RISE

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a green cloud computing company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RISE?

We needed to completely overhaul our pitch deck and release a report on some of our most important R&D within a week. RISE was incredibly accommodating and produced top quality design work despite out tight deadlines.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I have worked with Jonathan in the past, and so knew he was the man to call when we were in a tight spot regarding design. I wasn't dissapointed.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We needed to completely overhaul the design of our pitch deck four our seed investment round, and simultaneously release a report on some of our most important R&D. I contacted RISE about our work, and was quickly assigned a designer. I had three calls with him to explain our company, help him understand our ethos and outline the project. I send him the material and told him that we had less than a week to deliver this. Within 3 days I had the first iteration, we went back and forth a few times to round out the edges before we received the final deliverables.

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

I worked with the CEO, who helped introduce the parties, and then a single designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are currently unable to disclose details of the ongoing raise, but can share that it has led to a potential acquisition deal. The deck and report have been central to these conversations.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team was very responsive and understood our needs very quickly. Couldn't have asked for more.

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

The personal touch and quality of the delivery. If you need some design done right, call RISE.

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

Honestly no.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a charitable fundraising platform where users unlock rewards and discounts in exchange for donating to charity. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RISE?

We needed to redesign our website — we had a rough and ready MVP and it needed refining. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

RISE completely redesigned our website so it could be built in WordPress. They led us through several design workshops to scope the project. During those workshops, we fleshed out the site’s new user flows and our page designs. We requested that the site be more modern and engaging — we wanted users to have a more holistic understanding of our company’s goals. RISE added a lot of personality to our site, contrasting our previous design, which was very transactional. 

RISE also served as a consultant, working with our site developers to ensure that the design was being cost-effectively executed. Their team ensured that our development partners were on the same page. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Jonny (Design Manager and Founder) and a designer. 

How did you come to work with RISE?

One of our technology partners recommended that we work with RISE because they’d worked with RISE before and had a good experience. Together, they laid out a package that included the design and development work that fell within our budget. We’d also seen RISE’s portfolio and liked it, so we hired them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around £3,600 (approximately $4,700 USD) with RISE. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with RISE was from February–March 2022. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

RISE successfully completed the website redesign project, and the new site is set to go live by the end of March 2022. My internal teammates have a lot of positive feedback for the new design. It was great to see our design vision materialize into an amazing final product. 

How did RISE perform from a project management standpoint?

RISE had fantastic project management; everything was delivered on time and within budget. Their team was very open about project progress. We’d initially scheduled the work to take 60 hours, so their team prioritized design elements to ensure efficiency. RISE over-delivered — they delivered exactly what we wanted and then some.

We used Slack and Figma, which were very helpful for communication and providing feedback on designs. Our developers continued those channels once the design process ended — it was great to have that continuity throughout the process. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

RISE provided a high-quality design and their team was highly professional and well-managed. Additionally, their communication skills were outstanding — I felt very involved and empowered during the design process. RISE’s clear communication ensured we ended up with a final product that reflected our vision because we provided feedback throughout the process and retained a lot of creative control. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing for RISE to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise customers that hire RISE to be as involved as they can be. While RISE’s designers are excellent at executing a customer’s vision, it’s important to work collaboratively to ensure the final product matches the customer’s design goal. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the loan operations product manager for a fintech digital lending startup in London.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RISE?

The year before the project started, I had built out the first version of a digital lending platform. This had to be done in line with FCA regulations, so we could serve consumers. I hired rise to work with me in designing the replacement for that system. Using the lesson learned in the first version, we designed a state-of-the-art digital lending platform from scratch. This included all operations from receiving an application to disbursing funds to a client. In short, an end-to-end solution.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We had worked with RISE before on smaller projects, and they had impressed us with their work. Due to this, we felt confident taking them on for a full-platform design.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

The goal of the project was to design an end-to-end lending platform. Naturally, this is a big job, and I worked with RISE for a considerable length of time translating the problems, understanding the users, and narrowing in on the pain points. Once we had a clear vision of what we were trying to solve, we completed low-fi wireframes and tested prototypes with our users. Given this is a back-office tool, we were able to iterate through multiple different versions. After a number of testing sessions, we decided on the final design and completed the hi-fi wireframing.

