Darwin

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

At the time, I worked in the company’s operations; I oversaw the web development and design teams, as well as any contractors hired to do major development and design projects on our web properties.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Previous to hiring Darwin, we had worked with another web development and design studio who’d advised the use of (what turned out to be) a little-known publishing platform.

This decision became an issue after we launched our new site, because as time went on, we realized that not many web developers (both back- and front-end) were familiar with this platform, so long-term our in-house staff were having issues doing work on our sites after launch.

We hired Darwin to accomplish the Herculean task of redesigning our current properties onto WordPress, and then to also migrate a huge amount of existing content into the new sites.

Darwin was also extremely helpful in implementing security measures, moving us to AWS, and maintaining a wonderful vendor relationship that included helping to solve “emergency” website issues that were beyond the scope of a mid-level web dev and required web engineers.

SOLUTION

How did you select Darwin and what were the deciding factors?

I had known of Darwin’s work for at least 5 years previous to the project mentioned here, and had worked with them as a vendor via previous employers.

Even so, we did send them an RFP, and they responded with so much professionalism and thought into not only our media properties, but also who we were and how to assist long-term business operational needs, that it was no question that Darwin was the partner we wanted.

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

We had a kick-off meeting to make sure we were all on the same page regarding the project; we set goals, deliverable dates, etc. Darwin introduced their project lead and POC for our team, and they presented shared documents so that we, as their customer, could see where Darwin’s team was on task lists per media property and more of the nitty-gritty details on their team’s work.

We had weekly check-ins with the Darwin team, though of course some deliverables needed our team’s input and we’d speak more on a daily basis during some weeks of development and design. We would give feedback pretty much live, i.e. as their work progressed, as this project’s timeline was very short for this type, and scope, of work.

As the development and design of our sites was completed, Darwin would hand the “keys to the kingdom” to our in-house developers and make sure they were comfortable with what had been created.

As for the technologies used on this project — Darwin custom-built a tool to migrate our sites from the little-known platform to WordPress, after custom-building WordPress to match the design of our current sites.

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

A project manager was our main point-of-contact during our projects with Darwin, and at least 3 full-stack developers and web engineers (with design knowledge), were working behind-the-scenes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our stress levels surrounding our media sites went significantly down since our project hand-off with Darwin.

Our site traffic was actually measurable, clickthroughs were up, we loved the infinite scroll functionality they developed for us, and the sites were incredibly quick to load on every device and browser (even though they were media rich/heavy).

The platform’s backend was developed to be user-friendly for journalists and their editors to upload content. We couldn’t have been happier.

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

We had at least once-weekly meetings with Darwin’s project manager, who would then communicate to the rest of their team. For daily communication, we’d use Slack and Google Sheets, as well as GitHub for assets that needed floating between our teams.

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

Darwin’s team is friendly and approachable, and do well working/communicating with people who may not be as knowledgeable in the web development field as they are. Darwin clearly thinks “big picture,” making sure that their solutions line up with your business’ needs.

Plus, their final products are easy-to-use and the Darwin team makes sure that their customers not only understand how to use them, but are actually *comfortable* — a rare quality.

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

Nothing very specific that I can think of regarding improvement — there were occasionally some minor human errors, but as soon as Darwin or one of our team members noticed them, any errors would be remedied quickly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Evault was a subsidiary of Seagate Technology and I came into the role of Manager for the web platform and experience as part of the marketing organization. My role was to build/maintain, expand, and deliver brand awareness and leads for the marketing team via the global corporate web properties.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hire Darwin to help the corporate website for the company's new branding, and global expansion to many language sites. Once completed, additional functionality was needed in order to help drive marketing leads via personalization and user experience.

SOLUTION

How did you select Darwin and what were the deciding factors?

Overall, Darwin was selected because of their teams ability to help scale the project technically and rapidly while staying within our budget. The team at Darwin helped translate our marketing goals into a comprehensive set of technical requirements. Through their efforts, we were able to add personalization for our global audiences which later enable us to initiate our ABM strategy.

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

During my tenure in the role, there were several goals that needed to be accomplished. At the foundational level, we needed a web infrastructure that is robust, easy to work with, and cost effective.

We selected WordPress as it was cost effective and a smaller learning curve for the rest of the marketing team. However, we also need specific functionalities and provide some integration points to many of the platforms within our marketing tech stack.

Due to the many language sites, we needed a way to easily accommodate our translation and localization process. Lastly, we need to provide a personalized experience for our audiences in each language sites, which enable us to take one step further and activate our ABM strategy.

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

Interaction was with key members of the Darwin team including their brilliant technologist and various project managers for each separate projects. Additionally, we had other members of the Darwin team to support with technical maintenance on a day-to-day basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

My impressive working with Darwin was a positive experience. We were able to achieve all the goals that I set out to accomplish when I started my role. Through our collaborative efforts, we did it all in a very fast paced and often ever evolving environment while staying within tight deadlines and budgets.

