand out. ""They deliver on time and meet all of our standards for success."" **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there.I’m the chief product officer of a revenue growth consulting company. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema?We needed help with improving our business processes. **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement?Crema developed a database using HubSpot. First, they helped us look at the data we’ve collected over two decades and find a way to standardize it and turn it into a product for our clients. Basically, we wanted a way for us to track, monitor, and support our client’s revenue growth strategies in perpetuity.During the discovery phase, we honed in on what we should build. From that, Crema built a couple of prototype projects and got them out to the market for feedback. All of this led to the actual development of the database and UI for our MVP. Additionally, the team helped us migrate content from several disparate sources into a single source of truth, which they built on HubSpot. Finally, they set up the architecture and framework to allow HubSpot to authenticate users and serve content in a very personalized way.Crema is still working with us to finalize the product. They also conduct various proprietary engineering projects specific to our needs as a business.What is the team composition?The core team consists of five teammates: two engineers, a QA specialist, a designer, and a product manager. Overall, we’ve worked with 10 people, especially during the kickoff phase.How did you come to work with Crema?We sent out an RFP, and after looking at our options, we chose Crema. Their proposal made it very clear that we had similar values and working styles. What is the status of this engagement?The project started in October 2020 and is ongoing. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? Crema’s help has allowed us to have one of the most successful MVP launches we’ve ever had. They deliver on time and meet all of our standards for success.How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?Their project management is fantastic. Crema is an excellent team — they’re very organized and knowledgeable on agile best practices. To communicate, we used Jira, Confluence, and Slack. They’re very good at communicating with stakeholders.What did you find most impressive about them?Crema understands the business problem we’re trying to solve, not just the technical problem. They’ve proven to be an incredible partner with a team that’s very nimble and agile. Additionally, the team is very transparent and admits when something is out of their realm of expertise. Their thought leadership is also impressive.Are there any areas they could improve?At some point, we’ve had some staffing changes. Fortunately, it didn’t derail the project.Do you have any advice for potential customers?Refresh yourself on the agile software development processes. One of the reasons for our success is that I’ve worked with the agile framework before, so it’s easy for us to work together. --- #### Mobile App Dev for Online Plant Retailer **The Project** - Services: Mobile App Development - Project size: $200,000 to $999,999 - Project length: Aug. - Dec. 2020 **Project Summary**: Crema provided mobile app development support to a plant delivery service. They set up a customer care app for iOS and Android. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 4.5 - Cost: 4.5 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Digital Product Manager, Bloomscape - Industry: Other industries - Client size: 11-50 Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — Dec 18, 2020 **Feedback Summary**: The team at Crema was exceptionally caring and supportive throughout the project. User feedback on the app has been positive. Customers can expect a collaborative and knowledgeable team. ""It’s hard to find a team that’s as easy to work with as them." " **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there. Bloomscape is an e-commerce store. We deliver plants to people, and we’re expanding into care products for plants. I’m the senior product manager in charge of our app. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema? Our big focus in 2020 was to figure out how we could help customers after they’ve purchased our plants. Our CEO made a push to acquire an app for this purpose, and we settled upon Crema’s Vera app. **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement? Crema worked to transition their app over to us. The app is available on iOS and Android. What is the team composition? We talked with their CEO, and their head of engineering helped us with the more technical aspects. We also worked with one of their designers. She helped us define features to improve the app’s customer support. They also gave us two developers and a product manager. How did you come to work with Crema? Our CTO and CEO scoped out the project and researched available apps, both domestically and internationally. Crema’s offer fit what we were looking for. How much have you invested with them? We spent $200,000. What is the status of this engagement? We started working with Crema in August 2020, and the app rolled out that December. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? We really liked working with Crema. It isn’t easy to find developers that really care about what they’re putting out in the world. Vera had a really loyal customer base, and we wanted to make sure that the app would have a smooth transition over to Bloomscape. It was beneficial to collaborate with the core team that built the app and was very passionate about it. The user feedback has been really positive. How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint? Everyone was supportive, and it felt like Crema was part of our in-house team. They communicated really well. Although it was a short-term project, they didn’t treat it like one, and they answered all our questions. We had an aggressive timeline to get the app to where we wanted it, and everyone worked hard to deliver on time. We used Slack for daily communication and Jira for project management and task prioritization. We focused on both new tasks and addressing the needs of the existing customer base. What did you find most impressive about them? It’s hard to choose just one thing. If I were to describe them in one word, it would be “collaborative.” Crema took care of everything we needed. Are there any areas they could improve? Crema built the initial app in their venture labs. It was available in several languages and over 100 countries. There was a big list of things to do for the transition when we decided to use it. If they plan to offer other apps in this way in the future, they should focus on streamlining this process. Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs? I’d tell them to go ahead and sign a contract. Crema is in really high demand, and it’s hard to find a team that’s as easy to work with as them. --- #### Developing Digital Tax Prep Journey for Tax Company **The Project** - Services: Web Design - Project size: $200,000 to $999,999 - Project length: Jan. - Apr. 2020 **Project Summary**: Crema created a flow through a tax prep journey to promote a tax company. After visualizing concepts and next iteration prototypes, they created a more intuitive experience that leveraged the new design system. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** VP of Digital, Tax Company - Industry: Financial services - Client size: 10,001+ Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Jul 20, 2020 **Feedback Summary**: Thanks to Crema's efforts, the experience was four times faster than what it was originally. The team was composed of two dedicated designers and a project manager. They were curtious and creative problem-solvers. ""One of the best parts of this project was how well our teams worked together, acting efficiently as one unit." " **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and your position there. I lead the digital products and services team for one of the top tax companies in the United States. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** For what projects/services did your company hire Crema? We hired crema at the beginning of the year to help us visualize concept and prototype the next iteration of our tax prep experience. Their work spread across mobile and.com designs. What were your goals for this project? Our goals for this project were to create a tax experience that was unlike any other, faster, more intuitive, and more personalized. We used the prototype to showcase the concept internally and get feedback externally. **SOLUTION** How did you select this vendor? We evaluated two primary vendors. one located in Kansas City, which ended up being Crema, and the other which is housed between Portland and Brooklyn. We made our decision based on the way we wanted to engage with the contractors and the pricing for the effort. Describe the project in detail. The project for which we hired crema is a flow through a tax prep journey that a returning client would go through when coming back their second year with us. The experience considers simple tax return scenarios and increases their speed to complete by four times. The experience is more intuitive than what we currently have, leverages our new design system and helped to push that further forward, and considers differences between the mobile and web experience. What was the team composition? We had two designers dedicated to the effort and a project manager/product manager that helped with strategic direction and keeping things on track. The team spent part of their time embedded with our team in our offices so that we can work closely together. I truly believe that this helped us with our alignment and speed of execution. