Rubber Cheese

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the manager of a branding company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubber Cheese?

We needed some design and development work done on our website. There had been a lot of quick turnaround requests for changes to our website due to COVID-related restrictions. We brought on Rubber Cheese to help us out.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Recently, we’ve decided to create a registration for people to put in a ballot for a vintage collection instead of offering tours and tastings. Rubber Cheese developed the page as well as the functionality for people to register their ballot. 

They also developed an online shop for us. They coded the basic functionality for calculating shipping costs and discounts. There were three design templates and we provided content and images for them to build upon. 

The team currently provides hosting of our booking platform and ongoing maintenance services for our website. They also do monthly updates, which involves making changes to our hours of operation, tasting banners, and coding and configuration.

What is the team composition?

The project manager is our primary contact, along with Paul (Creative Director). There are also two developers working with us.

How did you come to work with Rubber Cheese?

They were already onboarded when I joined the company, but their dependability is why we still work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay £2,000 (approximately $3,000 USD) per month, plus the development costs.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around 2013, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There has been a steady response to our ever-changing needs over the past year, especially during the COVID-19 lockdown. Rubber Cheese has a quick turnaround and they have shown a good commitment to our needs.

How did Rubber Cheese perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very responsive and work long hours, when necessary, to get the job done. Prior to the ballot registration page going live, they worked over the weekend in order to finish everything on time. 

We communicate primarily via email, with occasional calls or Skype meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are consistent in contact. From the directors of the company down to the developers, they are a solid, committed service provider.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They may have ideas of how we could improve our website, but they aren’t proactive in suggesting those to us. As the experts, they could present ideas to help us improve rather than just wait for us to request it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It works best to have one contact on each side to coordinate the engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO at Riverlane. We’re a quantum computing software startup based in Cambridge, UK.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubber Cheese?

We wanted to grow our business and attract future investors. Thus, we needed a much better website and branding. Also, we needed to recruit new staff, so we decided to hire Rubber Cheese to develop our website so that we could raise more money and appeal to recruits for our growing company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave Rubber Cheese a brief, and they worked through a series of stages with us to build the best website for us. They ran a workshop and did desk research to help us find our target audience. From there, they moved on to navigation and user journeys. They came to us with mood boards of how the website might look. They also provided wireframes and prototypes, as well as content suggestions.

Once we agreed on the mood boards and wireframes, they started designing the website. This process included work on specific animations and transitions. They made sure that the design reflected our brand since we’re a very technical company. Finally, they developed and tested the website, and they also helped us launch it.

Apart from that, they also helped us with security and set up a WordPress site so that we could update the website ourselves.

What is the team composition?

I worked closely with Kelly (Managing Director) and Paul (Creative Director). Ryan (UX/UI Designer) did the website design with us. There was a fourth person who built the website. They all had different styles and technical capabilities.

How did you come to work with Rubber Cheese?

I had worked with Rubber Cheese in my previous job at the University of Cambridge. We needed a new website. We did a tender, and they were a small company in Cambridge. We went with them, and they delivered an amazing website.

When I moved to the new job, I decided that I was going to go straight to Rubber Cheese because they were so good. We were very happy with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about £35,000 (approximately $48,500 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked from December 2019–May 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The first thing to note is that Rubber Cheese won a prestigious award given to the best websites. It was the first time that they had ever gotten one of these awards. This was amazing for us too because our website garnered a lot of attention from the design community, and we had an increase in organic search and traffic coming to our website.

Seven months later, we won a series A funding round of $20 million. Although we can’t make a cause-and-effect relation, we believed that having a credible and well-designed website to enhance our brand was directly linked to our success because we now looked organized and credible to be invested in.

Additionally, we received so much good feedback from recruits. They loved our website’s design and said that they got a real sense of who we were and what we did. This was very important for us because we wanted the website to appeal to the right type of technical recruits such as physicists, engineers, and mathematicians. We were 15 people before, and now we’re nearly 30, so we doubled in size.

How did Rubber Cheese perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated via phone and email. Throughout the project, I always kept in contact with Kelly, which was really good. As we move through the stages, it was very clear who we were supposed to talk to. For example, during the design stage, we talked to Ryan if we needed to discuss something.

They sent us a timetable with the timing and costs, and they stuck to it. They delivered every milestone on time and budget.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Rubber Cheese really took the time to understand what we wanted out of the website, and they forced us to think about it more deeply than we had as a startup with no marketing experience. They did an effort to make sure that the final product was outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only challenge is that Rubber Cheese is quite small. If they had a bigger team, they could take more projects and do more. However, there are probably good reasons for keeping it relatively small, and it has been very a difficult time for small businesses in the creative industries due to the current situation, at least in the UK. They’re amazing, but they could have a bigger reach and impact if they had more staff.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend enough time with Rubber Cheese because they really know what they’re doing, which is not something that can be done in a hurry. You have to brief and interact with them to get the most out of the engagement.