Starbase

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a Founder at You are launched, a startup consultancy firm. Our company helps startup founders sort out their core value, launch digital products, generate first users, and get profits.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Starbase?

Our client is a young startup that developed an Airbnb-like marketplace for pets. We've been working with them from day one, helping them validate their business idea, create an MVP marketplace, and attract their target audience. We hired a Starbase team to design the website and a mobile application for this project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Starbase actually found me first through Clutch when they were looking for an iOS & Android development team to deliver their project. We've been working since April 2021 (we were their vendors), and when we needed to find a design team for our project, I knew they were the right team.

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

Because the project comes from a pretty competitive field, we knew we had to come up with something extraordinary (including UI/UX design) to generate loyal users. Our workflow was broken down into bi-weekly sprints. At the end of each sprint, we had demos and retrospectives to review the artifacts, gather feedback from stakeholders and users, and plan the future steps. When needed, a Starbase team demonstrated high flexibility to make necessary changes and urgent fixes. They set up all communication tools (Slack and Zoom) and design tools (Figma) and led us through the working process.

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

There are two UI/UX designers and Art Director that work on the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

First, they totally fulfilled our expectations. Their delivery speed, diligence, proactive approach, and quality of work are excellent. Second, we got a chance to run a series of A/B testing sessions, user testing, and focus groups to get first feedback. Our users outlined usability features like easy and intuitive navigation. Overall, users and our team were more than happy with what we saw!

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Like I said before, a Starbase team really excels at collaboration with their clients. They took our hands and guided us through every working step, artifact, and report. Their communication and responsiveness are excellent. I've worked with many contractors in the digital industry and I can definitely say that it's one of the best collaborations I've had so far.

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

I like how they understood all of our requirements and ideas on the fly. They also think a few steps further and always put an end-user to a cornerstone. Sometimes, design teams put their creative ambitions before users. With a Starbase team, that's not the case.

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

It's hard to find something that I'd drastically change since didn't have any troubles with the quality of work, communication, or our work in general. When everything goes as you expected, you don't see any flaws!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Business Innovation Manager at a digital product studio in Vancouver, BC. We develop apps for health and fitness.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Starbase?

We did not have a current marketable website for our iOS app. We needed a knowledgeable and high quality designer to provide a site for the app.

SOLUTION

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

We looked for web designers via Upwork. After reviewing many proposals, we chose Starbase because their work quality, industry experience and personable team.

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

Product manager created wireframes in Figma, detailing the value proposition and app features. Wires frames were handed off to Starbase for more creative rendering. Starbase then continued on the create 2 full designed for review of our team. Once reviewed with

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

In total, we worked with 3 designers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everyone was blown away with the quality of their design. Their creative process and ability allowed for top quality designed which translated into a quality website.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Working across time zone meant that communication was paramount to success. The Starbase team always exhibited professionalism and steady and fast replies to all communications with all deadline met. Using Figma allowed for real time communication and adjustment which further increased the workflow.

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

We are very impressed with the quality of the creative work that they were able to produce.

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

The scope and timelines were quite tight and even though they were able to produce fantastic results I'd like to involve them earlier on in the next project to be able to do a proper deep dive and see what they can come up with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a small german software agency consisting of me and 3 employees. We are developing software for medium sized companies and work on our own projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Starbase?

We are working on an inhouse app project for endusers. For this reason we wanted the app to be beatiful and easy to use. Our skillset mostly consists of developing software, thus we needed external help for the design part.

What were your goals for this project?

We are building an app to become the market leader in a small animal niche. The current competitors ui's are still looking like they were developed in the early 2000s. We want to bring that niche to the current state of the art of ui design.

SOLUTION

How did you select Starbase?

I searched online on multiple platforms for different designers. We started working on a trial basis with 3 designers/agencies. Starbase was by far the most professional one in the planning phase as well in the result.

Describe the project in detail.