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

I worked with four separate members of the RISE team. One junior designer, two senior designers, and the CEO.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Given the scale of the project, we have not completed its development. However, we are taking compartmentalised approach to the release, and the feedback from users so those completed has been positive. The design of DUMA (the project RISE worked on) has allowed us to automate certain aspects of our underwriting process, as it can manage the more complex data model backend. This has helped drive drown underwriting processing time.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The initial discovery calls went well with the CEO, however, the first designer I worked with was slightly out of step with what we were looking for. Upon raising this with the CEO, we quickly replaced them with someone who worked well with me, and this remained the situation until the end of the project.

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

I really appreciate the depth into which RISE completed their discovery and requirement gathering. The platform we needed to design was (and is) hugely complex, but the CEO and his team took the time to fully understand it before we designed anything.

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

The first designer and I were slightly out of step, however, RISE addressed this as soon as it was raised. They were exemplar on all other fronts.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Abacum is a financial software company that aims to drive data automation and better collaboration for finance teams. I am the Marketing Lead.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

My company uses Webflow to build our website. Our webflow developer had left and I needed someone who could help us build out the website design and functionality. We did not need someone full-time so I turned to RISE to help us find a freelancer who could work with us on an ongoing basis.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I was looking at freelancers in marketplace platforms like Upwork, Feverr and even Webflow's own marketplace. However, I could never really tell the quality of the person and most requested to be contracted for a specific amoutn of time and hours each week. I was looking for more flexibility and RISE was able to provide those options.

Ultimately, I did not want to waste time in starting with someone unknown, then having to shift because they were not up to the task. I met with Rory and Jonathan from RISE and felt that I could trust them to give me someone to solve my needs.

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

The project scope involved improving a lot of what was already built previously. We wanted to create standard modules, change the way information flowed into our CRM, fix cerain design aspects like sizing, and scrollability, and add animations. The freelancer provided by RISE studied the setup we had for a few days, then began organizing and working on a list of to-dos.

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

I mainly spoke to two founders of RISE. For the billing I worked with someone from their accounting team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website design is not completely measurable but from an aesthetics and point-of-view and how different some of our pages look, we really saw the quality of service provided by RISE's freelancer.

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

Their management style is flexible and adapts to our style. They add you to a Slack channel which makes it easier to communicate rather than back-and forth emails.

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

I think they are addressing a need with the growing number of tech startups that need product and design people. I liked that they offered both full-time and freelancer options and that is what made me go with them in the first place.

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

None I could think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO and Head of Creative Technology at Pavillon Noir, an advertising agency based in Paris (France).

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to create an AR experience in order to drive the public from the Opera in Paris to the store which is only 300 meters away. The idea was to have a giant sculpture at the Opera place and with their phones people were asked to load a webapp, then scan the giant scupture to start an AR experience qwhere a virtual key should lead them to the store. Once in front of the store there was another image on the store window that the users could scan in order to trigger a final AR animation where he could see and visit a parisian 3D room whit H&M Home's furniture inside. At the end of this animation the user had the possibility to win a gift card to be used on the store.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We asked 4/5 development studios and found that RISE's offer was the best one, for their team creation / management agility and in-budget pricing.

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

We at Pavilon Noir we developed the app concept and artistic direction. RISE's job was to create all app screens (based on our AD), create all 3D assets and animation, then code and deliver the AR webapp. We needed a web based app, for this reason we used the 8th Wall framework to build the app.

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

• One project manager, our main contact
• one UX/UI designer
• one 3D artist
• one front-end developer
• one back-end / AR developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The operation was a success, all gift cards were distributed (250) and the number of shoppers in the store was much higher during the campaign (5 days). The client is so happy that he's thinking about doing the same thing for another store that will open soon in another city.

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

All exchanges were made via conf calls and Slack. At first a weekly meeting and some deliveries / feedbacks over Slack, but at the end we went full Slack with a lot of delivery / feedback in almost realtime.

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

Their agility to adapt to our changing needs is the best and the final result was exactly as expected.