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success? The project was certainly a success from my perspective. we had requested that the team create an experience that was faster By two times. When they were done it was faster by four times. And the reviews that we got from internal and external users were certainly delightful. though we are early in the project, this certainly helped us to sharpen our focus of what could be. How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs? One of the best parts about this project was how well our teams work together. our lead product manager, lead designer, and the team at crema acted efficiently as one unit. Because they were partly co-located and spoke together often, there wasn't a sense of us versus them. It was like we were truly one team. And the crema designers and strategists were so kind, thoughtful, and open to feedback that it was just delightful to work with them. What did you find most impressive about this company? I love the creativity of this firm. And it's not just design creativity. I see the way that they solve problems for their clients and how they view problem-solving and tackling challenges as just part of their DNA. They're an incredibly curious and creative company. I love the product management staff that they have and would love to work with them more in the future. I follow their LinkedIn page and I'm always delighted to see the new projects that they post. Are there any areas for improvement? I'll start by saying that this comment is not unique to crema. I feel this way about most agencies that I have worked with over the last 5 years. Having been at DirecTV from 2009 to 2015 and working with some of the most talented designers including motion graphic designers that I've ever experienced, I often feel that agency work is not as flashy as I'd like it to be. that would be the only thing that I would call out if something I'd like to see more of. --- #### Custom Development for Presentation Template Management Tool **The Project** - Services: Custom Software Development - Project size: $200,000 to $999,999 - Project length: Aug. 2019 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: Crema handles custom software development services for an insurance brokerage consultancy. In efforts to save manual processing time, they built a solution that converts InDesign template files to CXML. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 4.5 - Cost: 4.5 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Account Manager, Insurance Brokerage Consultancy - Industry: Financial services - Client size: 5,001-10,000 Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — Jun 16, 2020 **Feedback Summary**: The solution successfully achieved its intended functionalities, and the client is happy with its outcome. The Crema team was sincere in both the ideation and execution stages. Their effective use of Slack complemented their project management style and cleared a way for thorough communication. "“Strong, open communication, creativity, and genuineness are their most impressive traits.” " **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there. I’m an account manager of an insurance brokerage consulting company. We consult our clients about the benefits we offer their employees. I have a book of business that I service to our clients, but I’m also in a project role where I work with our operations team. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema? We have designers who use Adobe InDesign to create client presentations or communications for our client’s employees. Our team has a very difficult working relationship with them because we’re creating thousands of standard and bespoke documents. Everyone is recreating the wheel over and over again, so it’s wasting time and creating an inconsistent work product. **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement? Crema built a custom presentation template solution from scratch. The tool can covert CXML to InDesign files. Their team built a frontend for users to go through and choose a base template to then customize with their own data. This allows the user to go back in and rerun the presentation all on their own, without having to engage our design team. This ends up being a manual process because if they’re engaging the design team, they’re waiting between 24–48 hours to get revisions back. There are two parts to the solution. The first side is a template creator tool that allows our admin to go in and create the best work product templates. These templates are pretty inclusive of most things that’d go into presentations but also contains different templates clients may need. Once a template is created, it flows into the document builder side. Here, an end-user can select what side of the business they’re on and what type of documents they’d like to prepare. Then, they choose a base template. At this point, they can go through and upload Excel or PDF files to upload their data. Once the data is pulled in, it runs through and the user can download their final document as a PDF created in InDesign. The download comes with all the style and branding details that’s consistent with our company’s style. What is the team composition? I’ve worked with a handful of people from their team including a QA person, two developers, a strategist, a designer, and a project manager who’s my main point of contact. How did you come to work with Crema? Our head of operations found them, and I got pulled in to lead the project. They had been in touch with Crema over the years. The Crema team had a good reputation for custom software development. There was a budding relationship for a while, and we didn’t know exactly how we could engage them. Everything lined up for this project. How much have you invested with them? We’ve invested between $250,000–$500,000. What is the status of this engagement? The project started in August 2019, and our engagement is ongoing. The MVP was completed by late November 2019. We had an engagement that ended in May 2020, and we’re now in a nine-week extension period. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? The deliverables were amazing. It’s a little difficult to quantify the impact because essentially, we sat in a room all together, brainstormed ideas, made a bunch of post-it notes, and then Crema turned our ideas into a reality. It was a team effort, but they certainly did the creation part. We have some beta testers for the solution, but we’re still cleaning up some things. Overall, the tool is amazing, and I’m very happy with it. Going forward, we’re going to make it more intuitive and reasonable for real business and that’s where the real test is going to come in. There have been demos, samples, and tests but no real business testing yet. How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint? Their team has done an excellent job with communication and in teaching me through this learning curve. We use Slack for correspondence and Trello for some bug reporting. Slack has been fantastic. I’m really happy with our use of it and don’t know how we could’ve done the project without it. I appreciate the Crema team for pushing us into Slack because it’s helped incredibly to alleviate some burden on the communication side as well as just made the experience more efficient in general. What did you find most impressive about them? Strong, open communication, creativity, and genuineness are their most impressive traits. The Crema team is full of real people trying to get real stuff done. They’re sincere, and I’m very impressed with the individuals and overall company. Are there any areas they could improve? No, I can’t think of anything. Any pain points we’ve had have been due to the nature of the project and creating a product in general. If there was anything that needed improvement, we talked about it, resolved it, and moved on. --- #### Development of Various Web Apps for Large Consulting Company **The Project** - Services: Web Development - Project size: $1,000,000 to $9,999,999 - Project length: Nov. 2017 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: Crema provides app development services for a large management consulting company. They work in React for the frontend and Ruby on the backend. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Head of Product & Technology, Large Management Consulting Co - Industry: Other industries - Client size: 10,001+ Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — Nov 22, 2019 **Feedback Summary**: Trustworthy, proactive, and skilled, Crema’s efforts have been lauded as a shining example of a good partnership. The team manages their assigned projects seamlessly and overcome obstacles with finesse. Customers can expect a flexible team that is diligent and reliable. "“They really work as an extension of our team.” " **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there.  I run product and technology at a large consulting company that serves clients on a large variety of management topics. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema? We frequently need to build assets that help clients solve different challenges that they're facing. **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement? They help create our applications, with a Ruby backend and React frontend. These are mostly related to organizational design, talent, and other things of that nature. Crema helps build applications, and they've been a partner of ours for two and a half years, helping us in building different apps. What is the team composition? We work with 10-12 people from their team. Each team has three developers, a designer, a product manager, and a QA specialist. I also have one point of contact that manages the entire project. How did you come to work with Crema? After seeing the prohibitive prices in larger cities, we decided to move our search to smaller cities with larger populations, which led us to Kansas City and Crema. They came highly recommended so we tried them out for a small project. We really liked the results and ended up moving a lot of our development projects to them afterward. What is the status of this engagement? We began working together in November 2017, and our engagement is ongoing. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? We recently let go of a vendor because of the stark contrast in how they are versus how Crema is, in terms of collaboration. They have unique flexibility with how they do work; a lot of companies that we've worked with have very strict, regimented process of managing the development cycle, and sometimes we need to work more flexibly than that. How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint? They run everything that's required and are very transparent, while also being able to handle 90% of the issues that come up. Things only get elevated to me or my team when there's a real issue to address; they're great about addressing the vast majority of things that come up, like timeline shifts. They've learned our domain enough that if something ends up being complicated or taking longer than anticipated, they're good at recommending solutions. They can usually do that independently, without having to have too much back and forth with us, which we find a lot of value in. We need to be able to respond to some client needs that are more immediate. They're really adaptive and responsive to what's needed. We use Jira, Slack, and regular meetings to keep in contact. They really work as an extension of our team. We do in-person meetings once a quarter that's having them come out to where the majority of us are in LA. What did you find most impressive about them? They're exceptionally trustworthy. There's an ample amount of transparency and we have a lot of trust between our teams, which lets me know they're always going to do the right thing. There's never any feeling like you don't have the information, and there's never a “negotiating with the vendor” type of dynamic. It's what we most appreciate since I don't have to worry about if they're doing the right thing. Are there any areas they could improve? I would love for them to get bigger. Do you have any advice for potential customers? My advice is to invest in a personal relationship. The more information you can give them about the problems you're trying to solve, the better they will be able to be at anticipating your needs. We give them access to our problem, which is why we work so well together. Establishing that relationship from the beginning is so critical. --- #### Web Application Portal for Global Information Security Provider **The Project** - Services: UX/UI Design - Project size: $50,000 to $199,999 - Project length: Jan. 2016 - Jan. 2017 **Project Summary**: Crema improved the design of an online security portal for existing clients to help communicate the value of the service to customers and make the interface more user friendly.   **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 4.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Lead Architect, Global Information Security Provider - Industry: Information technology - Client size: 11-50 Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — Dec 6, 2017 **Feedback Summary**: Client satisfaction has increased due to Crema’s efforts to improve the security portal. Their team took the time to truly understand the needs and challenges of the project, allowing them to draw out the best solutions. The process even helped the company make other unexpected internal improvements.   "Drawing out exactly what the product needs to be is something they’re fantastic at.   " **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there. We are a global information services provider with headquarters in Switzerland and the U.S. I lead the managed services architecture team in order to design, architect, and deliver services to our clients.   **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema? We needed to provide our existing clients a valuable portal that allows them to access an overview of their security posture and quickly respond to security alerts or incidents. While our development team was able to create the portal, we had difficulty communicating to our clients the value that we were bringing them and making sure it was easy to use. We were seeking a development team for help with user experience, UI design, consulting, and engagement.   **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement? Crema’s team worked closely with our development team, who oversaw the backend, to speed up the development of the platform. Crema used standard javascript libraries, including AngularJS. Their involvement helped our team build out the frontend of the solution quickly. Their UI developer was able to turn our design into a working user interface. What is the team composition? We worked with two UI developers, a project manager, and an UI developer. How did you come to work with Crema? An organization based in Kansas City, who we have a close relationship with, recommended Crema. We had only been looking at a few other options. How much have you invested with them? Over $100,000 What is the status of this engagement? We’ve been working with Crema since mid-2016 to early 2017 and continue to work with their UI/UX team on retainer.   **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? We're extremely satisfied with the design, usability, and overall look of the portal. Clients have commented that a key reason they chose our services is because we were able to clearly communicate the value of the portal and client’s overall security posture. That’s all thanks to the great effort from Crema and their team. How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint? They were fantastic. To be quite honest, the project manager that we worked with was probably the best project manager I've ever worked with. Despite having extremely tight and ambitious timelines, Crema was able to deliver on time. I couldn’t say enough good things about the team. What did you find most impressive about them? The entire team took a lot of time to understand our business, our core consumers, what we were trying to deliver to them, and how we needed to communicate our value. They asked questions that helped us visualize how we wanted to communicate to customers. The process helped identify other areas for improvement internally. Drawing out exactly what the product needs to be is something they’re fantastic at. Are there any areas they could improve? It’s difficult to think of anything. The costs are higher than some of their competitors, but it’s absolutely justified.   **Company Response**     --- #### Software Development for On-Demand Staffing Platform **The Project** - Services: Web Development - Project size: Confidential - Project length: Nov. 2015 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: Crema refined MVP goals before transitioning into full-scale development for a staffing app, scaling resources as needed to manage sprints. They now subsidize the internal team’s iterations every 2 weeks.  **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 4.5 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 4.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** CTO, On-Demand Staffing Platform - Industry: Business services - Client size: 11-50 Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — May 19, 2017 **Feedback Summary**: The high-quality product has maintained a perfect acceptance rate on app stores, prompting great user feedback and allowing rapid platform growth. Crema’s client-focused workflow, down-to-earth communication, and willingness to expand their skills continue to encourage success.  ""Crema is great at pushing me to do the right thing for my company as opposed to the right thing for them."" **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there. I’m the CTO and founder of an on-demand marketplace application that matches workers with companies that need them. This can be for as short as a 4-hour bartending gig on a Friday or as long as a 4-month warehouse or HR professional gig. We’re like Uber but for other types of jobs. A company posts the job, our algorithm matches the appropriate user, and that user gets a push notification on their phone. When they hit “Accept,” they get that job—no interview needed. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema? We were an idea-stage company. Our original interaction with Crema was to work on product definition for our MVP [minimum viable product]. That relationship subsequently transitioned into evaluating different ways of building that app, including either building a full team internally or hiring a different kind of technology company. We ultimately ended up hiring Crema to do the product build as well for our MVP. We built our relationship with them to the point where we both took a significant amount of ownership in the product.  **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement? We did something with them called an ideation session. The goal was to get, from my perspective, additional engineers to estimate how difficult the product would be to build, figure out what type of product we should build, scale it back a bit, and get an external set of eyes on the features to figure out what our core MVP could be. Subsequently, post go-live, we transitioned quickly from that market-ready team to re-subsidizing our labor internally with employees that used to be handled by Crema. We went from them being our whole product team down to just having some resources for a couple days a week. There are very few full-time resources on the project now. They helped me with everything from new hires to transitioning the knowledge base from them to my new internal employees. There was a UX designer, a product strategist, a project manager, an iOS developer, an Android developer, a web developer, and a backend Ruby on Rails developer. At some point, we had an extra frontend React web developer and an extra backend Ruby developer. Our core team was a person per discipline—Ruby, React, iOS, and Android. We subsequently decided to rebuild our mobile platform on React Native, so we just have a React Native resource now building on Android and iOS. How did you come to work with Crema? I had a friend that sold a company to Facebook, and he’s now at Airbnb. He’s smarter than me, so I reached out to him asking which outsourced companies he’d recommend. He mentioned two firms—a Midwest company and Crema. I’m pretty upfront and like working with people who are humble. We chose Crema over rebuilding the product alone or outsourcing it to a different company because they were an established team that would allow me to get the product to market as quickly as possible, which was our main goal. How much have you invested with Crema? We’ve worked with them quite closely to establish a structure that works for both of us. I can provide their card rate, but I am uncomfortable disclosing our relationship with them. What is the status of this engagement? We started working with them in November of 2015. The first product launched in July of 2016.  **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement? The product has never been rejected from the App Store on any submissions. That first time you submit a product, it can be scary. There are these horror stories of companies having products stuck in limbo. It’s amazing that we always ship a product every 2 weeks. They’re very good at allowing me to iterate fast. From my perspective, the most beneficial thing for me, as the co-founder of the company, is that I rarely get to spend enough time on the product as I’d like to since I have to go fundraising for a week or work on a new partnership. Before, I had internal hires that could replace me during those early months where you can be pulled in many different directions. I knew that I could go away for a week and that the product would continue humming along and they’d execute what I wanted. In the event that my absence would have made a material difference for the product, they would find a way to get in touch with me and make sure that the right thing was delivered. Crema is great at pushing me to do the right thing for my company as opposed to the right thing for them. That React example showcases this: they originally had 2 resources on the project to build 2 different apps that did the same thing. Because they’re such a small agency, when React Native came out and started to gain traction, they were able to champion that the firm should use it, get approval from the owners of the company that it’s now framework-based supported, and then pitch a project to me that allowed me to reduce my monthly spend and ship a product that can be built faster. They’re uniquely small enough that if they see something beneficial pop-up, they’ll recommend it, as long as it’s right for me and regardless of their long-term billable hours. In a startup, cash is king. It’s a trust thing. Working with contractors can be stressful, especially some of my other products. When I make a requirements document, it’s literally built exactly how I write it. Crema, however, does a pretty good job of knowing when I’ve mistyped a requirement, knowing when to push back, and knowing when to ask me a question to make sure that what they’re building reflects what I want. How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint? There’s a specific resource on my team who’s our project manager, and he’s incredible. I wish I could poach him, but it’s quite clear that I can’t. They hit every deadline. We’re Agile, so there aren’t hard builds that we’re trying to release. I know when people are going to deliver during a week, and I’m made aware during every sprint if we’re going to hit it. If they’re under risk, I’ll get a yellow light. I always know what’s going to be shipped. If for any reason the product that’s about to be shipped isn’t exactly what I think it is, they’ll let me know up front and give a solid reason why (usually because I added scope). What did you find most impressive about Crema? They have a strong product team, as opposed to just developers. Often, a company is quite strong in development, branding, user flow, or UX, but they’ve been a delightful mix of all that. It’s a product team for hire as opposed to a development team or UX team for hire. Having everyone who built the product, especially in those early days, are all around the table at the same time is significantly better than trying to piecemeal a team together between a branding firm and a development shop offshore. That’s been the main difference. I’ve never had a full product team for any product I’ve worked on before. Are there any areas Crema could improve? When I first started, Crema’s QA wasn’t as solid as I was used to. I actually gave them that area of improvement, and they hired a new resource. They listened to my feedback and improved. The only thing that would be beneficial is spending more time on internal tools before a product goes live, but that would have pushed back my delay. They could emphasize internal tools for the company more, understanding that we’ll have users within our organization who should have tools before the product goes live. I really don’t have anything negative to say or big areas of improvement for them. They send me forms every month to see if there was anything they could do better. They’ve fixed everything I pointed out.  --- #### Web Development for Online Hiring Service **The Project** - Services: Web Development - Project size: $50,000 to $199,999 - Project length: Dec. 2014 - June 2015 **Project Summary**: Crema conducted full-stack development for a website with part-time job listings, allocating five resources to create, test, and deploy a functional MVP.  **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 4.5 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** CEO, HipHire - Industry: Other industries - Client size: 1-10 Employees - Review Type: Phone Interview - Verified **The Review** — May 11, 2017 **Feedback Summary**: Since launching, the website has experienced no bugs or technical breaks, thanks to Crema’s forward-thinking design process. The team’s complete transparency and ability to focus on product longevity ensured a successful solution.  ""I can't say enough good things about their project management."" **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there. I’m the CEO of HipHire. The best way to think about the company is as a Match.com for part-time blue- and white-collar jobs that tend to have high turnover in industries like restaurants, retail, and logistics.  **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema? We wanted to find the right company that could interpret market research in order to focus and build the right product based on my 14 months of data. It wasn’t the traditional "I have a problem. I'm hoping you can help me solve this. Here's what I think the solution is." I had already derisked a lot of the typical things that a firm might be concerned about.  **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement? Crema provided a frontend and a backend engineer, a product owner in charge of product design, and a project manager, so it was roughly five people over the course of this initial stage. In the early stages, the product architect helped deconstruct all of the research I had done and the validated concept I came up with and put together what we thought the initial solution would look like. To them, the most important thing was less about the tech and more about ensuring that we're building the right minimal viable product (MVP) out of the gate that will solve the problem and allow me to get traction. It wasn’t something to put out there with missing things and traction issues. They were really focused on making sure that I had a viable product that could start functioning from day one. It didn't have all the bells and whistles, and we didn't need all that; it just needed to be the MVP, and that was important. What they built originally for me was a web platform. It was mobile-responsive because I have a marketplace business with a side for businesses and another for job seekers, so it needed to respond to the technology that both of those types of groups tend to leverage when looking for part-time jobs. The technology was important because I wanted to make sure that we were leveraging not the latest and greatest but were using a core technology that we're going to be sitting on for the next five or six years, and that was their skill set and strength. It wasn't leading-edge, where 1% of developers were using the platform, nor was it an older technology that's been around for a while. I know it was built in JavaScript, Heroku, and a couple of other technologies. The solution was more about the vision and understanding user functionality. That's where I feel Crema is very strong. It's not just fixing the leaky pipe and then realizing there's another leak further down. They’re able to see the bigger picture and understand what you're trying to accomplish to make sure that it’s being incorporated into the design. That's also important because, as they see the bigger picture, they know how things are going to expand, change, and adjust, and we've accounted for that in the design. It's like we've looked at the five-year picture and shrunk it down to one year, but as you grow and build and add on, this is going to expand into that five-year