Rolique

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

4for4 Fantasy Football is a subscription-based fantasy football information service. We provide our subscribers with stat projections, tools, and content to help them enjoy more winning in their fantasy football games. I am the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rolique?

I’m a developer myself and, for a long time, was doing all of the development. As we grew, I became the bottleneck. Rolique filled the gap by providing development, testing, and design resources to help grow our business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve done many different projects. I originally brought them on to upgrade our site from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7, which is what it’s running on currently. That was our first big project, and that took almost a year to do everything because we have a really complicated site.

Since then, they’ve been rolling out improvements, new features, and we did a redesign. They’ve done all sorts of things for us. We’ve also used them for building out an app and some other web projects that we’ve had along the way.

How did you come to work with Rolique?

I was looking for someone at quite a few different places. I used oDesk to try to find some international people. I decided, after interviewing some local candidates that hiring an American or Canadian wasn’t in the budget. So we started looking for international clients.

We had a thorough vetting process because I knew this was going to be a long-standing relationship and I really needed to be sure I was confident in the team. I interviewed maybe 10 individuals and small organizations like Rolique.

The thing that set them apart was Vlad (Owner, Rolique). He was my project manager to start. He had lived in the US. He’s a fluent English speaker and he inspired a lot of confidence in me. That was the big difference with them.

Their price point was reasonable but they weren’t the cheapest of the people I looked at. Some of the people I looked at seemed like maybe they could do the job, but communication might be an issue or something like that.

How much have you invested with Rolique?

Over the years, we have spent over $500,000 with ROLIQUE. I don’t have an exact figure, but we have released new projects and iterated on old projects over the past 6 years. We have received great value for our money, and have decided to come back to Rolique year after year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've had active development since 2013 with brief pauses.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I don’t have any stats. We’ve been doing a lot of stuff to improve our business. We’ve seen traffic increase every year. We’ve seen good size sales growth, like 20–25% a year since we started with Rolique.

How did Rolique perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve iterated a lot with them in terms of trying out different things. I’ve had several different project managers there. Some have been better than others, but one thing that’s been great is I always feel like I can go up their chain of command, and if something’s not up to satisfaction I’m pretty confident that they’ll make the situation right. They’ve done that before.

What did you find most impressive about Rolique?

As opposed to hiring individual resources or working with a less flexible company, with Rolique, I can dial up or down resources depending on the scope of the current project. 

Sometimes, when we’re slow, I might only need a single developer working half time, but in busy times we can scale up, get multiple developers, and get a tester and designers as we need them. The communication compared to other international companies is very good.

Are there any areas Rolique could improve?

Just typical things of all development. Projects can end up taking a bit longer or run over budget, but that’s all typical in the industry. Any time that we’ve had problems, they’re quick to address those.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated on October 21st, 2019, by the client. The original star ratings were: Overall – 5, Quality – 5, Schedule – 4, Cost – 5, NPS – 5. New content is below.

Opportunity / Challenge

What challenge were you trying to address with Rolique?

Last year, we did a complete UX/UI overhaul of our site, primarily to help organic traffic growth, user engagement, and conversion rates.

Solution

What is the scope of their involvement?

We worked with Rolique to do a complete UI/UX assessment of our site, and with a third party on SEO suggestions. After the initial research gathering, Rolique worked closely with us to bring all of the design, UI/UX and SEO suggestions to reality with an entirely redesigned site, including not just design, but also user flows through the conversion process and throughout our product.

Results & Feedback

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Since releasing the redesigned version of our site in May, we have seen improvement in literally every KPIs we track: 

• Yearly Traffic
• Month over month (unique, new, and returning users increased)
• Engagement (bounce rate decreased; time on site increased)
• Email subscribers increased
• Free trial accounts increased
• Subscribers increased
• Churn decreased
• Average revenue per user (ARPU) increased 

Conversion rate at all levels of funnels increased

How did Rolique perform from a project management standpoint?

Khrystyna (Project Manager, Rolique) has been our main contact for the last few years and has done a great job keeping our projects on track. We use a Kanban-style of Agile development, which we find works well with our workflow. 

Khrystyna manages the JIRA boards and backlog and holds weekly standup meetings with myself and our Rolique team, which lends to project transparency. In the instances when we have faced challenges, Khrystyna and/or Vlad will get the team together and find a solution.

Are there any areas Rolique could improve?

Nothing at this time. Any issues we’ve had in the past with resourcing have been resolved, and I am quite confident in our team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Octane Press is a book publishing company. I am the founder and chief executive officer of the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rolique?

We were looking to upgrade our website. Rolique had developed the first version of our site, but we wanted a number of new features, including photography and additional content. We also wanted to automate some processes, integrating with our accounting software and warehouse. In addition to retail customers, we wanted to allow resellers to make purchases through the site, using registered accounts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Rolique built a brand-new version of our site from scratch using Drupal. They also handled design. We talked about revising the older site but, as we got into it, we realized that it wasn't ideal.

Rolique helped us set up the site's hosting, solved SSL [secure sockets layer] problems, and provided support and maintenance for us. We interacted primarily with Rolique's principal [managing partner Vlad Morozenko], and met at least 3 developers on our project.

