Tepia

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a company that prequalifies contractors for school districts. We’re located in California. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

We needed assistance in developing our SaaS product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our product is a self-scoring automated system for contractors to streamline the prequalification process for school districts. This also assists all the California school districts in getting qualifies contractors. This web app solution removed the need for an expert to assist a district in obtaining prequalified contracted assistance. They developed the solution. 

What is the team composition?

I only had to deal with one point of contact who managed the project on their end. 

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

Our team was working with another partner in northern California that ended up being a pain because of distance. We liked that they were a local business because that would eliminate some of the unnecessary back-and-forth over email. If we had a problem, I could drive over to them and discuss the issue face-to-face. At this point, he’s done a few projects for us. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our spend with them in near $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2015, and our teams always have an ongoing effort of some kind. We’re always trying to make things better.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product that he ultimately provided was excellent. Our final solution is fantastic and functions well.

How did Tepia Co perform from a project management standpoint?

The whole process was very smooth. They answered our questions as quickly as possible to ensure that we were always making forward progress. It was nice to have a designated project manager because I only had to recieve updates from one person. When we couldn’t meet in-person, we communicated through emails and phone calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to understand and showcase my vision after starting from scratch was notable. He has great insights on how to build a successful mobile or web app. That’s helped me out tremendously.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’ve had a good experience with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d highly recommend working with them. They can help you visualize your goals, and they’re easy to work with. Their artistic vision has helped get our product out there.  

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an educational non-profit organization that promotes science and astronomy. We conduct out reach events at many schools and public parks every year by bringing telescopes and educating students and the public about the night sky. We also promote science education.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Tepia Co?

Our original website was completely outdated and becoming unusable with current technologies. It was written in a programming language no longer supported, we hired Tepia to redesign and implement our website and bring it up to be compatibility with current technologies while maintaining an ease for future additions and improvements.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to make a completely redesigned website that was easy to use, compatible with current technologies. An important feature was did not want to lose any of the old data which provided a lot of background and history of the club. We had archives of user images and articles that were no longer able to be replaced. So we needed to get old data retrieved and placed into a current formats that also made it easy to be archived and presented and still allow new data to be uploaded. We wanted something that was open source and maintainable, and with the capacity to be updated easily as technologies change.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After checking many reviews, a field of possible vendors was determined, each was to submit a proposal and pricing. We tried to provide as much detail as possible as to our needs. We considered originally 8 vendors, after the interviews and contacts with them the proposals were received. The field was narrowed down to 3 vendors and more contacts and interviews were made before a decision was made. Our complete Board of Directors was involved in the final choice, a summary of the evaluations and a copy of the proposals was made a available to the Board and there was a unanimous decision. We selected Tepia, as they seemed to have the best grasp of the goals and understood the old technologies and realized that this was not a small or trivial project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project started with the original specification notes that were provided for the proposal process. We had described the functionality of what was desired and they made the choices for the software and utilities used to implement the project. We had a dedicated point person to make the day to day decisions and be the contact point for the implementation team. They came through with a design and starting point and progress was monitored closely with emails and weekly conferences to discuss any issues or questions that had been discovered. It was a difficult task to retrieve the old data because of broken database links but it was accomplished with great success.

What was the team composition?

On our side, it consisted of a single point of contact, which was the Secretary of the club and the person responsible for the original contact and throughout the proposal and decision phase. Status and updates were delivered to the Board as necessary. On the Tepia Co. side, original contact and important decisions were made by their team, which consisted of Dustin, the project manager and programmers and designers. That was the main point of contact was with the project manager. Dustin was easy to work with and provided constant updates and answered questions promptly and the weekly meetings were very productive.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were not in a hurry with this project and we had realized before we sent out requests for proposals that this was going to be a long project that was very complex and require a lot of work. We limped along with our old site as best we could before changing to the new site after it was completed. We have a had a large impact, the site is more interactive and easier to use and the feedback as been very positive. There are features now that were never available and site is very user friendly and mobile device friendly. Tepia Co. met all of our expectations and exceeded them.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The Tepia team was very responsive to any questions and concerns. Weekly meetings were done with Google Hangouts and documents were generated with Google Docs with question and answers as needed. The site was developed in a staging site and progress was as expected. There was never any concern of problems and responses not completing in a timely fashion. Response was beyond expectation.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Tepia Co certainly had a good grasp of what we might need and the extent and size of the project. Their team was responsive and very detailed. There were no delays, at no time did it seem they had moved on to another project. Their response was rapid and informative. Customer service is excellent. The provided excellent documentation as well as informative videos on how to use the system and train users and other content providers in the organization on how to use the site.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We had absolutely no issues with Tepia, they provided excellent service and a quality product. They are continuing to answer questions and assist while we are transitioned to our new environment.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a spine surgeon and run my own practice.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

