Selma Digital

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Annuity Association

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Annuity Association is an independent annuity agency that sells annuities from reliable providers with high ratings, focusing on education first and recommendations second.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Selma Digital to accomplish?

• Designing a user experience for our NestEasy direct-to-consumer annuity platform

SOLUTION

How did you find Selma Digital?

Online Search

Why did you select Selma Digital over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Selma Digital were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Selma Digital helped us develop branding and a user experience for our direct-to-consumer annuity sales platform.  Annuity Association's value proposition is that we sell annuities; we educate our customers and help them to make a buying decision.  The professionals at Selma Digital understood our philosophical differentiators and designed a user experience that reflects those distinctions.  This approach was a critical success factor in ensuring the success of the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Selma Digital helped us launch an entirely new capability for reaching our customers.  This included helping us to create an approachable and personable branding and user experience that embodies Annuity Association's "white glove" approach to helping our customers reach their retirement goals.  Customers who have purchased annuities through the platform describe the experience as "easy to understand" and "fun to use".

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

This project was challenging because it was greenfield design.  We approached Selma Digital with some ideas in mind for the platform and a solid set of company values that we wanted expressed in the user experience.  Selma Digital approached the challenge with creativity combined with professionalism.  They met with stakeholders in our business, listened to what were at times very abstract ideas, designed something that implemented those ideas, and then iterated with our stakeholders to refine the designs until they hit the mark of what we wanted.  The folks at Selma Digital worked within externally driven project management milestones, delivering designs on time for UI developers to implement.

What was your primary form of communication with Selma Digital?

Virtual Meeting

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

The folks at Selma Digital were fun to work with!  They were extremely engaged in the process of understanding our unique competitive advantage and capturing it in design.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Former Lead Software Engineer - UI/UX of a hedge fund

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Hedge Fund

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Selma Digital to accomplish?

• Develop a design system for internal business applications
• Design a best-in-class risk management UI
• Develop design best-practices for distributed development teams

SOLUTION

How did you find Selma Digital?

Referral

Why did you select Selma Digital over others?

Great culture fit

How many teammates from Selma Digital were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

UI development is distributed across multiple teams and combined in an in-house microfontends framework.  Selma Digital was hired to help us develop a design system, component library, and design best practices to bring these disperate applications together visually.  In addition, they provided more direct UI/UX design and user research for a few key applications, including our security master and risk portal applications.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a variety of stake holders from different parts of the company who's feedback we solicited on a regular basis

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

We created a deliverable timeline and resource allocation plan looking forward a few months.  We would update and ammend this plan every few weeks.

What was your primary form of communication with Selma Digital?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The quality of the work was exceptional.  They asked the right questions to get users to think about their needs in ways that gave us actionable feedback.

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

Not really

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the founder of an energy & natural resources company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We invest in early stage technology companies and help them grow.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Cue Studio to accomplish?

• Build a interactive website for a portfolio company
• Build a heath tech product for a portfolio company
• Create marketing collateral to raise capital for a portfolio company

SOLUTION

How did you find Cue Studio?

Referral

Why did you select Cue Studio over others?

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

How many teammates from Cue Studio were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Q1 Develop brand identity, product look and feel based off Product Lead Strategy
• Q2 Collaborate with Product Team to scope, design and build alpha version of our health tech/media platform
• Q4 Test, iterate and build new features

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Grew monthly uniques from 7 to 12 million unique monthly visits and $20M+ in revenue
• Grew paid user base and gross revenue 204% and 105% respectively year-over-year

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

Selme-Rachel and her team balanced mapped out the project from day 1. It was an excellent balance of design, brainstorm oriented meetings and operationally focused, deliverables meetings throughout year. She adapted to our Trello use smoothly and efficiently. Overall the team just went above and beyond. I can't recommend Cue Studio enough. Their reputation will catch up to the significant talent, expertise and client advocacy they deliver. 5 stars as they say.

What was your primary form of communication with Cue Studio?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Business Strategy and design thinking baked together with serious digital marketing know how, development know how, UX/UI skills, understanding of market of technology tools applied to deliver results.

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

maybe more in person meetings.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a Director at YCharts

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

YCharts is an investment research and proposal-generation software for financial advisors, asset managers, and investors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Cue Studio to accomplish?

• Create a website that speaks to multiple audiences and segments traffic for conversion tracking
• Add flexibility and control to our wordpress environment, which was previously lacking
• Update our visual brand to match the evolving direction of our product

SOLUTION

How did you find Cue Studio?