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

As there were many global sites to maintain, we needed a sun never sets support. From an day-to-day operative perspective, Darwin was able to provide that service because of their unique business model and helped the team avoid severe backlogs. On more complex projects, we leverage Trello to manage and communicate key milestones.

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

What I found most impressive part of the company is their truthfulness, responsiveness, and creative solutions. I valued their matter of approach when it came to accessing the various projects and allowed me to easily manage my department budget.

I never had to wonder if I put myself in a situation where I will not be able to find additional budget in order to finish a projects because we were tether at every step thus avoiding surprises, and when a change is needed they were able to help find creative solutions to maintain timelines while meeting requirements.

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

In my experience with the role and working with Darwin, I found that in a chaotic environment with competing priorities, Darwin has the ability to help solve them all.

As much as they are willing to help, we found ourselves being too helpful and adding workload burden that was not necessary. Setting communicating a priority and expectation classification up front would have been an easy resolution.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior manager of growth marketing at a commercial real estate software company. We license software to commercial real estate landlords and brokers to help them facilitate their day-to-day. Our solution is similar to Salesforce but for a different market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Darwin?

We hired Darwin a number of years ago to develop our marketing website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Darwin built our WordPress site to make sure that it looked attractive and functioned correctly. They used HTML and CSS on the frontend, though I’m not sure about the backend. Currently, they’re creating HTML emails for us to run in Marketo. The team has also set up our analytics and reporting in Marketo and Google Cloud Manager.

What is the team composition? 

Jeff (VP of Production) is my main point of contact for the day-to-day work, and Aleksandr (CTO) comes in for the more technical questions.

How did you come to work with Darwin?

The decision to work with them predates me. I believe someone had referred us to them.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started to work with them in March 2020, and we’re still working together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, I’m happy with the level of quality that Darwin has performed for us. Their team is quick, flexible, and great to work with. I’ve never had a problem with getting a fast turnaround, either.

How did Darwin perform from a project management standpoint?

I enjoy working with Jeff since he’s always willing to hop on a call to talk through an issue. Sometimes, it takes a few rounds of feedback, but that’s natural with any type of development. 

We also have a shared Slack channel to exchange thoughts and updates on projects as well as a weekly video conference. That’s when we go through any outstanding tasks and plan for the following week. They track tasks through Asana and use an internal Trello board.

In terms of meeting deadlines, they’re great at keeping to schedule. If anything is looking tight, they’ll send an update, and we understand when things have to be pushed out as a project becomes more complex. They’re also flexible enough to accommodate anything urgent that I send through.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like how flexible they are. Even though we throw a lot on their plate, they’re always willing to assist us. Our project manager has also been great to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any criticisms.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Similar to other development projects, you have to be clear about what you’re trying to do so that they have the full scope of things. If all the specifications aren’t there and there’s some wiggle room, it can take a bit longer to get things done. 

The other thing is to make sure you have a good relationship with your point of contact. Their developers are in Belarus, but having Jeff has helped us coordinate successfully.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for a leading provider of comprehensive club management solutions for clubs in North America. I am the Director of Marketing Programs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

As a marketing department, we have marketers with specialization in digital marketing, programs marketing, product marketing, but it is very difficult to find someone with marketing skills that also has an engineering or developer background.

We hired Darwin to help us on projects where we needed technical expertise to come up with solutions on our website on a campaign-by-campaign basis.

SOLUTION

How did you select Darwin and what were the deciding factors?

I've worked with Darwin before. They were already hired as a vendor for a company I worked for previously. Whenever I came to this company I thought to myself, "this is what we're missing, we're missing the expertise and flexibility of a partnership like Darwin's to help us meet our goals."

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

We work on a project-by-project basis. Typically scope of work involves plug-ins/development work.

The way that we work with Darwin is typically sending an email with a heads up or light outline of what we're looking to accomplish, after that we'll schedule a kick-off call or project scoping call with Jeff Spinella (can't say enough good things about the guy!).

He helps deploy resources on his end to accomplish what we need done, whether that be installing a plugin for a specific landing page, migrating a website or even Google Analytics and tracking issues.

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

Jeff Spinella - a Project Manager, and Alex (not sure his last name). Those are the folks I've worked with!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Darwin has always delivered project on time. They are incredibly reliable! They make it easy for us to do our job and they deliver on their promises.

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

We typically just coordinate via email and one-off calls to accomplish what we need done.

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

The breadth of skills that they have - I have presented them a variety of problems and no matter what I present, they always come up with a solution. They are also incredibly agile.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I managed the execution of website development to ensure campaign landing pages, Geo-IP tracking, and other initiatives.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our website was created as an amalgamation of many products into one on a website. As so many hands had been on the site, it was imperative to ensure proper tracking and testing for the most effective marketing campaigns. A key challenge was load time; when first tested it was over 10 seconds and we needed to bring that down.

SOLUTION

How did you select Darwin and what were the deciding factors?

