Eight Bit Studios

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

The application is a nonprofit platform that gets people to give a small amount of money per day to a curated list of nonprofits.

What is your position?

I'm the founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eight Bit Studios?

I wanted to lower the barriers of entry for people who would like to start giving to nonprofits.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Eight Bit provided the development for the platform. Rails development was used for the back-end, and then we have apps for iOS and Android.

How did you come to work with Eight Bit Studios?

I went through an exhaustive search going through 10 different firms in Chicago and narrowed it down to Eight Bit Studios. The culture was one of the big parts for choosing them along with their background. Some of the other mobile apps they had created were similar to the experience that I had in mind.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The project was more than $200,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What distinguishes Eight Bit Studios from other providers?

Eight Bit Studios is hugely interactive, hugely supportive, and has a great culture with great people. They are very nice and always fun to work with. To me, the biggest thing that I like about the firm is their culture of wanting to be interactive and supportive.

Is there anything Eight Bit Studios could have improved or done differently?

Eight Bit could have been better on hitting price. The overall experience was positive. I don't want to be overly negative. There's no such thing as a perfect firm, especially on the development side. There's room for improvement with better communication on the cost.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is a start-up. We are working to create apps to help families have an easier life and to improve scheduling conflicts.

What is your position?

I am a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eight Bit Studios?

We founded the company to start a specific app. It's an app that helps families organize and put in all their children's activities, school being the logical one, but also sports, music lessons and all the craziness that families have. The more kids you have, the crazier it becomes.

The core of the app is really the whole idea of what we call, "Oh no!" moments. For example, when you're on your way to pick up somebody and you're stuck in traffic or your car breaks down and things like that. With our app there's a two-click way of sending a request to someone in your inner circle to help the user pick up or drop off somebody. You invite people to be part of that inner circle, be it your spouse, nannies, neighbors, grandparents and so on.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

My co-founder is actually a developer, so he had already made a prototype that was functioning. What we needed help with and what Eight Bit is extremely good at, is design work. We needed help designing the logo, colors, and the most important piece: the user experience [UX]. We wanted to make sure that all the screens and all of the inputs created smooth sailing for the user.

How did you come to work with Eight Bit Studios?

We talked to three UX companies in the Chicago area. We ultimately picked Eight Bit Studios for two reasons. One, meeting with them; it was just a personal meshing with them. They understood what we were trying to do. We personally seemed to get along, and it matched with how we were thinking. We just really got a good vibe from all of them, from account management to the actual designers.

Secondly, seeing that we were are a start-up, they were extremely helpful and worked with us to be able to set a price to get the work done. They worked with my partner to understand what work he could do himself. They were very forthcoming and really helped us figure out what the best approach would be with the budget we had.

We would never have gone to that discussion with them if we didn't have that gut feeling that these guys are good and that they really understood us.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The original estimate was $10,000 to $15,000 but we actually came in under budget. I think that shows their way of working with clients. It was very clear that they did what we needed them to do. They didn’t overcharge us, and it was phenomenal.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Not yet. Because we're a start-up, my partner is the one who's actually doing all the code writing behind the app, using Eight Bit's design. He is actually doing all the back end and I'm doing all the testing. Because both of us have full-time jobs, this all happens at night. We're getting there. We're getting close and it's starting to iron itself out.

What distinguishes Eight Bit Studios from other providers?

Eight Bit Studios is understanding, and they work to try to understand their client’s point of view. They were a start-up at some point themselves, so they know how tough it can be. I think you can see that in them. They’re not a big machine that wants to go out and just get contracts. I found that to be very refreshing.

Secondly, what I also thought was awesome was not only their great work but their very easygoing approach. They are professional guys but at the same time so laid back and just understanding of how complicated it can be to do these things. It's hard and they know how it is hard. You can feel that they understand. They will do what they need to do to help you. Yeah, it's a business and they need to make money but you can feel that they really want to work with you, which I think was great.

Is there anything Eight Bit Studios could have improved or done differently?