Referral

Why did you select Cue Studio over others?

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

What was the size of Cue Studio’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

Cue Studio assisted YCharts with the following activities and deliverables:

• Information Architecture Diagram to define structure and content organization  
• “Key” Wordpress template pages and modules, high-fidelity design, considering Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile. These key page types and modules can be reused and modified across pages, or even on new Wordpress pages yet to be created
• High-level style guide for Digital Creative practice within marketing org, provided via Figma and PDF.
• Content definition support, which will match new information architecture and flow Cue Studio and another Tech Partner also collaborated to implement a responsive Wordpress site across Desktop, Tablet, & Mobile. All blog content was migrated and restyled, executing the site using best standards and practices for Wordpress.

This work translated into the following activities and deliverables:

• New, optimized marketing site delivered on Wordpress platform with fixed number of modules to reuse and create new pages.
• Hubspot integration
• Migration of all blog posts
• Hosting management (recommending WP Engine, which includes staging environment)
• Availability for follow up and consultation for enhancements/maintenance post-launch

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Our "Request a Demo" page is now one of our top 5 most-visited pages due to increased CTA placement & visibility
• Time savings across marketing team thanks to more flexible, usable site that we are not constantly "hacking"
• All maintenance and bug requests routed away from our internal engineering team to new 3p partner

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

While there was a slight delay due to another vendor involved, Cue Studio remained highly communicative and re-worked our plan to meet moving targets. Cue served as a "general contractor" for all other vendors involved and did an excellent job managing contributions from several other teams.

What was your primary form of communication with Cue Studio?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The overall design of our site and brand is amazing and receiving rave reviews from employees and customers. But potentially even more impressive was Cue's commitment to our success; they constantly put our needs and wants first and offered helpful guidance when needed.

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

N/A

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on July 28, 2020.

Caleb Eplett

VP of Product Management, Financial Services Provider

Financial Services

51-200 Employees

Chicago, Illinois, United States

$200,000 to $999,999

Jul 2017 - Ongoing

Project summary

Cue Studio provides design services to a financial research platform to make their user experience accessible. The team uses spec sheets to create prototypes. They also perform user testing for feedback. 

Feedback summary

Throughout the engagement, Cue Studio has become part of the team. Their resourceful team is efficient, responsive, and creative. They work independently with the aim of going above and beyond for their clients. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product management at a website that researches financial information & securities used by investors to make investment decisions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cue Studio?

We use them for our design work. We wanted our clients to have a great user experience when interacting with the tools and data we present.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cue Studio provides us with full design services. We’ll give them with spec sheets and information on a project. They’ll take that and run with it, creating prototypes and getting feedback.

Throughout different iterations, it becomes a collaborative process. Sometimes, they’ll even conduct user testing to get feedback from our users or people in the market before we ship the designs off to our dev team.

What is the team composition?

We primarily connect with two people, but a third person jumps in occasionally. Our two main contacts are Selma-Rachel (Founder & Creative Director) and Omar (Product Designer).

How did you come to work with Cue Studio?

Someone at my company found them. After talking to them and other candidates, Cue Studio seemed like the best fit. They seemed to have the knowledge and could fit within our culture. Selma-Rachel also had good experience that seemed relevant to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Cue Studio started in July 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Cue Studio is part of our team at this point. Their work quality has had a great impact on the business. They’re pretty good at providing resources that would help us continue projects if they’re not around.

Throughout the process, they’re responsive. It’s easy to set up meetings. Back when we were in the office, they would come by when we needed them to. It’s been a great experience.

How did Cue Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Selma-Rachel manages the projects. They do a good job. We collaborate quite a bit through Asana. We do have separate boards, but we both have access to each other’s, so it makes it easier to track projects.

The design files are typically started in Freehand or InVision. Then they make their way into sketch files, which are shared on Zeppelin so that everyone can access them.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cue Studio will take projects and do a lot of research, even within our data. There’s not a lot of handholding along the way. Their team independently creates work within the guidelines we give them. They also go above and beyond to ensure the designs fit within our website and overall workflow. They do the extra work to make sure that what they’re producing fits well within our market.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not off the top of my head. If there was anything, I could bring it up to them, and they’ll address it pretty quickly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re working with someone outside of your organization, stay organized. Make sure you have frequent meetings. We meet once a week to discuss the status of the projects and go over any questions we may have. The constant communication and organization with the systems are always helpful.

