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BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a full-service web development, marketing, and advertising agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Web Creative Media?

We needed help with several UX/UI developments.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I use them as a subcontracting partner. The team has provided a lot of app development from functionality to making the frontend communicate with the backend database. For example, we’ve done a website for a recruiting agency and another for a roofing and window company. The technologies they work in include WordPress, JavaScript, Bootstrap, and AngularJS.

What is the team composition?

I communicate with one main contact.

How did you come to work with Web Creative Media?

I found them on a freelancer platform. Their communication and availability were what led me to work with them. The team was also familiar with project management tools that are important to me. Additionally, I checked their references and reviews, and I heard generally positive feedback.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2014, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They make my life a lot easier. I don’t like dealing with all of the nitty-gritty things that they do.

How did Web Creative Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Trello, Skype, and Slack. I can point them in the right direction in plain language and they’re able to complete the project the way that I want.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication and quality of work really set them apart.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could cut me a break on the price. I justify it in my head but I know I can get the work done overseas for cheaper.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Nordicomm Technologies. We are a consultancy company and we develop products. We’ve developed more than 12 products for different customers all around the world. Currently, we are focusing on developing our own product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Web Creative Media?

We were looking for a team or a group of people who could work as consultants to take care of our frontend of the website and help us build the vision for developing an app for that website as well.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our requirement was for them to build the frontend in ReactJS. It needed to be hosted on AWS, so we worked together and launched the app very quickly using Amplify and some serverless architecture—they were very useful there. 

There were some third-party integrations such as Mailchimp and Intercom, as well as Google Analytics and Google Task Manager and they helped us with those. We also had some designs already built-in so they helped us refine the mobile version of the design as well. Typically, developers just build the website without considering the mobile version, but they did. 

They helped us find out what the issues were with the mobile version of the website and then customized it; it was like they did double the work to make sure that our needs were met.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with two people from their team.

How did you come to work with Web Creative Media?

Abdul (Founder) and I had some common friends and he shared some of his Upwork customer feedback on his LinkedIn. The customer feedback seemed quite honest, so I decided to approach them.

What is the status of this engagement?

I approached them in February 2020, and they’re now working on the maintenance of the website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I think they did a good job. It is all about how well you understand and adapt yourself to the company that has hired you. I don’t feel like I hired consultants; it feels like the people working for us are team members. 

How did Web Creative Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They were really good at communication. We had different mediums that we used; we used Slack and whenever they had questions, they could ask the designer in the Slack channel. We had a backend team channel where they could talk with our backend developers for API integration and other things. 

We also had one-on-one communication through Slack as well. They were available during the weekend and that was one of the reasons that we hired them. We were in a phase where we were working on the weekends as well. In order to keep communication fluent, we also used WhatsApp, but it isn’t a medium to discuss matters about the work itself. We used it more to see if someone was available or not.

Overall, everyone requires some room for improvement because everyone has their own way of working. I appreciate that they learned our way of working and adapted accordingly. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very respectful. Even if we had differences, they didn’t make us feel awkward to discuss it with them. Sometimes it can be a little awkward to tell someone that there are changes needed. They were very open about sharing their differences with our designs and what they thought about it, which I appreciated. Sometimes people aren’t very happy to hear criticisms but I like it in the design so that I can improve it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re a small team and they keep learning day to day activities one step at a time. There is lots of room for improvement, but I think the key thing if I worked with them next time would be to make the task line a little clearer. 

For example, our work was of a nature that required real-time integration so it couldn’t be estimated. We couldn’t follow a scrum model with them, and we followed more of a Kanban model mostly. Generally, if I am to work with them in the future, I would like to see how more of a scrum model would go. 

It isn’t that they aren’t capable of running a scrum model with us, but it is just that a scrum model is useful because you can estimate something and run a sprint over it. The problem with this project was that we didn’t know how to estimate the work which we gave to them since there were too many real-time changes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a commodity brokerage that specializes in risk management solutions for agribusiness.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Web Creative Media?

We were trying to build an in-depth and analytical software system, so I set out looking for developers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Web Creative Media did a lot of backend work with some AI capabilities. It’s a web portal that manages different user levels and fetches futures prices. We have a risk matrix in there that has a lot of complex calculations involved. They took 20 Excel spreadsheets I made and turned them into a clean software program. While we do have a few clients that use it, but it’s for mostly internal use.

What is the team composition?

We only worked with Abdul (Founder).

How did you come to work with Web Creative Media?

I found them on Upwork. Abdul seemed very competent and responsive. He was also reasonable about the price.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in May 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s a logical system that works great. There’s nothing more than I can ask for it to do. It’s been about five years now, so it’s due for an update. Once I finish my current project with them, I’m going to have them do a refresh and update the UI.

How did Web Creative Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We did everything on Skype. There are differences in time and native languages, but Skype made everything easier. Abdul is responsive, keeping me informed on what’s happening. I don’t know if he ever sleeps because he’s always available.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Web Creative Media built a nice piece of software.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Abdul built what I asked for. At this point, I’m curious about what he’s capable of since technologies have advanced. I truly have no complaints.