To be honest, I don't have any complaints. I work with partners constantly so I know that you might be saying one thing and actually you mean something else. It happens, and a few times we would go in and I thought we would get something a little bit different, but nothing that I would say they're not understanding. I think the trouble was often on our end and how we were explaining what we’d like to see.

I actually don't have any negative feedback for them. Hopefully this is not our only app and we'll get more out there, and there is no doubt we will go back to Eight Bit Studios. Hopefully at that point we'll have a bigger budget so we don't have to do as much ourselves.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My app, Candor, is concerned with helping people collaborate more effectively, particularly in the area of idea generation. It’s not industry specific.

What is your position?

I’m the Founder and I’m also a professor at Northwestern at Kellogg, the graduate business school. Candor is a side project of mine.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eight Bit Studios?

In my profession I do research on how people can interact and collaborate more effectively. Candor, the app, is an effort to put some technology behind the technique that I, and other management scholars have used for some time. The app is meant to answer the question “How can we harness the collective intelligence of groups?” 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Eight Bit Studios has been the sole team from start to finish. Candor is a web and mobile application. They’ve developed both the website and the mobile versions. It is currently available on iOS, but as new rounds of funding come in, I want to expand it.

How did you come to work with Eight Bit Studios?

I had previously done some consulting work for another business who I felt had a good understanding of the mobile industry. Eight Bit was their first recommendation. I talked to a couple other agencies and felt best about working with Eight Bit.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The project up to this point is in the range of $50,000 to $60,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I teach thousands of MBA (Master of Business Administration) students every year and I introduce them to the app, and many of them have a background in information technology. I hear universally good things from my students about its layout and design. From technical third parties, I’ve heard a number of complimentary things about the professionalism behind the app. Eight Bit Studios has been very accommodating with me in working through the many iterations of the idea. The app has grown and some of that has to do with the idea behind it and a lot of that has to do with the look and feel of the product.

What distinguishes Eight Bit Studios from other providers?

There’s two things that stand out to me about Eight Bit. First, my perception is that they do high-quality work. There’s just a general professionalism around what they’re doing. Secondly, they’re just very responsive. It feels very personal. If I need to get on the phone to talk about a higher level issue, I don’t have to wait. I feel like they have a high touch approach. 

Along the way there’s been some slight miscommunications at times which is bound to happen. Most of those were as much my fault as anybody’s. They’ve been very willing to sit down, correct things and get them right. What I appreciate most is that they check-in and seem involved in the project. I get the impression that Eight Bit intrinsically cares about the growth and success of my product. These things would make it hard for me to leave them.

Is there anything Eight Bit Studios could have improved or done differently?

I communicate those things directly with them. I’ve been very happy with the service thus far.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the cofounder of Whittl. Whittl lets consumers book appointments for all types of local services from haircuts to eye examinations to dental appointments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Eight Bit Studios?

We had an existing iOS app that we wanted to overhaul and wanted to bring to the next level of quality. We were looking for a partner who could really overhaul the app.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

It was a full overhaul of the app. There were two areas in particular where we needed help. One was from a visual design perspective. We wanted to give it a polish and aesthetic quality that leading apps in the marketplace have. We had a lot of new functionality that we wanted to add that we just didn’t have the internal resources to do ourselves.

What was your process for selecting Eight Bit Studios with which to work?

We asked for recommendations from other companies in Chicago. We ended up looking at three different firms to do the work. We issued an RFP [request for proposal] to those three firms asking for their estimation of the amount of work, what their approach would be, and the types of skills they were going to bring to the table. We asked for bios of the people who would be working on the project and asked about how they manage projects in terms of process. Based on the full package, we decided to select Eight Bit Studios.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

This project fell in the range of $50,000 to $200,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Is there anything unique or special about Eight Bit Studios that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

I think the number one thing that sets Eight Bit Studios apart is their level of creativity. When we talked to other firms, we didn’t feel like they were going to add a level of excitement to the app. An app is all about great user interaction. It’s about how it feels. There’s a feeling you get from an app that you might not get from a website. We didn’t think the other firms had that level of creativity. That was the deciding factor. We also felt they had a more demonstrable body of work that proved to us that they were capable of producing a very high-quality product. 