We needed resources to create a website with a customer portal that linked to our internal electronic medical records (EMR) software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did the project in stages. Initially, they designed an attractive website, providing front- and backend development. The site enabled new patients to read about me, find common medical information and tests, and learn more about our services. They also added online medical forms as well as after-surgery care instructions for existing patients.

Once they finished the site, they created a patient portal and integrated it with our EMR software. Rather than calling the office to schedule an appointment, patients could use the portal to see the available times and set up the appointment themselves.

What is the team composition?

I primarily worked with Abe (Co-founder and President, Tepia Co) and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

I found them online and considered them with a few other providers. I described the project, and they gave me estimates on costs and timelines. I also met with Abe and felt comfortable working with him.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we spent about $12,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work lasted from 2017–2018. They completed the website fairly quickly and added the portal later on.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our site traffic has steadily increased over time, and patients are using the online scheduling function. As a result, we’re receiving fewer phone calls, which allows my staff to focus on other tasks. Tepia Co helped push us in the right direction, and we’re happy with the outcomes.

How did Tepia Co perform from a project management standpoint?

They were wonderfully responsive and took the effort to accommodate my schedule. As a surgeon, I often couldn’t get to my phone or computer during the day, so I’d have to ask all of my questions after hours. Despite that, they were always willing to work around my schedule, whether it be meeting with me in person or answering my emails and calls.

In terms of sticking to estimates, they never missed a deadline. We went through several iterations before launching the site because I would ask for little tweaks. Whenever I asked them for an end date, they would give me a time frame and meet it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When I first met Abe, I was impressed by his demeanor. He’s a personable, hardworking guy. Anytime I asked him to make a change, he would do it quickly. I also appreciated his responsiveness; he replied to all emails and never missed a thing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind. It was a wonderful experience, and they exceeded all of my expectations.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a system engineer for a semiconductor company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

I wanted to make a mobile app for a personal project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped me develop two mobile apps. The first one was exclusively for iOS and the second one was cross-platform. Before we began the project, I met with them to workshop my ideas and outline my requirements. They came back to me with a summary of project expectations and notes on all the features they anticipated I would need. Once I approved everything, they broke each project into phases and assigned a team to work on it.

What is the team composition?

I worked with their CEO and with a project manager, who also interfaced with the developer.

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

I found them through Yelp. I had contacted about half a dozen potential providers and interviewed them over the phone, and Tepia stood out as the best choice.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost for both projects was between $50,000–$55,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in 2015 and we finished up in 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They successfully met my original requirements and delivered the final apps in a reasonable timeframe.

How did Tepia Co perform from a project management standpoint?

I met with our project manager at least once a week to discuss our progress. His communication through email and instant message was also efficient. He would also advise me on the feasibility of ideas or offer additional feature suggestions, which was helpful and made the experience very collaborative.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When I was choosing a partner for this project, I considered past work, cost, and motivation to engage in the work. Tepia stood out because they were willing to undertake a small project like mine and performed well on it, which is what motivated me to hire them to build my second app.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would help if the developers were in the US.  I recognize that they might hire developers elsewhere to reduce their costs, but there were some communication delays because of the time differences.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of corporate branding and marketing for Omnicia. We are an FDA regulatory submissions and publishing company. We do all the regulatory paperwork for new drugs around getting submissions approved by the FDA and introduced to the market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

I was brought into the company to refresh the website, the designs, and how they were talking about it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a lot of backend work. We had them build search features and a password protected area. We also had them convert the entire site to HTTPS. They did the front- and the backend for us. It’s all in of a WordPress template that they customized for us.

