Human Made

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of a popular fact-checking website that sees about 25 million visitors each month.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Human Made?

We had to find a new vendor for our hosting and infrastructure who would be technically capable of both migrating our site and customizing our product as much as we needed.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially hired them to help us with site migration, but over time Human Made’s become our CTO-in-a-box. They handle all of our code review, making sure that everything we write and push into production is both secure and performant. They also answer any questions throughout our product development journey. On the backend, they maintain our website in a scalable, cloud-hosted configuration.

In terms of WordPress development, they’ve helped us improve and implement better code standards, establish good DevOps procedures, and help us improve our site security. In addition, they handle all of our posting and we even pull them in periodically to supplement our in-house development efforts through SRWs.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact has varied throughout the length of the project. We have a rep who handles our contracts and resource allocations. Day to day, I work with one of the systems engineers, but we also consult regularly with their co-founder and CTO.

How did you come to work with Human Made?

We needed to replace our existing contractor and we were considering several options, including using WordPres.com VIP, as well as hiring additional developers and trying to handle the work in-house. During our search, we reached out to people who’d worked with some of the open-source tools we used for our codebase. A member of our current Human Made team contacted us and said they’d been referred through the Roots.io development community.

Right away, they stood out because they not only offered to help us meet our goals but also recommended several other firms to us, rather than trying to sell us on their business straight away. After evaluating several other leads, we ended up speaking to Joe, the co-founder of Human Made. We were impressed by their personal touch and WordPress expertise. They said they could handle the scale of our project and also offered an affordable price.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started discussing the project in the summer of 2017 and officially migrated the website in October 2017. They now provide ongoing hosting and development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Despite our extremely high traffic, we haven’t had any outages. In one case, we had an article go viral in India and our visitor stream shot up from 5,000–6,000 to 27,000 within in a few minutes. Traffic stayed that high for a couple of hours but we had no hiccups or downtime. It’s a testament to the kind of infrastructure and performance tools Human Made has built for us.

From an internal standpoint, they’ve also sped up our production process. We’re able to respond to changing consumer needs, convert ideas into product development, and push code out much more quickly than in the past. Human Made’s created an environment that’s empowered us to set our own pace and it’s allowed us to broaden our vision for future development.

How did Human Made perform from a project management standpoint?

Typically, we’ll hand them pieces of work on a project we’re managing in-house. We have a private Slack channel that we use to communicate with them regarding our product development roadmap; it’s also how we send code for review. They always exceed our expectations, even if we haven’t given the clearest instruction at the outset of a task.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re at the cutting edge of WordPress development. Whenever we want answers, solutions, or new build ideas, they know how to provide them. Their team are active participants at WordCamp and they’ve led the charge on helping Automattic roll out their WordPress API. They have the deep technical understanding of the platform that we need in order to keep innovating and elevating our business.

As one example, there was a point when we were kicking around an idea we wanted to implement and we spoke to Joe, their CTO, about whether or not it was possible and how difficult it might be. He emailed me 150 lines of PHP the next day, saying we could use that as a base and that the problem wouldn’t be that hard to solve. Our internal team picked up the code and we eventually pinged one of his developers to finish up the project. We really appreciate how often they over-deliver.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Since we’re so big, they’re actively working on implementing tools for managing our account. These aren’t must-haves or failings. As their business grows and they become more sophisticated, I hope they’ll give us better tools and insights into the performance of our stack, among other things.

Their other issue is learning to balance our expectations with what a typical client needs. There are some really advanced tools and resources we’ve asked for, that they just didn’t have readily available, although they helped us obtain them from elsewhere. I expect that this is on their roadmap and will change as they get additional large enterprise clients.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Respect their expertise, but also make an effort to learn more about the WordPress platform and how it’s meant to be used. We found many things that hadn’t been implemented correctly in the past and, while Human Made has fixed some of them, it was too costly upfront to address them all.

Looking back at our own migration, we should’ve been more aware of the information architecture for our existing site, as well as what our future ambitions were. We didn’t communicate that to Human Made as effectively as we could have in advance. Any client migrating their website should make sure to be transparent with Human Made about where they want the information to be migrated and what they want the future of their content management to be. This might avoid our problem of inheriting or carrying over technical debt.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I run a media company’s product and technology team. We focus on startups and technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Human Made?