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I would say their heavier on the project management side than we would like. As a startup, we tend to be lean. They insert a decent amount of project management, so we chew up dollars on project management rather than on development, although our project manager is quite good.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the president and co-founder of a payments company focused on enabling brands to offer payments services. We have online banking, and we’re in the process of building mobile banking.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Eight Bit Studios?

We’ve been working with Eight Bit Studios for a while now. We utilize them as a quality outsourced development shop. We had started to develop our platform with a mix of our internal team and an external shop. The first outsourced shop was not a good fit for our team, so we looked to Eight Bit Studios to help complete development.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Eight Bit Studios with which to work?

We went through a vetting process. We felt like Eight Bit and their founding partners had a solid strategic design and technical mix and that was what I was looking for. We also evaluated their previous work, and it was all really strong.

When was the work completed?

It’s ongoing work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Is there anything unique or special about Eight Bit Studios that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

It’s hard to put a finger on it. We really look for culture fit. I think the culture fit between their team and our team just resonated. They work really hard, but they’re also a lot of fun. They take everything they do very seriously. It was a joy to interact with them and that makes things easier when things get stressful. It’s tough when you’re trying to develop something brand new to find relevant examples of work that applies to what you’re trying to do. You don’t want to pick a partner and tell them to build it just like they built an app for some other client. We were starting with a baseline product that we already had in place and we needed them to adapt to it and go further, and they seemed to grasp that. 

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I don’t have anything specific. They’ve been a great partner. Early on, we might have had some project management issues but they’ve been corrected. They’ve been quick to adjust when we’ve had concerns.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

My company is a mobile app. It’s called Curate. It is an app that allows the user to see any piece of art sized correctly and placed in real time on any wall in their home or office. I’m the founder and CEO. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Eight Bit Studios? Please describe the scope of their work.

I went to Eight Bit Studios as a complete novice to create an app to serve this purpose. They developed the entire app and helped me to implement a digital strategy for my business.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Eight Bit Studios with which to work?

I spoke to colleagues of mine in the technology industry in Chicago. I was recommended three or four different mobile agencies that were all local to the Chicago area. I researched all of them and spoke to a couple of them on the phone and thought Eight Bit Studios was the best match because they had been in the art world space previously.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

It took most of a year to develop my app. Costing closer to the $200,000 side of the $50,000 to $200,000 bucket.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Is there anything unique or special about Eight Bit Studios that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

I think that what’s really great about the development Eight Bit Studios does is that they can keep the app intuitive, Most apps are not great, and they’re not that intuitive. But, Curate is extremely intuitive. The team at Eight Bit Studios was really good at listening to my directive, which was to create an app for somebody who isn’t a natural app user. They understood that I wanted an elderly person to be able to use this app. Curate walks you through each step, and there’s even a video to show you how to use it. Eight Bit Studios did a great job at making Curate extremely simple.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Eight Bit Studios is priced right near the going rate I found at every other local development shop. If I would do it again, I would have focused on a full business plan before I started with them. But, apps evolve every day and the business plan keeps changing. I was just going to have this be a .99¢ app, but as we went along it seemed like a great marketing tool for galleries. The business plan changed so the galleries could join it for a fee every month. I don’t know if it was possible or not, but I wish I would have been able to have the foresight to have the business plan before I started. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the co-founder and CEO of an online platform that specializes in connecting individuals, families, and small institutional investors with independent investment advisors. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Eight Bit Studios?

We partnered with Eight Bit Studios to develop our online platform, prior to sending it to market.

Please describe the scope of their work.

Eight Bit Studios initially designed and developed the platform. They are still responsible for maintaining the platform.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Eight Bit Studios with which to work?

We reached out to several online platform developers. After the initial outreach process, Eight Bit Studios seemed like the right fit for our project. The Eight Bit Studios team was very open, and they seemed to understand our concept and our service. It was fun to work with them. They had the right set of services to work through our process and build a website. That’s why we hired them.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

The size of the project was in the $50,000 to $200,000 range.

When was the work completed?

