Kolobok

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product for a content intelligence platform powered by AI. We deliver content intelligence to enterprise organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kolobok?

We hired Kolobok to help us with the design and initial development of our app because we didn’t have an in-house design team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kolobok helped us refocus our product offering. The team worked on the UX of our product, and they provided wireframes, user flow, and customer research in order to give us the initial layout and user journey of our app.

Then, they worked on our app’s UI where they provided us with mood board options. After that, they designed prototypes on Figma. Once we finalized the designs, they developed components using React and our in-house development took those components and turned them into an app.

What is the team composition?

I was in contact with two people from Kolobok, and I didn’t have a lot of interaction with their designers and developers.

How did you come to work with Kolobok?

My CEO found Kolobok through a freelancing platform called Upwork. We put out a brief and they submitted a proposal. In the end, they were chosen by our CEO.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent approximately £30,000 (approximately $40,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration ran from July 2020–January 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before Kolobok worked for us, we had a fragmented process between people who didn’t do UX design. With their support, we achieved a simpler development process because we were working from well-researched and well-defined designs. Overall, they helped us develop a more rigorous design and development process.

How did Kolobok perform from a project management standpoint?

The Kolobok team really did their best despite our changing requests. They were very open to suggestions and were capable of providing helpful suggestions, too. In addition, the team was very easy to work with.

They tried very hard to set deadlines at the start, but as the requirements evolved, we had to extend some of the timelines in order to make sure that they’d produce excellent work. We had weekly calls scheduled, but there were times when I was left waiting on the line.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They had a solid understanding of startups. In our case, they provided an end-to-end solution, and they were able to find resources who could deliver what we needed in the format that we needed it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their project management could still be improved and when it came to delivering components, we had some hiccups on how things were delivered. Overall, their communication and specification could be improved on development.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you’ve got detailed and accurate feature specifications at the start of the project. Furthermore, make sure that you use a project management tool to oversee the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of Inspirfy Marketplace. We are an online business built to inspire people by offering quality, alluring, dazzling furniture and aesthetically pleasing design and architecture projects. We connect designers and manufacturers to homeowners and offices to provide them with the right tools, materials and guidance to accomplish their goals and create a magnificent living or working environment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with TAK A SHO?

We wanted to get an edge on our competition, and thus hired TAK A SHO to help us ideate and create a disruptive strategy to give us a stronger foothold on the furniture market. We figured that a good way to do this would be to tie our company to a broader goal or mission and to convey this through UX/UI design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Being a Startup, we of course had certain budget constraints. This precluded us from going for one of the most well-established results guaranteed UX/UI agencies, as they were beyond our price range.

Instead, we had to compromise as much as we can to find the best UX/UI agency with an affordable price for us, ideally without compromising on the quality of the product itself. Knowing that UX/UI is a very important part of any B2C product, we were very diligent and thorough in our search for a potential partner. But everyone makes mistakes and we ended up choosing the wrong agency for this project. Leonid Petuhov sells himself very well with the ideas and promises.

What is the team dynamic?

For years, we’ve been looking for a reliable partner that can shoulder the responsibilities of product ideation, design and development, to free us up to concentrate on primary business processes, in which we have more expertise.

Our work with TAK A SHO included market and competitor research, conducting target audience polls, product ideating, product prototyping, interface design, and front-end and back-end development. We were impressed with TAK A SHO’s uncanny ability to handle such complex, heterogeneous tasks and come up with creative and innovative solutions in a short period of time.

Short is an understatement, this project has been dragging since end of 2019 and every month the promises start again and again that very soon we would be able to launch the site, which never happened.

How did you come to work with TAK A SHO?

I have researched different companies on Upwork, connected with Leonid P. from TAK a SHO and he sounded very promising and professional, worked on Upwork’s platform for a few months and they suggested to work outside of the platform as the fees are too high.

How much have you invested with them?

I have invested around $150,000 US funds.

What is the status of this engagement?

I have sent them an email stating that I no longer interested in their service and I am moving on and looking for a new team to finish or start from scratch, as there are many things that are not uploaded to my server.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

At the beginning of the engagement, everything was well, but the company is completely unorganized and for the majority of the first year not much was documented and reported. I should have seen the red light a long time ago but wanted to believe that they will deliver what was promised. At this point, I am not interested in any communications as they are very angry and sending me aggressive messages.

How did TAK A SHO address the challenges that arose?

They did not, as they are not programmers and have no knowledge. They rely on information from their employees or sub-contractors that they hire. They claim that they have dedicated a full team for this project, If that was the case then there is no reason for the project to keep stretching endlessly.
Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

It is a complete disaster as I have started to introduce the platform to designers and manufacturers, promising that it will be done shortly and just made a fool out of myself. Also, have been talking to investors that I will present my product soon and it’s been 6 months that I have nothing to show for.

How was project management handled?