We worked with them on a redesign of a third-party website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was WordPress-based and moved to a headless set up with a React frontend. The team only did development as we had another partner that completed the design aspect.

What is the team composition?

We had up to four people working on the project at any given time.

How did you come to work with Human Made?

I talked with other people in the WordPress community and decided that Human Made would be a great partner. They had expertise in WordPress’ rest API and prior experience using that in decoupled solutions.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2017 and launched the WordPress site in March 2018. The team continues to work on smaller things with us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Human Made leveraged their considerable expertise in the space to solve numerous tricky problems. We felt fortunate to have a fantastic experience with Human Made. My team learned a lot about React and the WordPress API; we came out stronger. Since we embedded Human Made, the teams grew close and my developers appreciated the project’s collaborative nature.

How did Human Made perform from a project management standpoint?

They were communicative throughout the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They solved tough challenges by understanding them and then coming up with effective solutions. The team was also flexible and things changed over the course of the project. We appreciated the ease of working with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They were very good at their jobs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an IT project manager for an environmental protection company. We have a few offices across multiple countries. I work on site development for our various projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Human Made?

We lacked the in-house technical leaders who had sufficient experience in PHP development and WordPress. We needed resources who could consult us through certain technical decisions regarding our site and support our internal team on the frontend.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, they provided a set of recommendations for our site including reusing code, installing plugins, and general strategic decisions. Each of our offices will get its own site, so we wanted to maintain a consistent look and feel. Although we wanted to update the site ourselves, we realized we lacked the knowledge to execute our plan.

As a result, they augmented our frontend developers. They built our site with content blocks, which allowed for a uniform yet flexible theme. While the navigation would remain the same, the different offices can choose which blocks to use and where.

What is the team composition?

We first worked with a tech lead who consulted with us. Later, we worked with a team of frontend developers.

How did you come to work with Human Made?

We originally considered seven agencies before one of our offices referred them to us. We requested a quote and decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

I think it was about a $115,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work lasted between September–December 2017. Although we currently don’t have a contract with them, we will definitely consider them for future projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site has received a lot of positive feedback, which stemmed from our joint efforts. Internally, we were really happy with Human Made’s frontend contributions. They were essential to our project’s success.

How did Human Made perform from a project management standpoint?

We appreciated their ability to work under pressure and provide resources to augment our team. In this regard, they were extremely helpful and willing to collaborate. We communicated primarily through GitHub, Jira, and Rocket.Chat.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We weren’t a typical client because we wanted to execute a lot of the project ourselves; we needed help with code review and strategic suggestions. As such, we valued their technical knowledge and willingness to work with our requirements.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We really appreciated how quickly they provided resources under pressure, although it did mean we were working with a globally dispersed team. This had an impact on the team's communication. At that time their Tech Lead was in India, whereas the frontend developers were in the U.S. As a result, communication was slower than necessary due to the time difference. We would consult the tech lead in the morning but would have to wait until late afternoon to communicate with the developers. By then, we couldn’t address concerns until the following day.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Nothing. They were a great company and considerate of our needs.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

We are a leading provider of institutional quality investment research that’s widely available to the public. We publish professional research coverage on ETFs, master limited partnerships, and global equities. We’re a fast growing venture-backed company in New York City.

What is your position?

I’m the co-founder and chief executive officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you first approached Human Made?

The core challenge for us was identifying high-end WordPress developers that could work on a project that could potentially reach millions of monthly users, certainly hundreds of thousands of monthly users to start, in a way that was scalable. When we began working together with Human Made, we had maybe tens of thousands of monthly page views, maybe a hundred thousand, and now we’re approaching close to one million monthly page views, with astronomical monthly and quarterly growth rates that just keep increasing.

It was really important for us to build a platform that could scale with us from early on in a quality way, and that we wouldn’t necessarily need to rebuild. Many times when startup technology companies hire developers, they build something that works pretty well. It doesn’t work after a certain point, or it doesn’t perform as well, and you need to scrap it and rebuild the whole thing. We wanted to prevent that coming in, so we decided to partner with Human Made in order to have them build it correctly in a very early stage.