vision. A lot of companies just fix for now. Then, as you push the rock down the road, you keep dealing with the problem. How did you come to work with Crema? For me, it's all about the people that I work with. I find the tech and design the easy part. I really focus on companies and people that I want to spend time with. Crema’s culture is something that's really important to me since my own background is naturally drawn to strong, culture-driven leaders and companies. That tells you a lot about a well-run, put-together organization versus just a team of people. I had met the owners of Crema through various social and entrepreneurial events here in Kansas City, so we already knew each other. I had touched base with several other design firms, but I knew the reputation of and the quality of work produced by Crema. I always had intentions to work with those folks, and there was never a reason not to. How much have you invested with Crema? We did things on a fixed cost, and then our support contracts were annual fixed cost. I know for our support costs, Crema was initially designed to be the tech company until you were able to build up your own tech firm, and then they're able to hand you off things and you can take it from there. They limit their support, at least at that time, to a set amount of hours a month. If you want more than that, it's probably time for you to build your own team and start taking things over. We had a contract that was probably $2,000 a month that included 15 or 20 hours of support that we spread out over a year. In terms of the bill, we just broke it down to one fee for the whole thing.  What is the status of this engagement? We signed the contract in December of 2014. There was about a four-month design process. We had to ramp up in January and then ramp down prior to launching. We pushed dates out, so they were done way before June of 2015. We deployed the web version in mid-June. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement? The quality of the product is the most important thing, and we never had anything break on the website that kept people from doing stuff. All of the functionality was extremely well tested and deployed. We were never in bug-fix mode. We were always ahead doing feature enhancements and improvements as part of the support contract. In the support contract, for small features that were already there, we would make slight improvements based on analytics and user feedback. Then, we might build and budget in smaller projects when we realized a feature was missing, and Crema would work that into their Scrum process. The biggest comment I always got from our customers is how well it worked. Look and feel was not as important as making sure that it was reliable, did what it was supposed to do, and people didn't just get hung up anywhere inside of it. How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint? That is one thing they are the best at. They assign you a project manager, and we would talk at least three times a week. I always knew what was coming up in the next sprint because we would always talk about in advance. They always hit all of their deadlines. They were completely open and transparent. I can't say enough good things about their project management. That is something that's so missed, and I think they're just hitting it perfectly and are only going to get better at it. What did you find most impressive about Crema? I haven't worked with a lot of other vendors. But, the difference that I see, which comes down to the technology design, is that people are only able to fix one problem. There was a recent issue that came up that I worked with another company for. They deployed a fix, but then it took me two days to deconstruct it and say, "Here's the bigger vision. This is really how it needs to work." This other group is made up of surgeons in terms of programming, but the vision process falls more on my shoulders.. In look and feel and other things, I think we've reached a little bit of parity in today's web and app development. The way Crema approaches design—thinking about the bigger picture, project management, and culture—is really where they have an advantage over companies looking past that. Are there any areas Crema could improve? That's a hard one. It may be their level of expertise. I was working with some of the newer employees, so take that for what it's worth. They were probably not as efficient, but they had other experts inside the company to fall back on. It's like you might have a new guy out of college working on your car, but he always had the 20-year mechanic to ask questions. None of that ever revealed itself in terms of design or deployment. That was taken into consideration on the bid estimate because it was giving an opportunity for newer folks to work on new technology. I'm completely transparent. If I know there's a problem, I'm always happy to make other people aware of it. But, to be honest with you, it's hard to throw rocks at these guys.  --- #### Software Development for Insurance Company **The Project** - Services: Custom Software Development, UX/UI Design - Project size: Confidential - Project length: Jan. 2025 - Mar. 2026 **Project Summary**: Crema was responsible for the full design and development of an insurance company's new system. The team also helped with gathering functional requirements, backend technology, and user requirements. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 3.0 - Cost: 3.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** VP & Director of Certificate Operations, Insurance Company - Industry: Insurance - Client size: 10,001+ Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Mar 26, 2026 **Feedback Summary**: Crema successfully helped the client with requirement gathering, functional testing, UAT, and sprint delivery. The team delivered on time and provided great work. They also took the time to understand the users' needs and requirements. Moreover, they communicated via online meetings. ""The team was constantly partnering with us to ensure success."" **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there.I’m the VP and director of certificate operations at an insurance company. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish for your insurance operations project?We needed help building a new system. **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement?Crema has been responsible for the full design and development of our new system in partnership with my company. The team has also helped us with gathering functional requirements, backend technology, user requirements, and project management.What is the team composition?We’ve worked with 6-8 teammates from Crema.How did you come to work with Crema?Someone from my company referred Crema to me. I chose them over other options because they had high ratings, were close to my geographic location, had a great culture fit, and had strong UI/UX skills. Moreover, their company values aligned with ours.How much have you invested with them?The project cost is confidential.What is the status of this engagement?We started working together in January 2025-March 2026. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?Crema has helped us with requirement gathering, functional testing, UAT, and sprint delivery.How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?Crema is very thorough. The team has delivered on time and provided great work. We communicate via virtual meetings.What did you find most impressive about them?Crema has taken the time to understand the needs of our users and our requirements. The team was constantly partnering with us to ensure success.Are there any areas they could improve?The only thing they could improve is speeding up the timeline. --- #### Operating Model Transition for Insurance Regulator **The Project** - Services: Business Consulting - Project size: Confidential - Project length: July 2025 - Feb. 2026 **Project Summary**: Crema helped an insurance regulatory organization transition to a centralized, product-oriented operating model. They delivered a current-state assessment, product playbooks, and a change and rollout roadmap. **Review Rating**: 4.5 - Quality: 4.5 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** CTO, National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) - Industry: Insurance - Client size: 501-1,000 Employees - Review Type: Online Review **The Review** — Feb 26, 2026 **Feedback Summary**: Crema's engagement resulted in a completed current-state assessment, improved leadership and team alignment, a validated centralized product organization and ownership model, documented playbooks, and a phased roadmap. The team kept things moving. ""Tucker is great and has a great style and valuable insights."" **BACKGROUND** Introduce your business and what you do there.I’m the CTO of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). We support insurance regulators by establishing standards, coordinating oversight, and providing data and analysis to protect consumers and ensure fair, competitive insurance markets. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What challenge were you trying to address with Crema?We needed help moving toward a product-focused organization. **SOLUTION** What was the scope of their involvement?Crema helped us transition to a centralized, product-oriented operating model, moving away from siloed, project-centric delivery toward consistent product leadership, governance, and execution. The team delivered a current-state assessment, target organizational structure, product/platform ownership model, role and leadership definitions, product operating model, prioritization and governance frameworks, enablement framework, product playbooks and templates, change and rollout roadmap, leadership alignment materials, consolidated recommendations, launch roadmap, and workshop artifacts.What is the team composition?We worked with 2–5 teammates from Crema.How did you come to work with Crema?Someone referred Crema to me. Additionally, the CEO and founder of Crema is on the same KC Tech Council Advisory Board.What is the status of this engagement?We worked together from July 2025–February 2026. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?Crema’s engagement resulted in a completed current-state assessment, improved leadership and team alignment, a validated centralized product organization and ownership model, documented playbooks, and a phased roadmap to launch the product operating model, positioning NAIC for execution rather than delivering direct performance metrics yet. We also identified some alignment challenges that need to be resolved before moving forward.How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?Crema delivered on time. We communicated via virtual meetings.What did you find most impressive about them?Tucker is great and has a great style and valuable insights. The team always kept things moving.Are there any areas they could improve?No, there aren’t any. --- #### Business Services for Digital Agency **The Project** - Services: Business Consulting - Project size: Confidential - Project length: Nov. 2023 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: A digital agency has hired Crema for business services. The team provided consultancy for product and engineering leadership and strengthened goal alignment and productivity. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** President & COO, Mylo LLC - Industry: Financial services - Client size: 51-200 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Dec 15, 2023 **Feedback Summary**: Crema's work has increased the engagement and accountability of team members. Crema's team is punctual and responsive via in-person and virtual meetings. The client also praises the team's culture, energy, and ability to understand their needs. ""ll deliverables for the project have been delivered on time."" **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and position.I am the President and COO of Mylo LLCDescribe what your company does in a single sentence.Mylo is an award-winning digital agency amplifying insurance for to protect what matters to small businesses and individuals. **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish?Facilitate workshop to engage leaders on product and engineering execution excellence.Evaluation of Agile methodology **SOLUTION** How did you find Crema?ReferralWhy did you select Crema over others?Great culture fitCompany values alignedHow many teammates from Crema were assigned to this project?2-5 EmployeesDescribe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.Facilitate and create engaging discussion for product and engineering leadership in a workshop to strengthen alignment of goals and improve team communication to increase project execution velocity and quality. **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?Project is still ongoing, but immediate increase in engagement and accountability of team members.Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?All deliverables for the project have been delivered on time and they are very responsive.What was your primary form of communication with Crema?In-Person MeetingVirtual MeetingEmail or Messaging AppWhat did you find most impressive or unique about this company?Culture and energy. It felt like they were becoming members of the team and truly understood our needs.Are there any areas for improvement or something Crema could have done differently?None that come to mind. --- #### UI/UX Design Services for Financial Services Company **The Project** - Services: Business Consulting, UX/UI Design - Project size: $10,000 to $49,999 - Project length: Oct. - Dec. 2023 **Project Summary**: Crema provided UI/UX design services for a financial services company. The team created a vision for the company's frontend employee experience. **Review Rating**: 5.0 - Quality: 5.0 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 5.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** SVP Digital Strategy, Financial Services Company - Industry: Financial services - Client size: 501-1,000 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Dec 14, 2023 **Feedback Summary**: The client was pleased with the final product, which was aligned with their vision.  Crema was easy to communicate with and delivered the project on time. The team leveraged their  Product Mindset expertise to ensure quality results. ""They help facilitate a process to understand and paint a picture of a transformative vision."" **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and position. I am the SVP Digital Strategy of a financial services company Describe what your company does in a single sentence.Credit Union **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crema to accomplish?Paint a Vision for our Front Line Employee Experience Transformation **SOLUTION** How did you find Crema?Worked with Crema in PastWhy did you select Crema over others?High ratingsGreat culture fitCompany values alignedHow many teammates from Crema were assigned to this project?2-5 EmployeesDescribe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.Identify Guiding Principles for North Star Employee Experience Through the use of Process/Stories, define the Conceptual UI/Vision for the North Star Employee Experience **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?A vision and presentation that helped provide guide posts for future vision.Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?Project Deliverables were delivered on time. Communication was easy and always felt in touch with progress of the project.What was your primary form of communication with Crema?In-Person MeetingVirtual MeetingEmail or Messaging AppWhat did you find most impressive or unique about this company?Bring a Product Mindset and push us beyond our normal “thinking”. They help facilitate a process to understand and paint a picture of a transformative vision.Are there any areas for improvement or something Crema could have done differently?No areas of improvement. --- #### UI/UX Design for Project Management Platform **The Project** - Services: UX/UI Design - Project size: $10,000 to $49,999 - Project length: Jan. 2021 - Ongoing **Project Summary**: Crema designed the UI/UX of a project management platform. The goal was to have a usable and aesthetically pleasing product that incorporates brand standards. **Review Rating**: 4.5 - Quality: 4.5 - Schedule: 5.0 - Cost: 4.0 - Willing to Refer: 5.0 **The Reviewer** Founder, Project Management Platform - Industry: Other industries - Client size: 1-10 Employees - Review Type: Online Review - Verified **The Review** — Feb 2, 2021 **Feedback Summary**: Taking on an ambiguous scope and delivering on time and within budget was the highlight of Crema's involvement. The team was responsive and had an effective workflow. Ultimately, their output exceeded the expectations of the client. ""They have timely responses and proactive planning." " **BACKGROUND** Please describe your company and your position there. I am the founder of a management consulting firm  **OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE** For what projects/services did your company hire Crema? To assist with the product design of the project management platform and incorporate the brand standards into a digital project in Miro. What were your goals for this project? To have a product ready for market within a month that was usable and aesthetically acceptable. **SOLUTION** How did you select Crema? Refered from the software vendor Miro., Describe the project in detail. Very short engagement 4 weeks Strategic discussion to develop Scope 4 iterations on deliverables final review and sign-off What was the team composition? Founder, Marketing department and Crema **RESULTS & FEEDBACK** Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success? Complete on time and on budget. Exceeded expectations on quality of scope. How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs? Very effective. They have timely responses and proactive planning. What did you find most impressive about this company? Their ability to take very ambiguous scope and a tight timeline and budget that delivered results. Are there any areas for improvement? Contracting and payment were painful due to international realities. --- ## Portfolio & Awards ### Positioning a Rapid-Growth Startup for Acquisition When Crema connected with the founder of ProfessionalChats, Scott Hansen, they were a small business with explosive growth. The business had strong month-over-month sales, but the technology they used to start the business was not holding up to the rising demand put on the system and their team. In order to bolster support for growth and defend their position in the market, the ProfessionalChats team entrusted Crema to help solve many of their technology challenges over several years of working together. Objectives and Goals To rebuild the bootstrapped platform of off-the-shelf technology into a proprietary chat system capable of meeting the demands of their growing business while improving chat performance, scalability, HIPAA compliance, employee efficiency and accuracy, and improved customer experience. ‍ All of these improvements would not happen overnight. Our team worked to prioritize the product development process to solve the largest challenges first, while supporting the day-to-day technical operations of growth for ProfessionalChats. ‍ Concurrently, the teams needed to ensure that current customers did not lose any sense of value from the system. We worked closely on a transition plan from the old platform to the new, monitoring for performance and creating contingency plans.