What is the team composition?

I met with Abe [President, Tepia Co] and told him what we were trying to do. He listened to everything I was saying and we came up with a temporary plan of action. He put me in touch with their project manager, Dustin [Project Manager, Tepia Co]. Dustin was the middleman between me and their team of developers.

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

A friend of mine, who we hired as our designer, recommended them. He met them at a networking event and chatted with them about what they’re doing and their philosophy around how to do it. I chose them because they had a portfolio that I really liked of modern web design. They were very eager to talk and willing to listen when I had requests.

How much have you invested with them?

$14,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2017 until February 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a hard deadline three months after we started development for a live version of the site because of an industry event we wanted to be ready for. They were really quick and worked really hard to get it ready for this event and di so successfully. It was very impressive.

It’s extremely readable and looks very modern. A lot of people commented that it fits the feel of the company a lot more than our last site. They went out of their way to make sure they were listening to me when I was asking them to represent us, instead of just making a bland website.

How did Tepia Co perform from a project management standpoint?

They built full spreadsheet schedules. They had goal points and deliverables, and a really well thought out schedule. They were extremely responsive to all my questions and any of our concerns, and were communicative and professional. They also had a tiered pricing scheme, which was very flexible.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very committed to making sure that we’re happy. If I had concerns or if they weren’t sure they were doing exactly what I wanted, they would stop, check, and listen until I was happy. They always made it work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization is a software development company, developing software for college students. I’m the COO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

I don’t have a technical background, but I had to manage this project. We wanted to have a low-cost development team that could explain things in a context understandable to someone who is not a developer. I also needed to be able to manage that development project myself.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s a web-based app. We had it mostly on smartphones, but it was also possible to access through desktop on a web browser. Their work was a full stack of both frontend and backend. Tepia Co used a web-based system that worked across platforms, not a native app for iOS or Android. They used a lot of existing plug-ins and frameworks. We used PubNub for the messaging part of our app and used existing pieces from plug-ins rather than mostly raw code. I assume they used a mix of different languages. This way, we could bring the cost down. Their team was made up of one project manager and two engineers, with one being on-site.

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

One of my friends recommended Tepia Co to us. At the time, we were looking for a local developer, and they were in Orange County, which is where we are too, so that was great. We went to their office and sat down with Abe, the founder of Tepia Co. He gave us a very thorough road map to how this could be done, and he seemed the most competent and professional out of all the options that we had. The fact that he was nearby and he had an office was great. Their website was also very well done. I also feel like they positioned themselves best image-wise. Many engineers don’t care about how their website looks or aren’t trying to advertise as much, but Tepia’s image was very good. That’s why we thought they’d be a good partner for us.

How much have you invested with Tepia Co?

We have invested $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Tepia Co in September 2016 and had a few stages during our engagement. By January 2017 we had the app on our phones.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From our standpoint, the managers of this project delivered very quickly. Once we gave them the design, they gave us a raw app quickly. We ended up doing all the designs ourselves. We built the UIs [user interface] and mock-ups, and then they worked off of that. It was a collaborative effort. That’s how we were able to save costs.

Feedback-wise, their work was solid. We gave Tepia Co a breakdown of edits, and they would return with all the completed edits the next day. That was very good. Once the app was up and running, we got feedback from our customers that the app was slow at first because of bugs, but Tepia Co fixed those very quickly. It’s running great now.

How did Tepia Co perform from a project management standpoint?

Tepia Co was well above par. They did very well. They worked very quickly in their turnaround time. Tepia Co worked overnight because one of their engineers is in a different time zone, so it worked out very well. Their project managers are able to enroll very well, which is good.

What did you find most impressive about Tepia Co?