We partnered with them even when the founders were investing with the company before we had any investors in the company. After we had our angel investor, we’ve been able to increase the size of our relationship and really scale with that team. It was very difficult to find developers that had experience in large-scale deployments; in particular, it’s difficult to find developers who have had experience developing large-scale projects at multiple companies. There aren’t that many large websites where you can work. The ability to work on multiple large websites is particularly hard to come by. WordPress deployments on a large-scale are very difficult, so we needed to ensure that the vendor we chose would be able to handle that.

The second dimension we were looking for were competent people that could work well with our team, our culture, and our startup environment. We knew there would be times where we might have problems. There would be times where we might have aggressive deadlines. There were problems where there might be an issue in the middle of the night, which would require immediate intervention. We wanted a team that understood that, and was able to be nimble and work with us when the pressure was on. They also needed to understand what our needs were and essentially be very reasonable, but also very high quality. We concluded that Human Made would be able to perform on both of those dimensions, and that was extremely attractive to us.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of work in greater detail?

Human Made collaborated with us on every stage of the project, from conception through development all the way to deployment and testing. We provided the necessary strategic guidance, but they handled the actual site build.

How did you select Human Made as your solution partner?

We had initially worked with a couple of engineers: one very experienced, and another one with less experience. We realized that we needed the core skills of engineers that could really build a site that would scale nicely, and that had a culture that would also fit with our team. We’d worked with an engineer that worked with one large site, and we realized we needed engineers that worked on multiple large sites. There weren’t that many of them to start with. On the one hand, that’s a big disadvantage because it becomes a lot more expensive to hire said engineers in volume. On the other hand, it actually means that you know exactly who to speak to because there’s a limited number.

We reached out to a number of WordPress VIP engineering agencies. Some were very large companies. When we first met Human Made, it was essentially two brothers and a third partner, and maybe a handful of additional, high-quality engineers and that was it. They were much smaller than any other firms that we spoke with. It was really clear that each of the VIP agencies had the experience with scalable solutions. Many had indeed worked on a very large scalable website. What was appealing about Human Made, though, was that they had experience with multiple scalable sites while most other companies didn’t have that. Human Made also had the closest cultural fit for us, and that was a huge deciding factor for us.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for this project?

It’s very high relative to anything else you can do, but it’s worth it for us because the alternative is having developers that are less productive, or having code delivered to you that might require revision.

How long has your relationship remained ongoing?

We stated at some point in early 2013, so more than a year and a half, close to two years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of their work?

We launched a feature on the website, which grew engagement by more than 50 percent, so that’s a massive success. It was a two- to three-month project, and it was extremely successful. Feedback from staff members and other end-users was quite positive, both in terms of the design and the functional usability of the site. We’ve been very impressed.

When working with Human Made, is there anything you’d consider unique about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors?

We didn’t work with other vendors. In the cultural sense, we consider our engineers our partners. One of the challenges with partners is what happens when you have rough times, and they’ve been there for us 100 percent when there have been problems. I’m not sure that you’d get that kind of service and commitment from the vast majority of vendors.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

I work for a media company. We provide cable network called Fusion.

What is your position?

I’m the chief technology officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you first approached Human Made?

We needed to build a website for the World Cup. We were going to cover the event, and tell stories about that, so we needed a technology platform to publish stories and videos. We decided to build the site using WordPress as the content management system. Humanmade helped us determine that WordPress would be the best fit for our project goals. They were to be responsible for designing and developing the site from scratch.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of work in greater detail?

We hired them as our external development team and essentially outsourced the majority of the deployment tasks to them. They were responsible for the design, development, testing, optimization, and support. We collaborated closely, but they handled the grunt work. 

How did you select Human Made as your solution partner?

A close friend recommended them to me after having a great experience with them. I had a few meetings with the founder, Tom [Willmot], and after the meetings, we decided to use them for our project. They seemed well put together and the work they’d completed in the past seemed to speak for itself. I felt confident in their capabilities and approach, and they certainly justified that confidence.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for this particular deployment?