They do not know how to manage a project. Again, they hire project managers to take that role and if I’m not mistaken they have changed already 2 or 3

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

Their mouth is their strength, they know how to convince you that they are the best. BE CAREFUL.

In what specific areas can they improve?

The first area and most important is to tell the truth to their clients, lies will not lead them anywhere.

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

Do your research well before choosing a company that you would like to work with, make sure there is a contract in place and make sure you have specific timelines. Very hard to trust promises especially companies overseas.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on October 10, 2020.

Alex Livshe

Founder & CEO, INSPIRFY

Retail

11-50 Employees

Toronto, Canada

$200,000 to $999,999

Nov 2019 - Ongoing

Project summary

A furniture and architecture marketplace hired TAK A SHO to lead their UX/UI design solutions. The team handles product ideation, competitor research, prototyping, interface design, and more.

Feedback summary

Since TAK A SHO joined the project, their performance has been phenomenal. Despite offering affordable services, their outputs have been incredible. They continue to impress the client with their wealth of creativity and e-commerce knowledge. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of Inspirfy Marketplace. We are an online business built to inspire people by offering quality, alluring, dazzling furnitures and aesthetically pleasing design and architecture projects. We connect designers and manufacturers to homeowners and offices to provide them with the right tools, materials and guidance to accomplish their goals and create a magnificent living or working environment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TAK A SHO, and what were your goals?

We wanted to get an edge on our competition, and thus hired TAK A SHO to help us ideate and create a disruptive strategy to give us a stronger foothold on the furniture market. We figured that a good way to do this would be to tie our company to a broader goal or mission and to convey this through UX/UI design.

SOLUTION

How did you select TAK A SHO and what were the deciding factors?

Being a startup, we of course had certain budget constraints. This precluded us from going for one of the most well-established results guaranteed UX/UI agencies, as they were beyond our price range.

Instead, we had to compromise as much as we can to find the best UX/UI agency with an affordable price for us, ideally without compromising on the quality of the product itself. Knowing that UX/UI is a very important part of any B2C product, we were very diligent and thorough in our search for a potential partner.

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

For years, we’ve been looking for a reliable partner that can shoulder the responsibilities of product ideation, design and development, to free us up to concentrate on primary business processes, in which we have more expertise.

Our work with TAK A SHO included market and competitor research, conducting target audience polls, product ideating, product prototyping, interface design, and front-end and back-end development. We were impressed with TAK A SHO’s uncanny ability to handle such complex, heterogeneous tasks and come up with creative and innovative solutions in a short period of time.

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

The project was multi-faceted and thus the composition of the team changed over time. At first, we worked with an account manager and a product manager. At the second phase, a business analyst, a senior UX architect, and a marketing specialist all joined the project.

When the UX process was completed, we then worked with a creative director, a senior UI designer and a graphic designer. To finish it off, TAK A SHO deployed their development team, which consisted of a CTO, a lead vue.js developer, a HTML/CSS developer, a PHP symfony back-end developer, a QA and a project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are very happy with TAK A SHO’s work and it lived up to the high expectations they had set for themselves in their other projects. Now our website has a beautiful, elegant design with an animation, which has really helped us in negotiations with potential investors. Furthermore, the project architecture and user experience has helped us tremendously in SEO and marketing. All in all a job well done by TAK A SHO.

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

They used the scrum methodology in their development approach. Therefore, we had regular meetings, to check what is done. We also used Jira to plan the work and Zoom/Skype for project discussions. 

They provided us a clear, straightforward market strategy, convincing us that they were right for the job.

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

TAK A SHO impressed us with their case studies, and their relatively low hourly prices. In fact we had hit the jackpot as, despite their affordability, their finished products looked gorgeous and professionally made.

Furthermore, they demonstrated their deep expertise in the field of eCommerce, making them two-tiered experts - in both UX/UI design and development and in business and marketing strategies. They have a very keen eye for creative design, and it's almost inspirational. Not only was our audience smitten with the design of our product, even I managed to fall in love with it. I really believe with this foundation, we can start on our path to having a billion dollar product.

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

Of course, there is always room for improvement. However, I have no major complaints and am fully satisfied with our collaboration with TAK A SHO and look forward to continuing our fruitful relationship.

Star Ratings

Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CBDO of Stalex, the biggest Ukrainian manufacturer of metal tiles and corrugated metal sheets. We have a network of metal service centers, ranging in size from 3 to 8 thousands square meters, in various regions of Ukraine. We offer a wide range of products from domestic and world manufacturers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TAK A SHO, and what were your goals?

We found ourselves in the following predicament: our distributors take 80% of our profit through having direct contacts with our potential customers. Our margin was only around 8%. Since we didn’t have any feedback from our end clients, we couldn’t adjust our business strategy accordingly, making it difficult for us to grow and expand.

Because of this, we decided to search for a solution that can bring us closer to our customers and thus increase our margin of profit on every sale. We had several experienced agencies on our shortlist, but TAK A SHO provided what we felt was a perfect solution.