We worked with Darwin on filling in the gaps in data enrichment, such as geo-IP so that zip codes, city, and state so that site visitors did not have to fill in that info. At the time of our company's acquisition of another company, we needed certain landing pages and forms to work simultaneously. Along with my internal and external communication plans including social and PR, we were able to capitalize on positive momentum.

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

WordPress and custom coding were mainly used.

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

Jeff was the point of contact that facilitated any work we needed through several developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Website loading time reduced from 10 seconds to under 5 and reduction of form fields to fill out caused a lift in conversion.

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

Darwin touches based face to face weekly, and continually throughout the week.

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

The team's quest for excellence and improvement makes Darwin unique.

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

Sometimes, their developers could take better notes of the work that they've done, but that's it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Aircraft Services Group. We manage a fleet of private jets, which we manage for owners of those jets. We also, on behalf of those owners, charter them to anyone who needs to get somewhere quickly and safely.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Darwin?

They’re our primary engineers for our website, which is a funnel for our business. We do transactions through it, and people land on our site to book a flight.

We enlisted their services to maintain the site, make updates to it, and make sure we’re always running secure technologies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The website was initially built by another party. They were able to add new features and work within the design to better meet our needs for the frontend.

Along with developing our WordPress website with AWS, Darwin built a custom ticketing solution with one of our sister companies. The system allows us to offer seats and helps passengers checking in and out when they arrive for their journey.

What is the team composition?

We have two main points of contact and 3–4 engineers.

How did you come to work with Darwin?

I’ve known about them for a very long time in our area. Darwin has a reputation for working on complex and challenging jobs.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $100,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Darwin works so efficiently that they end up doing additional work for us. They’re always exceeding expectations. I now call them for any high-level, professional advice. I tell them my challenge and ask their opinion. They’re always there as an extra gut check for me.

As for the site, SEO ranking and load times improved after they optimized everything. We’ve seen an uptick in leads translating to the website since working with them.

How did Darwin perform from a project management standpoint?

I couldn’t be more pleased. When working with vendors, I’m usually very involved. Darwin is so on top of things that I don’t have to do anything myself. I just wait for them to tell me when things are done or if they need something from us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team guiding us through the ticketing system was huge. When I understood everything they were saying, they far exceed my knowledge base. While we’re able to talk shop with them, they’re also able to speak in simpler terms, making the process easier for non-technical people.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very calculated when it comes to budgets and hours. If they come back to you with a budget that doesn’t make sense for you, cut things out of scope. You need to give their team the breathing room and resources to perform. They’re the A team, and you don’t want to give the A team a C budget.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Executive Producer of (a/an) Advertising & marketing

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a production company creating commercial content for many household brands.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Website Updates
• Website Changes
• Website Functionality

SOLUTION

How did you find Darwin?

Referral

Why did you select Darwin over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

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

The Dev company that designed and created our website introduced us to Darwin to help service our website moving forward which includes making changes to the site, update, ux updates and on.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Responsive
• Effective
• Efficient

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

They always deliver on time and are extremely responsive. Could not be happier.

What was your primary form of communication with Darwin?

• Email
• Messaging App

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

I work with Sergei primarily who has been absolutely fantastic as well as the rest of his team. Their communcation and skill level is bar none.

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

Not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Director of Zeplin

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We build software that helps designers and developers collaborate

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Build and maintain our marketing website

SOLUTION

How did you find Darwin?

Referral

Why did you select Darwin over others?

High ratings, Great culture fit, Good value for cost

What was the size of Darwin’s team?

6-10 Employees

What was your primary form of communication with Darwin?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

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

Darwin builds and maintains our websites (marketing website and blog). They implemented Sanity, a content management system, for us to self-serve and update content.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Website implemented at high quality and performance

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

We send Darwin requests over Slack. Within 24 hours, they send an estimate of cost and timeline. We give them the approval. They deliver by the timeline. They are willing to expedite and prioritize timely requests. Darwin is by far the smoothest, most reliable agency experience I've ever had.

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

Darwin delivers on what they commit to, in the time that they scoped. Their work is very high caliber — in fact our designers describe their website development as pixel perfect.

Are there any areas for improvement or something {provider_name} could have done differently?

No, I can't think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a Manager of (a/an) Software

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Ecosystem integration software

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Manage website development
• Enhance website experience
• Assist with redesign

SOLUTION

How did you find Darwin?

Referral

Why did you select Darwin over others?

Referred to me

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

Darwin helps us with ongoing maintenance of our website and projects including design system improvements, core web vital optimization, and page redesigns.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Faster website
• Better user experience on the website

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

Project management can't be beat. Weekly agenda items are always prioritized appropriately, details of project scope are very clear, and communication is great - the team is always available via Slack to help with any urgent needs.

What was your primary form of communication with Darwin?

Virtual Meeting

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

The Darwin team offers a wide range of expertise that we have access to - so whether we've had to add GA4 tracking or build a new dynamic page in Drupal, the appropriate person was always assigned to help make the project a success.

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

N/A