‍ Knowing that the ProfessionalChats platform needed to be HIPAA-compliant, our teams worked closely together and with trusted outside partners to review the data security and storage requirements for compliance. This even included switching to a new chat platform and iterating on the product to fit a new workflow. Results 1000% revenue growth during the time we worked together. Scaled from 10 employees to 150 employees to support hundreds of new customers. Ability to enter into new markets with a HIPAA-compliant chat system. Company acquisition by Ruby Receptionists in Portland, Oregon. Integration of the ProfessionalChats system into the Ruby Receptionist system is actively underway. ### Prototype & Technical Plan - WorkSmart.ai WorkSmart.ai is prepared to disrupt the retail intelligence sector. Traditionally, retailer POS data is the primary source of data being monetized in the market, but WorkSmart.ai identified that most retailers are not capturing their fair share of the revenue. As a data and intelligence monetization company, WorkSmart.ai helps businesses build a better data and intelligence ecosystem with their marketplace-as-a-service platform.   In April 2019, Crema and WorkSmart.ai set out to design and test the initial vision of the product, as well as identify a technical plan to bring the solution to market.   In April of 2019, our teams set out on a 6 week engagement to:   Identify a product strategy and design that could prove out the concept, allure potential customers, and create a path for development Test the product designs with real users to gather data & inform the product roadmap for the initial build of the product Create a technical plan to accompany the product roadmap for the WorkSmart.ai platform       Today, WorksSmart.ai is equipped with a professional brand, a modern clickable prototype, and a comprehensive technical plan that will act as a catalyst to pitch to potential investors and begin the development of their MVP.   WorkSmart.ai’s solution is powered by an innovative technical stack and end-to-end services that centralize creation, accelerate go-to-market, and generate new revenue at scale. You can learn more about WorkSmart.ai here. ### A Design Sprint to Increase Velocity & Buy-In In Q4 2019, a Senior Product Manager at a Major Retail Chain (hereby known as the Client) was looking at his roadmap for a customer experience that they hoped to redesign by late Q3 2020. In order for the development team to hit this timeline, designs had to be done in Q2, which meant that the new product direction would need to be done in Q1, only a few months away. In other words, they needed solutions fast. For this reason, he began looking up companies that could help run a Design Sprint with their team.   Pre-Engagement Our teams met regularly leading up to the kickoff date to make sure all parties were aligned on expectations, schedules, and deliverables. ‍ ‍ Days 1-3 Each day from 10 am - 4 pm, the team would be fully present for the collaborative workshops. Knowing that Design Sprints are a large time commitment, it was important that the Client’s team had 8-10 am to take care of other pressing items. Not only this, but both the 8-10 am and 4-5 pm times hosted essential stakeholder conversations that gave crucial context into the work that had been, and was yet to be, completed. ‍ ‍ Post-Workshops After designs were finalized, the Client immediately hosted a large-scale stakeholder review to receive suggestions & buy-in from the team before moving forward. The designs were finalized and presented to users for feedback. With user feedback in place, the Client presented their work & findings to key stakeholders to hear any further suggestions and finalize next steps.   With this feedback, the team integrated the most successful parts of 2019’s experience with the new designs, resulting in a richer and more robust set of designs. These designs were approved by the Client stakeholder team, and are currently being implemented to be rolled out in late 2020.     ‍ ### Developing a Design System for Healthcare Founded in 2006, symplr is an industry leader in compliance and credentialing software solutions that help healthcare organizations mitigate risk and ensure compliance. Over the last year, they acquired additional products and needed to unify their product experiences with the creation of a UI component library.   symplr and Crema collaborated to design & develop a UI component library for their Form Builder product. This included designing and developing essential UI components while considering any necessary UX changes within the Form Builder tool to allow for sustainable and unified development moving forward.   As symplr has grown to lead the healthcare compliance & credentialing industry, they have acquired key players in the space to increase their market share and value. As with any type of merger, there are complications when bringing disparate products together.   In the instance of the Form Builder tool, the product team at symplr was running up against project impediments during the development process due to a lack of reusable components. There was also a desire for more unification in the product suite to increase velocity down the road, as well as a need to leverage user feedback within the overall roadmap.     Crema was approached to bridge the gap between where the Form Builder tool was & where they wanted to go.   Our goals were: Remove development blockers by delivering essential UI components Continue momentum towards the unification of reusable products and standards across the symplr tool suite Utilize existing user feedback to guide component-focused UI/UX decisions, while being mindful of symplr’s goal for longterm integration Our teams were able to accomplish the original goals of the engagement – creating a UI library to unify the product suite. At the end of the 6 weeks, symplr walked away with: A UI component library delivered in GitHub HTML/CSS and SCSS files for the components All final designs delivered via Sketch & InVision ### Simplifying Complex Energy Projects When our teams set out to work together in January 2019, we had determined there were immense opportunities to learn from each other and design a beautiful and useful UI to validate the platform. We began with a full-day Strategy & Alignment session to unpack Diode’s business model, desires, and initial vision for the product. Once those assets were organized, our teams worked together to: Design and prototype a clickable product experience that demonstrates an improved workflow for the Diode team Outline a product roadmap for the initial release of the product Create a high-level technical plan to develop the platform ‍ Our teams focused on the early stage project workflow & client experience of the platform during this time. In a later phase, we collaborated on an updated marketing site that would help to improve their positioning and client onboarding to the platform and marketing to their target audiences. It became clear in the initial weeks of this engagement that the platform was far more complex than originally expected. To simplify a robust workflow is no easy task, and it took the minds of all team members to identify the most important elements to focus on and refine. There were opportunities to go deep on some features, and shallow on others in order to validate the product experience as a whole. ‍ Our teams were also able to pioneer a new concept for planning financials in asset development that could be tested with stakeholders. This is still being considered and socialized around the organization, but it was a result of tight-knit collaboration between product strategy, design, and industry knowledge. At the end of the engagement, Crema presented the prototype to the entire team to cast a vision for the future. It was valuable for stakeholders to see what the product could actually look like, and compare this to their current day-to-day operations. This created buy-in from the whole team and team alignment to move forward. ### Custom Workflow Software for Lockton Companies Ultimately, our teams created a custom presentation template solution for Lockton that converts CXML to InDesign files for a subset of document types. Crema created a frontend interface that draws on Typefi’s platform and allows Lockton users to go through and choose a base template to then customize with their own data. The user can then go back in and rerun all the presentation on their own without having to engage with the design team for edits. Once the data is pulled in, the user can download their final document as a PDF created in InDesign. The download comes with all of the style and branding details that’s consistent with Lockton’s brand guidelines.   Perhaps most compelling of all is the time and cost savings as a result of this workflow solution. It’s projected that a process that once took 12 hours will be reduced down to 15 minutes. The cost savings from this initial product will open up Lockton’s design and account management teams to be more creative and drive more impact for the business.   