How did you come to work with Rolique?

I put a bid out on Drupal.org and looked at companies from around the world. In the end, it came down to 2 United States companies and Rolique. I was inclined to choose a local developer, but Rolique sold me through their team of sharp, young people. I'm convinced that I made the right decision.

How much have you invested with Rolique?

The cost of our project with Rolique was around $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first started working with Rolique in 2011 and launched the first website in 2012. We started work on our latest project at least a year and a half ago, and it had an 18-month run. Rolique is my go-to firm, and I plan to use them in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The quality of their work was what attracted me to Rolique. Anytime we worked on a feature, their team overdelivered. The only problem we had with Rolique was that they'd sometimes overengineer, going beyond what we were looking for.

I often went to Rolique with a problem and received solutions that I hadn't even considered. Each of our sites have had features that were slick and easy to use.

Rolique was wonderful in terms of design. I was especially looking to showcase our images, which is exactly what we got for our blog page. It features rollable pop-ups, which are nifty to use and very inviting.

The site has been entered into some contests for the book publishing world, and we expect that it will do well. We've heard positive things from business customers in particular. Our web traffic has increased by 120 percent during 2015, which has been a great improvement.

How did Rolique perform from a project management standpoint?

We went over budget a bit because I kept adding features. Rolique was extraordinarily generous in this regard. We used UXPin extensively for developing designs.

What did you find most impressive about Rolique?

Rolique was exceptional in the range of development covered. Anytime I had a problem, Rolique's team jumped in. Typically, development firms want to build a widget and leave, but Rolique almost felt like a partner. To this day, I can email them about any problem and see it fixed.

Are there any areas Rolique could improve?

I don't have a critique. I wish that Rolique was down the hall from us, but not even the time zone difference was a problem.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Rolique?

I didn't provide a good enough level of detail for the first iteration of our website. Whenever dealing with a development firm, it's very important to know what you want before jumping in. What sold me about Rolique was the level of personal interaction. I've known their principal for 5 years and consider him a friend. Spending some time interacting with the team is important as well as the overall size of the firm. Big companies with hundreds of people won't offer the same interaction.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Feebee

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

360 employee performance feedback for startups.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Rolique to accomplish?

• Fix our app
• Build future vision of app
• Act as our external development team for maintenance/changes

SOLUTION

How did you find Rolique?

• Referral

Why did you select Rolique over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Rolique were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Rolique came to help us when we were left without any engineering capability within our team. They helped us immediately, and supported us through a difficult time. They helped to fix many issues that were present in the app we had created. Then they helped us to plan improvements to our app. They helped us to plan and build a web dashboard for our paying customers.

They did everything to a high standard, and were amazingly supportive throughout all the work. They are very attentive and fast if we have issues, and always finish the work on time as agreed. They have become our engineering team, and we wish we’d had them since the beginning.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have developed a very strong working relationship. With every task or feature that we want built we describe it and include some rough designs.Then Rolique scope out the timing and thus cost of the work. If they need more information we provide it. Then they provide timelines for when they will start and finish the project.

We keep a very high communication over Slack and Trello throughout the project and we constantly test and see if the project is progressing as planned. Working in this way ensures that we are always happy with the outcome and that the project is a success. We have been super happy with all projects.

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

They always deliver on time and they are always responsive to questions during the project. We can talk directly to the engineers or to the project manager provided by Rolique. Everyone is always communicative and open. As a result every project has been delivered on time and our needs have been exceeded.

What was your primary form of communication with Rolique?

• Email or Messaging App

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

The people that we have worked with have been absolutely fantastic. The dedication, commitment, and passion they have shown has been amazing since the beginning. The outcome of the work is always to a very high standard too. The most impressive thing is how supportive they have been and they have never once let us down, which as a founder, is amazing. To know you can always fully rely on Rolique is really a blessing.

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

I've been super happy with everything so far and could not ask for a better partner.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the project manager of Circleflow which helps creative agencies to drive automated digital advertising campaigns.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Rolique to continue with the development of our tool. Our goals were to fix all bugs and inconsistencies as well as completing our roadmap.

SOLUTION

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

Rolique was recommended to us. We decided to work with them due to their good reputation and streamlined project management.

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

They developed our tool based on our UI designs. The scope included the implementation of campaign templates as well as custom marketing strategies which can be monitored in the tool as well as several admin control features and complex logics to calculate marketing related metrics. Before they started working on our unfinished tool, they did a code audit which was very helpful.

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

We hired full time one full stack and one frontend dev and had a quality assurance manager part time. There was aproject coordinator as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were able to implement all desired functionalities on time and did a great job in comprehending our briefings

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

We communicated by text via Slack and had daily meetings through Google Meet. They are very friendly and easy to communicate to.

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

That they understood what we wanted and if something wasn't implementable the way we briefed it they came up with alternatives to make it work which shows that they really understood the product and logic.

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

I'm very pleased with everything they've done and have nothing to add.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a legal tech company which provides b2b software for law firms

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your goals for this project?

MVP

SOLUTION

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Frontend development

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

I'm very happy about the quality and quantity the developer provides.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

via JIRA from us

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They give quick responses and have a good skillset