They came up with the idea of creating a B2B2C marketplace which would unite all the market players: manufacturers, distributors and end customers. This would have provided added value to all of them, and would have helped us sell our products directly. We were excited by this idea and we took TAK A SHO on board.

SOLUTION

How did you select TAK A SHO and what were the deciding factors?

As mentioned earlier, they were the only ones who came up with such a unique and innovative idea. Some of the other agencies seemed to suggest unnecessary things, while TAK A SHO was straightforward and clear with their plans.

We also saw that they had a lot of experience in this field, through several impressive case studies which they presented. Based on this we selected them.

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

The B2B2C marketplace was conceptualized, designed and created from scratch. The project included research, design, development, deployment and content management. According to technologies, we used PHP for the back-end and HTML/CSS for the Front-end.

The design layouts were developed in FIGMA. All project management was done by using Jira software.

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

TAK A SHO assigned a dedicated team to us. The team included designers, developers, a product manager and a creative director.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We began receiving positive feedback from our direct customers. Our profit margin more than doubled: it went from 8% to over 20%. We managed to complete 150 direct sales less than two months after we launched the project. I’d say this is a very promising start for our business.

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

We worked in a very effective manner. There were 2 week-long sprints, and detailed reports following the sprints. The TAK A SHO team was very communicative, responsive, and quick to work without any hangups or pretensions. It was a real pleasure working with them.

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

We were impressed with their level of competence in this niche market, and their uncanny ability to provide creative innovative solutions for our business. The fact that we got results not long after the end of our collaboration is a testament to their competence.

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

It would be great if they could have taken the burden of content management on their own shoulders. We weren’t prepared to have to write so much content, and TAK A SHO’s lack of copywriters was the only holdup during our collaboration. But we have no complaints in the design and development side - they did their job very well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the founder of an innovative B2B marketplace which connects universities to recruiting agencies to help recruit bright, promising students for enrolment in the universities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TAK A SHO, and what were your goals?

Our main goal was to present an innovative solution in the educational market. To accomplish this, we knew we had to have a visually appealing UI design with a user-friendly, simple, functional UX scheme. We wanted our app to both look nice and be easy to use, thus establishing our name in the market.

SOLUTION

How did you select TAK A SHO and what were the deciding factors?

I posted the details of the project on Upwork, and they promptly reached out to me. They stood out from their competitors because they had a readily-available list of cases which they had worked on, demonstrating their competence in design work. Furthermore, the guys wowed us with their broad knowledge across multiple disciplines and industries. Not only do they seem like talented designers, they also demonstrated deep expertise of market dynamics in the educational industry.

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

TAK A SHO was heavily involved in every stage of product development. We worked together on prototyping, designing and programming - this was a painstaking process done largely over online communication. Due to the sensitive nature of such work, TAK A SHO were very responsive and available around the clock, giving us regular feedback and updates. They also took part in the product ideation process. The key delivarable was the fully working B2B marketplace. The technologies used were PHP & HTML/CSS.

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

Their team had a dedicated account manager, 3 designers and 4 developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our platform looks gorgeous, with high-quality design mockups and a clean code platform. Although our product hasn’t launched quite yet, just looking at it, I’m very happy with the result so far.

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

Communication through Skype and phone calls were never an issue and any minor problems were resolved painlessly and proactively. After a while, it felt more like working with old friends rather than a partner business. They used Scrum and Agile methodologies with succinct but useful updates every two weeks. The workflow made use of Jira to great effect.

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

As I mentioned, we had great communication. This is a key element in collaborations across companies, and TAK A SHO was always available for a meeting or brainstorming session. Their expertise isn’t just limited to design - they also proved to be a wellspring of great advice and ideas to help us decrease our project costs and maximize quality. I’ve already gone on about their design skills, but let me reiterate, I was very impressed with how nice and user-friendly they made our platform look. All in all I’d say they have a great approach to working in this field.

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

Nothing comes to my mind at the moment. My only regret is not offering them more work in the first instance!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder at Tradelize company, an ecosystem for cryptocurrency traders and investors where they can monetize their experience and earn on par with professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TAK A SHO?

We hire TAK A SHO for complete renovation and redesign of our social solution, we call in Linked In for traders and investors.

What were your goals for this project?

We want to see our conversion rate much better and doubled traffic.

SOLUTION

How did you select TAK A SHO?

We knew each other for a long time and finally had a chance to work together. The Guys did a great job.

Describe the project in detail.

Once we selected TAK A SHO we had a series of discovery meetings to discuss our goals and objectives.

Firstly we ordered a marketing strategy and after we decided that we need to renovate a social part.

What was the team composition?

Bussines analyst Senior UX architect Creative director UI designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We are about to launch our products. What do we have now looks times better that before.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I can evaluate it as a top-notch fit.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Guys are great specialists in prototyping and business strategy in regards to the product.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything can always be done faster, but we are totally satisfied. We have got great result at the end of the day.