Currently in beta, the product is being introduced to more users within the organization, and iterations are being made to support additional needs. ‍ ### tilr | Skills meets jobs tilr fully automates the recruitment process by matching worker skills to company requirements. They differentiate themselves by vetting and providing on-demand workers based on skills, not job titles. ‍ A founding team with a vision to change hiring forever. By working closely with the founding tilr team, Crema partnered to refine the brand and create a product experience for both workers and companies. We built an API that drives matching skills to opportunities, work shifts, and payments. Eventually, Crema built the web, iOS, and Android builds for the platform we iterated through releases toward market validation. Crema served as the product team for tilr for the first two years the platform existed, and worked hand-in-hand with the founding team as an extension of their team. ‍ Algorithmic-based hiring on skills, not resumes. ‍ tilr entered into a market dominated by traditional hiring processes involving resumé bias, long wait times between job postings and fulfillment, along with other challenges that prohibited connecting job seekers and employers. Up front, tilr knew the solution had to involve algorithmic-based hiring on skills, not resumes, for effective and efficient job placement. Creating an accessible platform that efficiently onboarded and connected job seekers with employers was the core challenge that needed to be solved. ‍ "Crema is great at pushing me to do the right thing for my company, as opposed to doing the right thing for them."— Luke Vigeant, Former CTO, tilrtech is a tool, we're building ventures. ### One central experience for a suite of services The Challenge of MSSIn a time of increasing threats and a proliferation of technologies promising answers, Kudelski’s Managed Security Services (MSS) Portal needed to demonstrate key offerings:Beautiful: Is it finely crafted and presented? Functional: does it seamlessly connect different offerings? Robust: is it able to handle heavy customer usage? Flexible: can it meet different consumer needs? Quick: can it respond to customer inputs rapidly? Crema was asked to design, prototype, test, build and deploy a new service called MSS Portal, which took all the different tools their clients had to use and pulled them into one, easy to use centralized tool - with the end goal to make security more effective and remove complexity for the end user. We created a design system that was consistent and clear across every view in the solution, providing valuable insight and depth into their MSS services and security posture across a global client base. In Q3 of 2018, Forester Reports reviewed 10 emerging MSSP's in the market ranking Kudelski among the top two A platform that's positive, not fear based. Kudelski Security received its highest scores in the following criteria: business and technical value reporting capabilities (including dashboard and user interface) artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, automation user experience road map and talent management. Crema continues to support the product with a maintenance and design retainer. ### The leading platform for physicians to find jobs The leading platform transforming how physicians find jobs gets a needed transformation. PhysEmp (short for Physicians Employment) has been connecting physicians with employers since 1991. Originally starting out as a print magazine, founder Bob Truog evolved his offering to the early days of the Internet with great success. Since then, PhysEmp has been the industry-leading platform connecting talented physicians with employers and recruiters across the nation. Today, the platform allows physicians to search over 24,000 jobs in more than 200 specialties and subspecialties in all 50 states. What sets PhysEmp apart Other job aggregators aren’t built to support the needs of physicians or the recruiters looking to place them in jobs. PhysEmp was created to uniquely support this population. PhysEmp has been around for decades, and has built meaningful connections & trust with physicians, hospitals, practices, and recruiters every step of the way. They meet physicians and recruiters where they are – offering an efficient and relevant job board available across devices. There are no placement fees that other competitors require. ‍ ### Simplifying medication management & wellness We worked with a Chronic Condition Management (CCM) company helping high-risk patients better manage their medication and overall wellness.   Their unique approach connects patients directly with licensed pharmacists to make sure medications are safe, affordable, and effective. These services help self-insured employers reduce costs while supporting their employees facing the overwhelming health and financial obstacles associated with chronic illness.   Since its inception, the client's model has been to build personal care plans with a "white glove" touch. Keeping to this core principle, they needed to extend their capabilities with modern technology.  By increasing engagement and enabling patients to adhere more closely to recommendations, they could achieve better patient outcomes. ‍ Core challenges: Face-to-face pharmacist follow-up calls don't scale well and they can't happen daily, or even weekly Create alternate venues for patients to connect with pharmacists & doctors Enable patients to access & follow recommendations more easily Add another tool to the client's marketability, helping them stay competitive Make crucial healthcare information more accessible Allow patients better visibility into existing benefits Develop a full range of connected offerings for a more holistic picture of health   The final result wasn’t just a healthcare app,  but a robust wellness platform that tracks activity, sets health goals, sends medication reminders, and delivers custom care plans written by pharmacists.Beyond supporting patients, the app helps self-insured companies save by preventing unnecessary doctors visits and recommending generic medications over name brand, leading to an average company savings in the six-figure range. ### A Custom Growth Platform for Consulting Clients SBI is a revenue growth consultancy that brings extensive data and practical knowledge to deliver strategies that help clients scale fast.Their team approached Crema after they identified an opportunity to create greater client impact & boost operational efficiency: a custom platform with self-serve, digital diagnostics.Some of the core objectives of the product were to:  Reduce the manual hours spent finding and determining benchmarks Boost client engagement throughout the partnership lifetime Create a centralized hub for clients providing weekly and daily workflows Nudge clients if they aren’t effectively tracking towards their set goals See the final result of the SBI Pro digital product in this case study. ### Expanding a Market on Mobile and Web - Solarhood As the Solarhood team was forming inside the larger organization, there was a desire to create a distinct solar brand and validate that the concept would be welcomed by consumers. With growing competition from tech powerhouses, the Solarhood team wanted to move quickly and efficiently and decided to hire an outside team. That’s where Crema came in. ‍   Over the course of several years, our two teams collaborated on multiple phases of the Solarhood product. Each of these phases have presented market opportunities that are continuing to evolve today. The phases Crema was involved in broke down as follows: Product Branding, Prototyping and Validation Mobile Development Revitilization, B2B exploration   Mobile and Web Development, Continued Validation When our two teams began working together in late 2016, the original focus was to further refine the Solarhood product concept and design unique product branding that is still being used to this day. By creating a high-fidelity mobile prototype and testing it with real users to glean feedback on the application, we were able to measure a response on the product in two solar markets – Kansas City and Portland. Mobile Development Revitilization This phase of work, beginning in late 2018, opened up a new type of partnership between Solarhood and Crema. Crema was asked to continue to support the Solarhood product with a lean, full-stack team, made up of product strategy, design, development, test engineering, and product management, to reach core metrics for their mobile app.   ‍ Today, Solarhood is available on the web and for download on all iOS and Android devices. With their robust tech stack and flexible design language, they’re positioned well to scale quickly consistently exploring new geographic regions, customer segments, and additional revenue models. The Solarhood team also continues producing engaging, informative solar information across many different channels, educating consumers on the benefits of going solar. ### Industry Recognitions - Fast Company: Innovation by Design Award - Great Place To Work - Fortune 100 Best Small Workplaces - Ingrams Corporate Report Top 100 - KCBJ Fastest Growing Tech Companies - Kansas City Business Journal Fast 50 - INC 5000 ## Key Clients - Lockton Companies ## Packages ## About the Team ### Our Story Co-Founders George Brooks & Dan Linhart started Crema in 2009 with a simple vision: to build the company they'd want to work for. What began with UX design quickly evolved as clients asked us to build the products we designed. Today, while many businesses have developers or even full-stack teams, they often desire a clear vision or stronger product leadership. We step in to asses, coach, and provide support from strategy to execution.  ## Locations (1) ### Kansas City, MO (Headquarters) - 2101 Broadway Blvd - Kansas City, MO 64108 - United States - 31 - 40 employees - Phone: 816-307-1158 ## Connections - Tanay Gupta (ASYVA InfoTech) - Rachel Attebery (Diode Ventures | A Black & Veatch Company) - Mark Carney (Evolve Security) - Shalaka Teli (Gadre Infotech Pvt. Ltd.) - Scott Morris (National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)) ## Contact Crema [Send a message](https://clutch.co/profile/crema) ### Connect on Social - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/cremalab) - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/CremaLab/) - [X](http://www.twitter.com/cremalab) - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/cremalab/)