I found that Tepia Co's ability to explain complex technical issues to non-engineers was notable. They’re very good at that. Their project managers have a good understanding of the technology and can translate that into basic English, which is great. They’re very responsive. Our project manager would respond within two hours all the time, which was great too.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is a social health platform that allows you to read and write reviews on food products. I’m the CEO and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

We needed the development of the actual application. I contacted Tepia to develop an iOS app for me.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tepia did all the backend and frontend—from mock-ups to actual development. They were actually a second go-round for what had been previously developed. There were flaws in what I had given them, but they worked well to minimize the flaws. Tepia used MySQL, Objective-C, Python, and another language to develop the app. Tepia devoted one person to report to me, but I’m assuming they had a few developers and designers on board.

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

I have worked with development agencies before, but I found Tepia through AngelList. I looked them up on Yelp as well after I found them. I read a lot of what people had written about them, I went and spoke to them once or twice, and then did a little due diligence speaking to past clients. From there, I decided to move forward with Tepia.

How much have you invested with Tepia?

Our investment was $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Tepia in February 2016 and completed the project in October 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There is nothing I could share because we decided not to launch what Tepia gave us. It wasn’t Tepia’s fault. My prior developer had developed a poor app. When Tepia came in and tried to repair what had already been damaged, the mistake was in determining it was repairable. I decided against launching it due to the poor user interface, but I’m still looking around to see alternative options for development because I’m trying to minimize costs at this moment.

However, I could give feedback on Dustin, the project manager I worked with directly. He was very proactive and communicative with what they were doing. I appreciated Tepia in giving me a learning experience because, from the way they worked, they taught me the ins and outs of development which I hadn’t known before working with them.

How did Tepia perform from a project management standpoint?

Tepia performed very well in project management. They reported what was going on, and I felt informed throughout the whole process.

What did you find most impressive about Tepia?

Tepia's team is honest. You don’t deal with honesty everywhere you go. They are on point about what needs to get done, which I really appreciated.

Are there any areas Tepia could improve?

I will suggest Tepia not to guide the client as much and open to taking other routes. Had they informed me of alternative routes, I may have made other decisions, but I don’t blame them for that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are the Orange County Wine Society, a 1,000-member nonprofit organization with the stated purpose of the education and promotion of making wine, growing grapes, and wine appreciation—pretty much anything to do with the production to the enjoyment of wine. I’m currently one of nine directors of the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

The organization started with a very simple website 17 years ago, so you can imagine the state of websites at that point in time. A volunteer created that site 17 years ago and maintained it, but it really started to show its age both from a visual and navigational aspect. It was externally hard to maintain because it required a PHP programmer to make any changes. We posted monthly changes of events every month when a winemaker would come in and talk to the group about their company’s wine. It was always a changing website and our volunteer wanted to retire from it, so we had to find a PHP programmer to replace her. There were other issues because of its age, but the main purpose was the cost of maintaining it. The maintenance updates were extremely expensive and time-consuming.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tepia Co did design work for us. I’ve been doing job enterprise and programming for many years so I’m pretty adept and knowledgeable in at least some of the backend processes of Java Enterprise but I am not experienced in website frontend. I knew what I wanted: a Joomla or WordPress site that wouldn’t require a technical expert to run. When we found Tepia, one of our goals was to create something that wouldn’t require a technical expert to run. We wanted it so that somebody who had a little bit of technical knowledge could come in and maintain the site so we wouldn't have to pay the big bucks. Instead, we could find somebody who was inside the organization to do it on a volunteer basis. When we went to them, we showed them the old site and its problems and we told them to take it away. The website was ultimately developed on WordPress.         

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

Since we’re California-based, we only deal in California wines. That’s our platform. Therefore, I wanted somebody who was located in California, preferably Southern California. I did an online search and came up with 10-12 possible firms, but I ran into some problems with many of the website development companies because they were more into search engine optimization and analytics. Even though there were loads of companies down here in the Orange County area, I found that they were very few people percentage-wise that were going to do just a website. We also required some customization which filtered out a lot of other companies; there were a lot of pop-up WordPress developers but very few of them knew how to make modifications that we might have needed. We whittled it down to five groups that met all of our requirements.

