Tio

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the co-founder of Yıka Gel. Yıka Gel is a last mile home-type cleaning service for clothes and shoes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Tio?

We became partners with tio for their lean startup services to work together from idea to launch. They provided branding, UX research and strategy, wireframing and prototyping, UX design, UI design, digital retail experience design, and e-commerce website development.

We aimed to turn our idea to ready for the market as fast as possible and validate it before making further investments.

SOLUTION

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

Their zero to launch framework was a great fit for us since Yıka Gel was an idea and needed MVP for validation. Our idea required not only technical capabilities of tio but also their lean startup approach.

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

After we reached out and explained what we needed, tio became our technology partner. They supported us with a variety of technical solutions we need for our startup, by both suggesting and providing them. We started with a discovery workshop to shape the idea.

After they conducted and ran a series of market and user research, we together decided to go with an MVP and determined the scope as İstanbul’s Asian side for the beginning. They created a product roadmap. They started with Yıka Gel’s brand identity and a design library which was shaped with user research and our feedback. Since we communicate frequently and have access to documents they were working on, we were able to settle upon every single detail.

This working style makes us able to move forward fast. After that, they worked on UI&UX design of the platform. They delivered an MVP in 8 weeks. They created a smooth user experience with this website. Other side of the project was creating an integrated omnichannel experience for our personalized last mile delivery operation. to accomplished this by developing an algorithm to schedule on-demand delivery time for both picking and delivering clean clothes to people’s door. In addition to these, we use their platform to manage orders easily every day.

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

We have worked with a project manager, a product specialist, a designer, 2 developers and a digital marketing specialist on different phases of the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are very happy with the outcome. Yıka Gel website is open for more than 6 months now. Our startup is growing, and we're relieved that our platform is ready for scale. Thanks to their lean approach we were able to build our online channels with our limited resources.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Everything was good and smooth between our teams. All is well.

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

tio’s lean product approach was a great fit for our idea. They hadn’t only taken our idea to launch, they also added operational, technical and financial know-how to our business.

We use their platform and 3rd party solutions suggested by them for our last mile delivery operation, the system they have built for us has been working smoothly..

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

We had constant communication opportunities while working with tio and made all adjustments in the process. There is nothing we don’t agree with in the product.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the General Manager of T-bant which is a manufacturing company, working on production of wire mesh conveyor belts. We are in a leading position locally and aim to increase our market share globally.

T-bant was founded in 2005 and it has been producing high quality wire mesh belts for producers across the globe since. We sell products to countries in Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We had been using an order management software which runs on a local server and the software provider didn’t make any progress on it over the years. It had really bad UX and was hard to use. We wanted to adopt a new software for our order & supply-chain management since the old one was not fulfilling our needs anymore.

Our sales & production processes made it really hard to find a ready made software suitable for our company. We wanted a flexible solution and a dedicated team to implement since we didn’t have in-house knowledge about these processes. We also decided to renew our brand identity, online presence and product tree, create new catalogs and product guides for our customers as we renew & digitize our internal workflow for a fresh start.

SOLUTION

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

Their experienced team on digitization of SMEs was the main reason for us. We wanted to re-brand and digitize some of our work processes. They offer a SaaS software with customizable entry points. They also had a similar client on their SME portfolio which was a plus.

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

Our business processes were observed and analyzed by the team really closely. They started by analyzing our production processes and redefining the product trees. All of the products and our quotation - order workflow were documented. They created a roadmap for transition to the new software. We agreed on the milestones and versioned the customizations they will develop so that we don't wait for 1 year to start optimizing our workflow.

As they customized their ERP solution according to our processes, we started using their solutions step by step. This is an ongoing process. The design and web development team on the other hand, provided us with UX/UI design and front end development for our website which will be integrated to our new ERP system.

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

The team we work with is depending on the which phase we are on. So far the team consisted of 1 project manager, 1 business analyst, 3 developers, 1 designer. Project team gets bigger or smaller depending on the phase of the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This is an ongoing project yet we are happy with the achievements so far. We renewed our digital presence and started to use the software for fundamental modules.

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

They are definitely an agile team and have a lean approach to software development. They had a shared project board on JIRA for us to follow the processes. We also had a shared Google Drive folder for all kinds of documents we used, Figma Projects for designs and we had constant communication through email. Also, we were able to reach them whenever we needed instant communication through phone and online meeting tools such as Google Meet.

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

They easily adapted our business aspects and they always tried to protect our company's benefit, acting like they were a part of this company as we are on the same team. In addition, they are really responsive. We receive quick responses whenever we need them.

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

We are really happy to work with Tio so far, that's why I think they should keep the team and the same approach.