Star Ratings

Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5. Unless it means they have less capacity for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Co-Founder of Greenhouse Tea Company, a black-owned, wellness centered tea manufacturer out of Baltimore, MD.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Cue Studios to help rebrand and relaunch our website and our packaging designs.

SOLUTION

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

Selma-Rachel is a visionary. She was able to quickly identify the needs of my company from a marketing perspective and execute on our vision.

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

We had a kickoff meeting to discuss the vision and mission. We then put together a specific plan of action and execution plan. We collaborated with the Cue Studios team to identify key brand attributes which translated into the following deliverables:

• Logo Mark/Logo system
• Updated language to clarify brand messaging
• Updated website
• High level brand style guide, which outlined color palette and type face
• Art for tea packaging

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

A project manager and a project lead. They worked collaboratively.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After our initial launch, we saw an uptick in traffic, as well as an increase in conversion.

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

Their style is very hands on. They are open to suggestions, but very keen on maintaining the integrity of the expected outcome.

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

What was most impressive to me about Cue Studios was their willingness to be flexible and the amount of time and effort they put in to ensure our deadline was met.

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

Nothing that I can note from this experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a large accounting firm and am part of a small corporate venturing group within the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cue Studio?

We were partnering with a financial wellness business to undertake digital financial planning offerings.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have an ongoing relationship that has included many small projects related to the application. To start, we determine an idea for the direction of the design collaboratively. From there, we have a meeting about goals, research plans, and brainstorming. Their team develops a few concepts and designs from there. They collaborated with experts on our team to handle design work, iterating it together as needed.

They were primarily responsible for UI/UX design and some aspects of branding through the design process. It was essential that they understood our high-level brand, architecture, and guidelines to brand the application in accordance with our identity.

What is the team composition?

I was exclusively interfacing with Selma-Rachel (Founder & Creative Director). 

How did you come to work with Cue Studio?

We needed a new design partner after our old one was acquired to work internally for another company. Selma-Rachel had worked with that design team earlier in her career, and I was referred to her. I liked her approach in our early conversations, so I decided to start working with her.

How much have you invested with them?

Over the course of a year and a half with them, we spent about $320,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May 2018–June 2020. Because of funding, we aren’t making new developments to the application at this point. Otherwise, the project would be ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

She worked closely with financial subject matter experts to develop flows and experience. They were always very impressed with her ability to understand the subject matter and incorporate a strong UX. When we’ve tested the app, the design has resonated very well with end-users, who feel that it’s fresh and intuitive.  

How did Cue Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate over calls, Slack, or email.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re easy to work with and committed to doing the job correctly. She’s open to feedback and committed to our satisfaction with her work.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

Early on, I felt that we weren’t aligned on our north star at our initial meetings. While that was an unexpected challenge for then, they came back to the next meeting understanding that we had to realign with each other. She is very open to feedback and takes a constructive perspective to move forward on tasks.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Keep goals and objectives top of mind. At the start of meetings, it may be beneficial to review them. However, she’s very easy to work with. People shouldn’t need much advice to be successful with her.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for the world’s largest flute retail shop. We sell musical instruments, accessories, and provide repairs. I’m the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Cue Studio?

We hired them to do a rebrand for us including an updated logo and new website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a full exploration of a visual rebrand. They gave us about half a dozen options to choose from. After we picked a path, we refined the new logo over the course of several iterations. Once we had that logo worked out, we implemented it into different materials including business cards and stationery. 

They helped us redesign our website to incorporate our new brand. Their team also helped us select the right e-commerce platform for us and guided us through the process. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Selma-Rachel (Founder & Creative Director). 

How did you come to work with Cue Studio?

We had mutual friends with Selma-Rachel. We met up for coffee and just hit it off. Our business relationship progressed naturally from there. 

How much have you invested in them?

We invested around $40,000–$45,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in early-2016, and we worked together until around 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re fantastic. The quality of the work is great. We get compliments nearly every day about how beautiful our website is. We currently do around a million dollars in sales per year. Our online presence is far more robust than our competitors. 

How did Cue Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t know what tools they used internally. However, they were very on top of everything and turned work around quickly. We had a lot of meetings in person and communicated regularly over email and digitally. They were very responsive. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re honest and offer great insight. It was helpful to have Selma-Rachel share her opinion about our design. She had a strong vision for our company. Their cost was also very reasonable. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. Our engagement with Cue Studio was extremely positive. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

They’re a great partner and I would recommend hiring them if you’re in need of their services. Be open to new ideas and take a broad view of how different users might interact with your website.