I would say we spent between $50,000 and $200,000.

When was this project completed?

I don’t recall the exact date, but it launched around June 10 of this year [2014].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of their work?

The staff was very happy with the flexibility and versatility of WordPress. There was some initial resistance to the idea of switching to a new system and site, but once we’d gotten it up and running, and people began using it, all of the anxiety subsided. Human Made customized the design, integrated all of our tools, plug-ins, and APIs [application programming interfaces]. We created a very rich visual experience that was used widely and was very popular. We received very few support requests at launch, which was also fantastic.

When working with Human Made, is there anything you’d consider unique about their approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

I’m very happy with them because they communicated very well and their entire process was transparent. Tom was very hands-on and kept track of how things were going. They provided a great level of service to ensure we received everything on time and within budget. They’ve got some very talented people over there, which is reflected in their process and all of the work they deliver to their clients. This was, of course, what my close friend promised, and Human Made didn’t disappoint.

In retrospect, are there any areas in which you think Human Made could improve as a service provider?

I have no critiques. I think they’ve done an extraordinary job.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

We provide digital marketing solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses.

What is your position?

I’m the digital contact manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges that you were attempting to address with you first approached Human Made?

We wanted a flexible, easy-to-edit website that would give us great SEO [search engine optimization] value. Our older site was obsolete and static. We didn’t feel like it adequately reflected the quality of our brand.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of work in greater detail?

They were more like consultants in the beginning, so they were advising us on why WordPress was right and how they could use it to meet our strategic objectives. They weren’t directly involved with the design, but they took the designs from our creative team and applied it to the backend of the site. They did quite a lot of the custom work to install the various plug-ins we wanted. They built some plug-ins from scratch for us to meet specific requirements, and managed all of the testing and deployment process for us, too.

How did you select Human Made as your solution partner?

We’d selected WordPress as the preferred content management system beforehand. We then searched for a number of agencies that had extensive WordPress expertise Human Made was one of several shops that emerged from our search. We talked to them about their previous work and had them propose some ideas for our own project. We were impressed with their presentation and decided to award them the work.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for this particular project?

It cost under £50,000 [$83,000].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, and user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of their work?

The site itself took about four months to build, and was launched in October of 2011. We operated the site for about two years before replacing it about a year ago. Since then, we’ve made the decision to go back to WordPress, because we miss the flexibility and the SEO value. During the two years we used the site, we saw considerable improvements in both process efficiency and administrative flexibility.

We also saw our Google placement in search results improve rather significantly. It definitely improved our SEO ranking on a number of key terms, which was the major objective of the project. The deployment of the site was absolutely flawless, too. They were really hard working, and any issues that arose were resolved quickly. They were absolutely tireless in making sure that our project got delivered when we needed it, despite any issues that came our way. They dealt with it all, and they’re fantastic in that respect.

When working with Human Made, is there anything you’d consider unique about their approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

They absolutely seemed to be at top of their game. I know they’re approved partners for WordPress, and I believe that’s quite a specialized thing to be, but these guys were superb. They’ve invited us to various talks that they contribute to, in London, that are organized by WordPress. They have very deep expertise. More importantly, they’re never difficult to get a hold of when we’re in need of their assistance.

In retrospect, are there areas in which you think Human Made could improve as a service provider?

Sometimes, they wouldn’t always submit their invoices on time, but that’s not a detriment to the client. Other than that, they were completely attentive to our project needs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Product Owner - Websites of an education company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

International Higher Education

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Human Made to accomplish?

• Wordpress Development
• Guidance and roadmap planning

SOLUTION

How did you find Human Made?

Other

Why did you select Human Made over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Human Made were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Ongoing maintainence and enhancements to our Wordpress websites.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Stable Wordpress websites, that maintain and improved their technical performance. Fast and reliable enhancements based on changing Marketing and business requirements. 

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

I was very impressed with the professionalism, dedication and quality of Human Made work. 

What was your primary form of communication with Human Made?

Virtual Meeting

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

Their friendliness, communication skills, professionalism, and dedication to our company stand out. 