At first I told my contact at starbase about the general project. From that description he created a general flow chart of the neccessary screens. We used that as a basis to gain a mutual understanding of the project.

After some adjustments they started working on the wireframes. He quickly reported me, when they made progress so that I could give them my feedback. The first draft was already very good and the general style more than met my expectations.

As we tackle a complex topic there were obviously a couple of details that needed changes. From my comments, the designers at starbase were able to understand the gist of what I wanted very precisely. Based on that, they made me a couple of suggestions from which I chose the once that I liked most. We used these to develop the final designs. The communication was very fast which led to great results in allmost no time.

What was the team composition?

I have a single contact which I am communicating with. He also does major parts of the design which helped in keeping the overhead low. He clearly communicatd, that there are other people wokring in the background on my project as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After only 2.5 weeks in the Projects I were able to show allmost final designs to potential customers of our app. Most of them are not tech savy, but all of them found the interface intuitive and beatiful.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We got frequent updates on the project status and They quickly reacted to my comments and change requests

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The general workflow was very impressive. They led me through the process that is neccessary to gather all information for a successfull app design. Other designers I tried just started working without even gaining a proper understanding of my wants and needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly I am perfectly happy with Starbase and will hire them for all of my upcoming projects that need dedicated design work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a travel and social media app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Plastik?

We needed help with UI/UX design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a specific concept, and Plastik helped us structure and visualize our idea into concrete designs. They created our app’s UI designs and helped us move onto the next steps of development. Their team created a mind map showing critical stages of the project and areas that needed more focus.

What is the team composition?

There are three people including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Plastik?

We were considering a few agencies we found online and chose Plastik in the end. Also, they had past experience with e-commerce clients, which was very important for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $2,500.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Plastik has good experience in this domain. We liked the different types of visualizations as well as the structural design and UX approach that they implement. Our team was pleased with their work in the areas of project profiling and how the landing page and different components came together.

How did Plastik perform from a project management standpoint?

There’s a very high level of interaction. Plastik is supportive, consistent, and always delivers on time. They have good precision in the average estimate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very transparent as a team and meet our expectations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any criticism.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take advantage of the visual roadmap and their feedback after diagnosing the project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder of Fuma Facility Management LLC - the largest shisha outsourcing provider in the UAE. We work with more than 25 luxury hotels providing high-quality service

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Plastik?

Our business model is B2B - our clients are hotels and restaurants. And our website is the key lead generation engine. When we started the company 3 years ago, we did not pay too much attention to the look and feel of our website, but as we are growing - we need to have the best and modern web site as this is our face for potential clients. So we hired Plastik for the redevelopment of our web site

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were to provide the ultra-modern web site in line with the industry trends where we operate (Plastik also did a benchmarking study to provide us with best possible design options), introduce our services in a comprehensive fashion, and provide the overview of our venues on a map

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We used to work with Plastic on another project where their scope was limited to UX/UI design and branding. We enjoyed the professionality of the team and the quality of the results. And with this project, we decided to extend their scope to web development

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Benchmarking - analysis of web sites globally in our industry UX/UI design - mood boards and sketching of the web site structure and layout Web development

What was the team composition?

Victoria Sheinina - acted as a Project manager Arsentii Horelik - web-designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As mentioned, the majority of our leads come from the web site - therefore professional web site will help us to attract more clients and enter into many more contracts. The actual results will have to be assessed in a year after the launch of new web site

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management was arranged in a very professional way - Victoria managed the interaction and communication with us (the client) in clear and comprehensive fashion. Efficient project management let us achieve and overachieve the targets in a short timeframe.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their attention to details, immediate responsiveness to all client's requests, and quality of the work that they deliver

Are there any areas for improvement?

I believe with the quality of work the guys deliver and so many happy clients, they will need to scale quickly which sometimes can be challenging. I wish Plastic great success in all their endeavors and I am sure that we will work together again

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of an e-Healthcare business. We develop an ecosystem to promote healthy activities and products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Plastik?