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

At the end of the development period, time was going low, and there were some "language understanding" issues. In this final period I started talking directly to the devs and 3D artist instead of going through the project manager.

That wasn't an issue at all, I'm a CTO myself and I asked this. RISE was ok with it and the devs reacted very well. Everyone was extremely agile to find solutions and fix them all before the project going live. At the end everything wen perfectly. Next time we'll maybe bypass the project manager since the beginning.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a SaaS company serving commercial photographers, agents, agencies and producers. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RISE?

Re-design of the software dashboard.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Rise had the best talent and the best cost benefit when considering the level of expertise as well as easiness to work with and competence.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

The project comprised basically evaluation of the best user experience via qualitative and quantitative data and subsequently re-design of the UI and UX based on the findings and the new visual identity of the company.

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

2 to 3 people depending on the week. Ux/UI experts as well as design and research.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We saw a 50% increase in the number of conversions from users that started trials and converted into laying customers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. The team was extremely easy to communicate with and arrange calls and presentations.

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

The team's talents were easy to work with and experienced.

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

They can add complimentary capabilities to the pool of talents such as coding and statistics.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a CPO/CMO at Hostelworld a PLC (LON:HSW)

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RISE?

We've engaged with RISE for staffing contractors and full-time team members. We've continued

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We've interviewed over 7 different talent agencies across the global. Rise's responsiveness and understanding of talent quality was what sold us. Additionally, we appreciated their responsiveness to our ever changing requirements.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We initially setup a smaller project where they would provide us UI/UX support on one of our major projects. Through a few simple meetings RISE was able to understand our core problem and present solutions that felt tailored fit. As we moved forward the project was going in a good direction. Post that project we've been RISE 4x more work.

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

Founder worked with us, Head of Project Management, Senior UI Lead, and some to come.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our metrics are currently private but I can say that RISE's intervention helped us through a very key blocker in our past so much so that we've decided to continue to invest more in RISE's capabilities.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was brilliant, could not really improve anything else. The bigger struggle was us getting our own house in order. However, RISE was quick to adapt to our ever-changing needs.

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

Their responsiveness and quality of output was impressive.

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

No not really.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder and CPO at Veremark, a global employment screening scale up.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RISE?

We were needing to build out the product team to the support the company's growth. Initially we were struggling to find good talent so reached out to RISE to help with the search.

SOLUTION

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

I knew the founder from a previous company in which we worked together and received some outreach from them. The service and rates sounded competitive.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

I was looking to fill 2 roles - a contract designer and full time product manager. I shared my existing job specs with them, and they took those, edited slightly and posted to their network. Within 48 hours we had a number of good candidates for both roles.

How many resources from the RISE team worked with you, and what were their positions?

1 - Anna the head of talent

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

2 successful hires who have performed at or above expectation.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Simple comms in slack - very responsive.

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

They have an excellent talent pool and fast turnaround times.

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

None I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Work From Anywhere compliance consulting. Founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RISE?

UI designs for an MVP application launch.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Recommended through a colleague.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We shared our UX with very rough current designs and explained our vision for other pages not yet complete. They commenced designs on a page by page basis including feedback and reviews which they would then action.

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

One main resource, Eguakun with quality oversight from Jonny.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were delighted with the end results. Our application now looks really professional which gives us immense confidence as we bring our MVP to our first prospective customers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Great communication made easy via Slack with a couple video calls to clarify on any complex items.

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

Fantastic design results managed nicely through iterative process.

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

Nope. Will definitely use again.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Im a founder of a start up concept

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RISE?

I needed someone to help get my vision into a designed tangible format so I could show perspective stakeholders

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I was recommended

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Jonny and Jemimah designed and built wireframes to show exactly what the concept is. The built not only one pagers to send out but also click through views to bring the concept to live

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

I worked with 2 people

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I talk about the concept with people and am able to walk them through it. Almost everyone has commented on how good it looks and some believe that its a live product!

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Jonny managed the whole process and cam meme the comport that it was all on track.

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

The ease and the way that they got the concept so quickly.

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

No - I was delighted with them!