When we got into the details—I wrote up a 20-page specification of what I wanted and what it had to do—two out of the five dropped out immediately, saying it was too big for them. With the other three, it basically came down to cost, can you work with them, and are they knowledgeable people. Not only was Tepia local, but our feeling with them was that they were the only group able to regurgitate what I wanted. I felt that they understood exactly what I was looking for, and it wasn’t just them nodding their heads saying “Yes, we can do this.” They were able to restate the goals in their own terms, which made me feel a lot better about them knowing what we wanted.

How much have you invested with Tepia Co?

The contract was issued for $10,000, and that’s what it came in at. We also spent $200-$300 more on WordPress plug-ins because there was a need to buy them as we were going through the project. It was my own conscious choice that we would buy those plug-ins because I wanted them licensed in our organization’s name and not under Tepia’s name. We also spent a little bit more over the past year because we wanted a different way of getting the data out of custom reports in our accounting system. We’re also using a plug-in from WooCommerce for memberships and needed two to three different reports pulled out of there for mailing addresses for the renewal of memberships. We went back over the last year asking for updates and changes where some were either given to us gratis or were paid for. This would all be an extra $3,000 on top of the initial $10,000 that we knew we were going to incur as we used the system and realized the additional things we needed. It wasn’t a cost overrun. It was just additional money that we spent to get to where we wanted it.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2015, and it finished in April 2016. We were so happy with what they did to our website that we actually did three other smaller sites with them in the last year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of the things is acceptance of the website. We’re a group of people from 40 to 70 years old, and some of these people don’t like change at all, especially when you’ve been dealing with the same website for 17 years and you’ve got something new and modern all of a sudden. We had very little blowback on the site, less than I ever expected. I expected people to say, “It’s not like the old one. Why did you do that?” Out of the 1,000 members, I only had one or two people who asked me why we changed it.

Another thing I have noticed now that everybody has had a year with the new website is that now everyone is into it and understands it. Now that everybody has gotten used to the normal way that a website should work, we’re finding that we’re selling out every event, where before we would have one out of five sell out. That is a good indicator that the process of buying tickets to our events is much easier and less stressful. The old way was really archaic because you had to do two things: buy it on the old site and then call into the office to pay for it. However, it was really chaotic before because we didn’t have tickets. It was manually entered into a spreadsheet. There were instances where someone would show up and not be on the list or would be on the list and never paid. The new site eliminated all that confusion. All the accounting now balances out. We were only PayPal oriented before; we now do PayPal and credit cards.

How did Tepia Co perform from a project management standpoint?

Their #1 strength was the project management because it worked so smoothly and they understood exactly what it was. I dealt with both Dave and Jared from Tepia. Jared was the assigned project manager, and he’s the one that sold us during the presale cycle. Jared and I went back and forth for him to understand what we wanted and needed to run the implementation. I mandated that we had a weekly meeting every Friday. The fact that Jared and I met every week helped us to not get sidetracked if anything came up. We kept the project on schedule. Jared was the middleman to the developers. I could have talked to the developers, but I didn’t really want to.

What did you most impressive about Tepia Co?

What impressed me is what they’ve done from a support standpoint. Being in the programming business myself, there’s some point of time where you’ve got to start charging for support or when clients start taking up too much of your time. I’m a technical person so I don’t abuse that kind of stuff. But anytime I called them about questions of why does this plug-in work this way or is there any way of getting around this kind of procedure, I never had any blowback on that. They always answered my questions within a day.

Are there any areas Tepia Co could improve?

I can’t think of anything right now. If I did, it would be minor nitpicky stuff. I’ve been really happy with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a manufacturer of networking products. We make wireless access points and network switches. My role is as design and documentation manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co.?

I was tasked to build us a new website. We needed to come to an agreement with a developer to create a new WordPress theme that really accomplished everything we were trying to get done as far as being mobile responsive within our budget.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

What we were looking for was a little bit unusual. We wanted full creative control over not only designing the website but also building it out and populating it with content and graphics. We only wanted Tepia to build a functional WordPress theme from our PSDs [Photoshop documents]. We mocked up thirteen different types of pages. They then took that and basically built it into a theme. We worked to develop the smallest mobile view all the way up to a full desktop view. We designed both of those in PSDs and they built everything in between with different breakpoints.