We desire Plast for all UI/UX and design tasks. They build a complete design concept, website concept and app concept from zero.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal is to have a developer-ready prototype with all UI and UX prepared. Furthermore, the project includes a marketing landing page and a complete branding concept.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We've searched online and recognized some very nice sample projects, which fits perfectly to our needs.

Describe the project in detail.

We are working with 5 people on this project, 2 from HealthStars and 3 from Plastik. A manager from Plastik and two designers. We discuss everything in different slack channels and using skype calls. Reviews are also done via slack. The communication is very good and changes are implemented very quickly.

What was the team composition?

We have conversations with the designers as well as with the project manager to avoid a lack of information. This is working very well, because of our iterative progress.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got a complete app and brand book design from zero to everything in two months. Our business partners are so impressed that they have sped up the onboarding process and increased the project priority.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Due to a simple communication channel (slack), we have a very effective workflow.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The short time they finish their work and the modern look and feel. Furthermore, we have a very good communication workflow and everything is done as expected and better. But the most impressive part is the amazing output they have generated by only getting a few information about the project at the beginning.

Are there any areas for improvement?

-

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO/Startup Founder

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Plastik?

We hired Plastik agency to design the UI for our website.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals for this project were to create an intuitive tool for complex stock market data analytics. A lot of information has to be communicated on the analysis page, which was going to be a challenge.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I saw a few examples of their work on Dribble, and decided to give them a call.

Describe the project in detail.

The project required complex price graphs, infographics, and customizable parameters to be able to analyze market data on various timeframes. We needed to develop the UI for the entire site from the homepage to plans, subscription management, profile settings, and password recovery, to name a few.

What was the team composition?

We were assigned a project manager, with one designer working behind the scenes as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Plastik agency always delivered in a timely manner. They not only understood our vision but augmented it with their own creative touch. They did a great job with the initial pass on each page, and they were able to quickly integrate later comments and find solutions that met the requirements while allowing the site to remain intuitive, visually pleasing, and not too cluttered with information.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communicating with Plastic agency was very easy. For the initial pages, we worked with mockups, and later we used Invision to add comments to each of the pages.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They've never failed to deliver in a timely manner, and always the highest quality work. Beyond just dealing with the "look and feel", they had a good sense for the comprehensive brand of this company, and what we are offering to our customers.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I would recommend Plastik agency to anyone looking for a talented, affordable team to help realize their project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and CTO of MySwimPro, a fitness company who's product focus is on our flagship app focused on swimming, called MySwimPro. There are 9 people in our company. I oversee product and technology organization and direction.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Plastik?

Our app, MySwimPro, was designed in piecemeal by people without design backgrounds. We needed a comprehensive redesign of the app.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a unified design language across the app to make it more approachable to our users, especially beginners who may not understand swimming workout structures and to make the app appearance reflect a the quality our users expect to find in our app.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found them on LinkedIn and reviewed their portfolio, which included fitness apps. We looked at some other places but the experience working on other fitness apps and the price won us over.

Describe the project in detail.

We needed all of our screens in our iOS, Android, and Apple Watch apps to be redesigned with a unified theme. Additionally we asked them to create about 50 "trophies" for a new "Achievements" feature we launched. I helped communicate the project requirements to Plastik and provided feedback between them and our team while the project was active. Plastik provided mockups and designs for the new screens, as well as the 50 png icons we requested for our Achievements feature.

What was the team composition?

There were three people involved, but we mostly interacted with Victoria, the co-founder and CMO, who communicated with her team our feedback.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are still in the progress of implementing the design changes, but initial feedback from beta testers has been positive.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were 7 time zones away from each other, but communication was good, with follow-ups and questions being answered in a timely manner. We communicated in Slack and through some google hangout meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed with the speed of turnaround of feedback and requests. The work was done faster than anticipated, and our feedback was promptly implemented.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Once a minor requirement was missed (a greyscale version of each Achievements trophy) but overall no problems.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of SPRT APP GmbH, a sports platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Plastik?

