Gustonera

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Managing Director of a future eco-tourism destination in Rwanda.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired this young genius to create a website for us that will help us in our search for investors, and that we can add onto as we are able, with an online store, donate button, blog, etc.

SOLUTION

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

We knew Gustonera through a business associate with whom we had worked on another project. We admired his worked and wanted to have him create our website once we were ready.

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

As Managing Director of our company, and not being a tech person myself, I was not working directly with Gustonera, but our Director was there with him. I was consulted and reported to throughout the process, however. We all took part in adding our input.

I appreciated the way Gustonera was able to work with me in a way that I could relate to even though I am not a tech-savvy person, and also was out of the area, working with him long-distance. We really took time to carefully consider what we wanted on the site and how it would evolve over time. Gustonera was very patient with us and worked around our hectic schedules as well.

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

We worked with just one man primarily, Gustonera. However, we did have an excellent graphic designer create our new logo which was of course included on the website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have been proudly sharing our new website with everyone we know. The feedback has been amazing. Everyone really loves it, and says it looks very professional, is easy to navigate, has great photos, and really helps them to understand what our project is all about.

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

Our Director was able to spend time off and on working alongside Gustonera at his office. I was checking in and giving my input by way of emails. We were all working around other jobs and projects as well, so we took our time on this project, with the goal to be quality and sticking to a small budget, rather than speed.

We took approximately 3 months on this project, not rushing, and Gustonera was very accomodating, understanding our complicated schedules.

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

The quality of work and the way Gustonera listened and understood our requests and ideas, and really brought our vision to life in a very creative way, while being meticulous on every detail.

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

I was very satisfied with the entire process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Social Fitness And Fun, and we’re a startup company designed to provide fitness classes to people in Nairobi. We conduct these classes on-site like in schools and churches.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Gustonera?

We contacted Gustonera originally for website design. This included quite a complicated backend design, such as admin login and staff management.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The scope of the project is to provide a landing page where clients can find our services. They also provide a system where we would be able to register classes, individuals, and payment walls so people can pay for the classes. Additionally, they’re also developing a portal where instructors and staff can log in their activities and request for their approval.

Moreover, we have also asked them to build a basic CMS backend, which is completely integrated into our website. This is where we can keep track of all the activities like who’s applying for a job, or who can we assign a job to — the system is actually really complex.

That’s essentially the scope of the website we’re developing and designing. It involves an HTML frontend, and a database backend all integrated together. I believe they’re using MySQL for the database, PHP, JavaScript, and HTML5.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is Gustone (Owner & Founder), and I believe he has three different people in his organization, including himself, who are tasked to work on this project.

How did you come to work with Gustonera?

I was looking online for multiple website developers in Kenya, and his name came up. I went through a vetting procedure where we talked to seven different website developers, gave them all the brief, and then they came back to us with how they would solve the problem — along with their cost estimates.

The thing that made me go for Gustone was he was very quick in understanding our problem, and suggesting solutions that are beyond what we were originally proposing in the scope. We’ve gone through multiple rounds on multiple contracts, and he delivered the first round on time.

How much have you invested with them?

Our investment so far is around the $1,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Gustonera in November 2020, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With the quality of the work, we’ve been getting our employees to actually use the system internally in terms of our KPIs, to show that it’s made the company more successful. This is difficult because we provide on-site activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we’re pretty much in the set-up phase as opposed to being in an active growth phase.

Additionally, we’ve also received applications through the portal that we have set up for people wanting jobs. This means that we’re being found online.

How did Gustonera perform from a project management standpoint?

They have been excellent at meeting their deadlines. At first, I thought the deadlines were overly ambitious, but he happily proved me wrong. We’re running this arrangement remotely, as we’re situated in Australia, and he’s situated in Kenya.

One of the issues that most people in a similar situation experience is communications break down after a while — this is something we have not experienced. I contact him every two days or so, and I get more than enough updates, and I know exactly what’s going on even with such a large physical barrier.

Communications are done through WhatsApp, and we don’t use any project management tools. What we do have are project reports, which are generated and sent to us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Communication is a big one. As I said, if we don’t communicate, the system breaks down. However, we found him to be reliable, honest, and very approachable. When we put in particular conditions and restraints, he’s very good at adapting to it, and onboarding the conditions we put in. if we said we wanted a particular software used, he would almost certainly find a way to make that happen. Additionally, he’s also very good at adapting to changing goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing I asked him to improve on, and it was something that was resolved very quickly, was when I first contacted him via email. I didn’t get a response from him for 2–3 days. He finally responded to me after I sent him a WhatsApp message. He said that there was something wrong with the email client at the time. That was an indicator that the communication might not be as effective, but it turned out not to be the case.

It’s certainly not an ongoing issue, it was just a one-off anomaly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say to give them the information that they need, and talk about the broader scope of where you want to take the project. He’s very good at understanding and trying to accommodate where you want to go early, even if you haven’t scoped the project for the current round. You need to be upfront in saying where you want to go, and how you want things done.