We originally partnered with Eight Bit Studios in 2011. The platform is live now, and they maintain it. So, the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Are you satisfied with their performance? Is there anything unique or special about Eight Bit Studios that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

We are very satisfied with their performance. They are very flexible. They are terrific to work with, and they’re great with scaling up or down as necessary. 

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Eight Bit Studios primarily focuses on making apps – more socially focused websites – unlike the platform they created for us. So, I’m not the perfect person to speak to that because we’re not the typical clients. However, overall, they did a great job.

BACKGROUND

Please give a brief description of your company and your role.

We are Wowzers. We create math software for schools. I’m the president.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached Eight Bit Studios?

We have a team that develops on the backend, and we were looking for a partner to help us with development on the front end, for design as well as getting elements ready for a Web programmer to work directly with.

SOLUTION

Can you go into a little bit of detail about the scope of the project?

Our application is a tool that allows teachers to find content that students can use and then see how they perform. We developed the student content: The lessons and tests. We also developed a backend system that delivers those to students that kind of deals with the nuts and bolts of authentication and so forth. When kids log in, the teachers can keep track, and they see how they’re doing.

We wanted to update that application to be able to be more intuitive and user friendly and additionally have some more professional-looking design elements. Eight Bit helped us brainstorm some changes to the user interface and then gave us code ready for an end design to plug into our existing backend.

What was your process for selecting Eight Bit Studios to work with in the first place?

We put out an RFP [request for proposal] and sent it out to a bunch of design studios. We got some proposals back. We liked how they responded particularly with regard to being able to provide us with the front-end design and partnered effectively like they were internal team members with our backend team.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative either in dollar cost range or personnel work hour estimate?

Around $50,000.

When was the project completed?

It’s still ongoing. It’s sort of an agile project for the time being, and we’ll probably continue to be working with them for another few months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of the results of the project, is there any feedback or metrics you can share?

I don’t have any specific metrics.

Have you gotten any positive feedback from end users of the product as a result of Eight Bit Studios' work?

Yes. Many.

How would you describe Eight Bit Studios’ performance?

I think they do a very good job, and they’re easy to work with.

Is there any area that you think that they could improve on or that you would do differently?

No.

BACKGROUND

Could you give a brief description of your company and your role?

I am the founder and CEO of a real estate social media site called Glossre. Glossre allows you to create a profile of a given space like your home and then share aspects of that with your friends. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

When you approached Eight Bit Studios, what was the business challenge that you were trying to address?

I’m a non-technical founder. They literally built my MVP off of a PowerPoint presentation. It was from the ground up, making my concept a Ruby on Rails site. Separately, we built an app only for iOS, which is in the iTunes store.

Did you have any specific business goals for the project?

First of all: Staying on budget. Second of all: Staying relatively on time, which is really more client driven than contractor driven. Obviously, the end product being something that would allow me to have proof of concepts and raise additional funds, that was something super-early stage. 

SOLUTION

How long has the project taken?

This has chapters. I would say their involvement was intensely involved for a year and a few months, and in a more as needed contract basis for the last year or so. The whole thing is a little more than two years.

When was it launched?

We did a closed data. The first time we did that was in November of 2013. Basically, when you go to Glossre.com, you can request an invite. From there, we let certain people in and allow them to use it. We do deploys and continue that. The closed data has been out there since November of 2013. It’s not a technological issue, more of a business-development manner when we decide to completely pull the veil off of it and start spending money on development marketing.

What was your process for selecting Eight Bit Studios to work with initially?

We knew we wanted to build it in Rails. We didn’t have a geographic bias. We interviewed five firms. Eight Bit inspired the most confidence. Part of it is a creative process. You need people that you feel are above reproach. I think they have the technical aptitude to do it.

From there, it’s also what kind of environment they have. Do they have a creative environment? Are they going to foster the best ideas? Any good designer is going to know when to listen and give a client the ability to tell them what they want, make them feel that they’re designing it themselves; but also want to check themselves and inject best practices, make sure you’re building something that doesn’t fall down. That was kind of my sense going into it. They were by far the most capable firm in that regard. We felt that they were going to be a good thought partner, which they proved to be.

Can you give us a sense of the size of the initiative?