We needed someone to redesign our application’s approach to how users connect with it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We went through our UX/UI and analyzed the entire user journey. We optimized various screens where users have problems and solved them. We generated and created some screens that were transferred to us as business holders, then created the UX completely from scratch together for Android and iOS.

We’re 90–95% complete, but are still working on some screens, as the process of creating a completely new user journey will take a few more weeks. We have to close up some animation, post messages, and make small changes to icons on various screens—we did AB testing and figured out we had to change some icons, colors, and fonts.

What is the team composition?

The team is so great that I wanted to know them personally, so I went to Ukraine to collaborate with them more intensively. After being there 6 or 7 days, I’d met the entire team including the co-founders, the UX leader, the business person, and three junior designers.  

How did you come to work with Plastik?

I did an online search and messaged various UI/UX agencies. We ran a small design competition where three or four top design agencies competed, and after analyzing the results, found that Plastik delivered the best designs.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent 3,000-6,000 euros (approximately $3,400–$6,800 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2019 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have good knowledge of modern, 21st-century design trends. We tested out the redesigned screens with our present user base and they loved them—they were what we were looking for. It was hard to find a team who could do that for the price point they offered, so we’re very happy to work with them.

How did Plastik perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is great, using Slack, Trello, and Sketch Cloud. They’re one of the best companies we’ve worked with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very responsive and have great ideas.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everything is great so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Deliver all the necessary briefs for the designers to do their work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of a startup called GetRenty. We’re developing a marketplace platform that combines peer-to-peer car sharing with a fully automated car rental process.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Plastik?

The challenge centered on UI/UX design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After making mockups and low-fidelity designs, Plastik. We made lots of small changes. I sent them a couple of examples of designs I liked, and asked for some options on that style. They gave me a mood board with samples I had to choose from. That helped them get more into my vision. turned them into high-fidelity designs
 
Outside of the UI/UX, they provided every type of work we needed within the design area. They created an entire brand book and portfolio for our company.
 
What is the team composition? 

I worked with the three co-founders. The rest of the teammates were backend developers.

How did you come to work with Plastik?

A company I know well gave me a strong recommendation.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $5,000–$10,000. I think they’re extremely cheap and should be charging 2–3 times more.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Plastik in January 2019 and finished the project 10 days ago. Decision-making extended the timeline. They’re still working on some banners for us. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The work we accomplished together would have been impossible to achieve with other designers. Plastik was just as concentrated on securing results as we were. I’d give them a perfect score for communication.

When we took part in a startup exhibition in Dubai a couple of days ago, many people remarked on the high-level design Plastik created. At this point, It’s still too early to have quantifiable statistics. Rather than using hours as a metric, we evaluated them based on results.

Plastik is a highly professional team that always supported us. They handled stressful moments gracefully and always remained friendly and polite. 

How did Plastik perform from a project management standpoint?

Plastik’s speed of communication is very fast, and they stuck to all the deadlines we set. Once we gave them a task and set a price and list of terms, we didn’t need to track their work. Tools we used included messaging systems such as Slack for communication and InVision for design.
 
I appreciated that they were willing to work on weekends, which was very important for us. If we had a question even on a Saturday or Sunday, they responded immediately. Many larger companies told us they didn’t work after 6:00 PM.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Using a modern style, Plastik follows all the latest industry guidelines to create designs of the future. 
 
Managing design teams can be difficult because everything depends on keeping our ideas aligned with theirs. Past designers we’ve worked with delivered entirely different work than we expected. Plastik's team kept their vision in parallel with our own.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Plastik is an awesome team. I can’t think of anything they could have done better.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’m confident that Plastik could deliver any project, and do so professionally. They gave us the best price on the market and even let us dictate the timeline.