How did you come to work with Tepia Co.?

We talked to six different local companies. Not only was Tepia’s proposal on price very good but we were the most impressed with them by just meeting in person. Three of us met with Tepia and we walked away feeling pretty strong.

How much have you invested with Tepia Co.?

It was $4,000, which was significantly less than others we talked to. The highest of the bids we received for doing the same amount of work was close to $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began talking to them in August 2016 and started with the work on the template in October 2016. Our website went live at the end of December 2016. Until the day we went live, they were still making changes and helping us out.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve gotten lots of positive feedback on the site. Our old site wasn’t responsive, so we would often hear negative comments about the mobile experience. Technically, I think they went well beyond the original scope because what we were asking for was pretty complex. They never said that they had reached the point where they had gone beyond our scope or that they needed more money. They were really good at back and forth communication, and they stuck with it until it was all done.

How did Tepia Co. perform from a project management standpoint?

If I look at the project as a whole, I think the project management was strong. We did hit a minor snag in the beginning where they didn’t hit a milestone date, but they really did a great job of catching back up. When I made it clear that we had to hit certain dates, they really did a good job in making sure that they could make up that time in other areas.

What did you find most impressive about Tepia Co.?

It’s hard because I don’t have a comparison. We used to be on a different platform of Joomla. We’ve had the learning curve of trying to learn WordPress quickly. To me, they really seem to know WordPress. I was definitely impressed by their strength in building the template.

Are there any areas Tepia Co. could improve?

Nothing’s jumping out at me.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is an online cigar retail company. We sell cigars as well as other tobacco products and accessories.

What is your position?

I am the president and chief executive officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Tepia Co?

We wanted to revamp the website that we had used since our initial launch. The aim was to make it mobile-friendly, have blogging functionalities, and able to update regularly or instantly. Our old site was not very user-friendly nor mobile-friendly, and we were often confronted with problems. We needed a responsive and communicative developer to fix it.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Tepia provided a modern, new-age website with all the features we wanted and none of the limitations of our previous page. We haven't built a mobile app, but we did want to focus on the traffic coming from mobile devices.

I wanted to be able to apply coupons on the site and have interactive pop-ups. I also wanted to be able to create brands, categories, and lines of products on the fly – to have a better organization in general. In the cigar industry, taxes are an important issue. We needed to display tobacco taxes properly as well as to calculate shipping costs correctly. Making activity reports was another important concern. I was assigned a project manager who was fantastic. I work with that person to this day.

How did you come to work with Tepia Co?

I spoke to a few different people. A friend referred to me to Tepia, and we hit it off. We met in person, listed out all our requirements, received quotes, and moved forward from there.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We received a good deal with Tepia, mainly because we committed to using them for other projects. The redesign cost was around $8,000 to $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2015. They estimated that the site would be finished by the end of January. We actually hoped to launch it at the end of December, but since there were many complex issues tied to the tobacco industry, we took our time in order to get things right. We ended up finishing on target. The total development time was around three months. We're continuing to make changes to the site and have other upcoming projects for which we'll use Tepia.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

If there's ever a problem with the site, Tepia will address it within the hour. On top of designing and delivering the product, they provide a warranty period for their work. Anything that they worked on and hasn't been tampered with will be solved without question.

Because the new site was tied to analytics, we are able to make accurate traffic measurements. However, the site has only been live for over a month, so we don't yet have accurate numbers. It's important that we can track everything, and every element has worked perfectly so far. E-commerce tracking is something we weren't able to do before, but now we can track everything from cart abandonment to customer reviews.

What distinguishes Tepia Co from other providers?

They're attentive and on top of their stuff. Expertise is the defining label for Tepia. If they don't have an answer for us right away, they will work to obtain one. Response time, diligence, organization – everything has been fantastic.

Is there anything Tepia Co could have improved or done differently?

Not really.