I think for our initial contract, it was maybe $110,000. In time, it was another $40,000. So, around $150,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project? Are there any metrics or feedback that you can share that indicate the effectiveness of Eight Bit Studios’ work?

I had initially raised $200,000 [before working with Eight Bit Studios]. When my investors, some existing and some new, saw the product when it was built, I raised another $550,000. As much as I’d like to talk about other benchmarks, ultimately that’s the existential benchmark. It was met. I more than doubled, almost tripled, my funding.

How would you describe their performance?

I think they’re excellent. I would love to have another experience where I’m a huge company, and I have an initiative, and I’m plugging them in. I think that’s a lot of their work. I’m very happy with everything they brought to the table in order to achieve what they achieved which means great listening, great implementation, great thought partners, and a very creative and comfortable environment. I just believed they had my back, which for an early stage company, these are all big deals, I think. I’d give them flying colors here.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that you think that they could improve upon or that you would do differently?

There’s nothing I could point at them.

Is there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies that you may have worked with?

I just have to say that there was not a weak link in the chain. All the people, all of them were super talented and super professional. It’s amazing to find a group of guys that takes their work so seriously but don’t take themselves seriously. It’s a huge gift to be so good at something and be so light about it. They’re so engaged in making a client feel good. That’s what really gets a good product done. You’ve got to have a high amount of client engagement in terms of getting them comfortable and them creative. It’s a group of people that again are super functional people, fun to be around, and capable of having a fun, light environment while doing very serious work and working long hours to get it done. That’s a huge differentiator for them: A very happy and productive work environment with very smart people.

BACKGROUND

Could you give a brief description of your company?

At the time that I was doing business with Eight Bit, I was working at the Field Museum of Natural History, which is a large nonprofit natural history museum. 

What was your role at the Field Museum?

I was CIO and general counsel. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

When you approached Eight Bit Studios, what was the business challenge that you were trying to address?

As part of a larger program of trying to conceptualize new ways of interaction with the public around scientific content, we conceptualized a game that we wanted to develop on iOS. The game was like a Pokemon-style card game, but featuring artifacts from our collection, and then funnels of information that we could put in there about them. We approached Eight Bit about what was ultimately not just the frontend development necessary to make this game look good, but actually the development of all the mechanics of making it actually work. It was a long project. It took us longer than we thought it would to deploy our content to Eight Bit, but Eight Bit did a fantastic job.

Were there any specific goals that you were trying to achieve?

Our set of goals was to test ourselves internally, to experiment with a new way of communicating, and actually to learn about what it would take to bring an application like that to the world. We had a fair amount of success; I don’t know what the final numbers were in terms of downloads and utilization, but the reception on that application was very positive. We even got some news coverage the morning after it rolled out. It was a good thing.

SOLUTION

Why did you choose to work with Eight Bit Studios to begin with?

We were trying to find a company that was willing to bring the kind of resources we needed. We knew we’d need a couple of diverse skill sets in terms of development. We also needed somebody who was enthusiastic about the subject matter. We talked to several companies but we chose Eight Bit for those reasons.

Can you talk a little bit more specifically about the scope of the project?

We chose the artifacts. We developed the images. We sort of provided the text and Eight Bit really did everything else from the game mechanics and animations to the concept to front end development to support it, rolling out updates. They did the comprehensive hard work.

How long did the project take?

I think three months all in. 

When was this project completed?

A couple of years ago [in 2012].

Can you give us a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour estimate?

We spent more than $100,000. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How would you describe their performance?

Excellent. I thought the core group of people that we worked with there were extremely strong technologists. When I make recommendations, I always recommend them on the basis of [that] there are a lot of small shops that want to do frontend work in Chicago, but if you want a sophisticated approach to it, you should talk to Eight Bit. 

Was there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies that you may have worked with?

The best thing that they did was bring to the project not just a willingness to implement what we thought should happen, but to really think the whole project through and how the games should play. Their investment of thought leadership in the whole thing really made the project sing where it could have just been okay; it came to be very good.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that you think Eight Bit could improve upon or that you would do differently?

No. They did a great job.