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

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Dawn Patrol LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Sports Information

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Human Made to accomplish?

• Website Rebuild

SOLUTION

How did you find Human Made?

Online Search

Why did you select Human Made over others?

Great culture fit

How many teammates from Human Made were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

We Hired Human Made to rebuild our website. We were extremely specific as to the requirements, time frames The contract was for two standard wordress sites as well as a more rubust E-commerce section

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the partner evolve?

Human Made was willing to work with us to address some of our concerns, including fixing a short list of critical bugs that were identified, and making a key member of their agency team available on a reasonable basis to help support our eventual launch

What was your primary form of communication with Human Made?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

In what ways can they improve?

Provide more conservative timeline estimates and updates to help manage expectations

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Take the time upfront to make sure you fully understand how the entire process will work and make sure everyone is in agreement on the overall project scope and accompanying deliverables. I think this would have helped us avoid many of the misunderstandings that we encountered. 

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on October 31, 2024.

Mitch Wilson
CEO, Dawn Patrol LLCSports

Las Vegas, Nevada

51-200

Jan 2024 - Jul 2024

$200,000 to $999,999

Verified

Project summary
Human Made was hired to rebuild a sports information company's website. The team was tasked with building two standard WordPress sites and a robust e-commerce section.

Feedback summary
The project is four months past its due date, and Human Made has not delivered any usable work. The client was disappointed with Human Made's performance and denial of responsibility, citing the team's lack of management and having to correct work that they didn't do right in the first place.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Dawn Patrol LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

SPorts Information

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Human Made to accomplish?

• Website Rebuild

SOLUTION

How did you find Human Made?

Online Search

Why did you select Human Made over others?

Great culture fit

How many teammates from Human Made were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

We Hired Human Made to rebuild our website. We were extremely specific as to the requirements, time frames The contract was for two standard wordress sites as well as a more rubust E-commerce section

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This project wa to be completed and fully functioming by July 13, 2024. We were ssured several times by several people that there was plenty of time and "room" in the budget to complete this project which they called a basic build.

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

It is almonst November and our project has still not been deleivered. We have been villlified for asking them to meet what they presented they would do in their agreement and being disappointed that we have paid them 100's of thousands of dollars and have not received one but of work that is usaable as we approach 4 months past due on the work. We feel we were lied to and conned by our salesperson, we feel were were bullied by several higher ups at Human made, and the President, has taken the tact that their failure to complete the project is our fault because we trsuted them to follow through on what they promised when we agreed to give them the project. Keep in mind we had ZERO change orders and we soent countless hours walking Human Made employees through our current website and procedires. 

What was your primary form of communication with Human Made?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

This company is trained in lying and spinning the truth. They love to spin a web of denial and passing the buck when it is really their own inner lack of management and overall inpetitude. THey seem to think that over runs caused by them needing to correct work that they didn't complete correctly, as in didn't function at all, is somehow the client's fault. Because of inadequte testing enviroments in over 4 months of them actually saying they worked on our project, we signed off on ZERO sprints as completed to specs. 

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

Human Made needs to own their faults in this project, acknolwlege the continuing damage and losses their failures have caused, and do whatever is in their power to make it right. Human Made continues to feel there is some kind of shared balme when there is zero to be shared. Our company did everything Human Made asked, Paid promptly, never missed or even rescheduled a meeting, we had zero change orders or requirements and spent may hours explaing and them walking through exactly how our company works and why we had the pecific needs we explained to them befire they ever took on the project.

STAR RATINGS:
Overall rating:    0.5

Quality:    0.5

Cost:    0.5

Schedule:  0.5   

Willing to refer:  0.5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Lead web manager of Not applicable

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Finance

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Human Made to accomplish?

• Hosting
• Development

SOLUTION

How did you find Human Made?

Unknown

Why did you select Human Made over others?

Company values aligned

How many teammates from Human Made were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Customizing content management system for the organization

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Completing migration or redesign or enhancements or bug fixes

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

yes they did

What was your primary form of communication with Human Made?

Virtual Meeting

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

The developers' skills are impressive.

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

Price point is definitely at the high side