UPQODE

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an entrepreneur and UI/UX designer. I do freelance graphic design and web design work. I collaborated with UPQODE on a number of projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UPQODE?

I needed a company to collaborate with me on development and design for multiple projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When I work on designs for WordPress sites, they perform the development. We've completed about 20 projects together so far. They've also worked on some custom projects in addition to the web design work. When a client would contact me, I provided the design and they did the development.

For example, the first project we worked on was a whole new wireframe that integrated several functionalities. This particular development project took two months.

What is the team composition?

There are 20 or more people working with me. Specifically, I had the chance to work with Nico (Founder/CEO, UPQODE) and his project managers. There were seven developers and 3-4 designers.

How did you come to work with UPQODE?

They contacted me because they saw my portfolio online. They proposed we work on some items together.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re professionals; they really know what they’re doing. When communicating with clients, workers, and co-workers, they're highly invested. Overall, they’re really good people to work with.

How did UPQODE perform from a project management standpoint?

We had excellent communication. On their end, it was spot-on. Their project managers were quite helpful and working with them is a pleasure. For each project, I worked with a different project manager. Each time, they were clear in communicating everything they were supposed to. When meeting deadlines, they did everything they could to get things done on-time. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They put an emphasis on strong communication. They really treat their clients like rock stars. They’re not satisfied until the client is satisfied.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them do differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should communicate your requirements before starting a project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Liquid Knowledge Group. We’re a knowledge management consulting group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UPQODE?

We were looking for a WordPress development partner for our clients’s projects. The client had a number of products with similar architecture needs, so we were looking to develop a template or core set of code in WordPress to develop an economic solution for the client so that each product wasn’t a one-off development process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are engaged with us on a number of projects. Initially, UPQODE developed the core technology for a template that the client could replicate. We worked with our client to develop the requirements, wireframes, and overall UI. After doing this, we described the requirements and functionalities to UPQODE. Their team took that plan and developed the core components for that architecture.

They created customized functionalities such as plug-ins and widgets. Their team also vetted available plug-ins for purchase from third-party vendors to make sure they’d actually work on the platform. UPQODE also assisted us in creating a flattened/static version of the WordPress site that the client could deploy on their ISS server.

They did not perform any design work for us, but they did work on back- and frontend development. The backend was done in PHP. They worked with the CSS and admin widgets on the frontend.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 3–4 UPQODE people on any given project we worked with. They assigned a dedicated project manager.

How did you come to work with UPQODE?

I made contact with Nico (CEO, UPQODE) through a recruiting agency. He led us to UPQODE and we took it from there. We had been working with a different WordPress shop, but we switched to UPQODE.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in January 2018 and the project is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

UPQODE brought troubleshooting, recommendations, and ideas that our previous partner was unable to provide. They deliver work on-time and within budget. The design they’ve inserted into the product has enabled us to deliver products more quickly.

They have always been very helpful in recommending better solutions. If they didn’t fully understand something, we were able to explain our strategy and they were able to adapt to that.

How did UPQODE perform from a project management standpoint?

Maria (Project Manager, UPQODE) met with us on a weekly basis to talk about the product. She’s very detailed and punctual. She’s also a very a good communicator and able to make sure the developers deliver on time. We have a platform where we can track work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re able to bring additional strength to each project. Their team can bring additional resources to products so we are not hung out to dry because people are unavailable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had to make some adjustments between the Eastern European time zone and the East Coast of the United States. It would be nice if they had people interacting with us in the second half of our day.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you are able to articulate very clearly what you’re looking for, you are going to succeed with UPQODE.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of an event planning company. This past year, we’ve transitioned into creating online invitations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UPQODE?

We hired UPQODE to build customized websites that allowed me to sell personalized invitations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Since I’m a graphic artist, I supply their team with drafts and sketches of what I want. After giving them images, their team puts all of the page designs together. They performed the entire front- and backend development on my WordPress site. Their team combined two different plug-ins for me that were a challenge for a previous vendor.

What is the team composition?

In total, I’ve worked with ten different people at various stages.

How did you come to work with UPQODE?

The person who performs maintenance on my website recommended UPQODE to me.

How much have you invested with them?

The work has cost over $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with UPQODE started in December 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re in the early stages, but I like the website. Right now, we’re working on getting the site off the ground and figuring out SEO. Their team continues performing maintenance when there are issues or any updates I need. I can reach out to the team at UPQODE at any time.

How did UPQODE perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, I think they’re great. Most of them are based in Ukraine, which means that there is a slight time difference. Despite this, they’re excellent at returning my concerns and emails quickly.

Most of our communication is through ActiveCollab. Their team lists each step of the project and details what tasks I’m assigned to. I can review everything and respond directly with my thoughts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate their organization and communication style. Their design process allows me to see every stage and what all of the work will look like. I enjoy seeing that. Even though English is their second language, that isn’t an issue.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. Everything runs pretty smooth.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a creative web development group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UPQODE?

My last company had a development team, but it’s expensive to hire in-house developers, so I decided not to when I started my new company. We focus primarily on UX design. We needed UPQODE to do all of the implementations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I understand development, but I’m not a coder, and I needed someone to answer questions and do clean code. We work in WordPress, focusing on UX design. For most of our projects with UPQODE, we design everything in blocks and then they code everything we need. Our content people will then go in and build the pages.

We’ve sometimes done more complex things, such as databases from the client side or working with search engines. They’ve always figured things out for us.

We’ve done about a dozen projects so far and we've got three or four more already in the queue.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager, who is available any time we need her. She gets the right developer for the right task. Whenever we needed backend structural work, they provide different developers compared to frontend work. We’ve probably worked with over a dozen people there in total, with three or four in a typical week.

How did you come to work with UPQODE?

We found them on Upwork and we were impressed with their availability. Their understanding of our goals was significantly better than anyone else we’d worked with. We don’t have to explain everything to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $5,000–$10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Only two or three of our projects were public-facing, and it’s harder to give metrics on projects we used internally. We’ve had clients who didn’t know how to install things we delivered, which I think speaks to the complexity of UPQODE’s work.

In fact, we had one product that our client ended up turning into a system that they now sell over and over. Every time they sell another version of it, we go back to UPQODE and they help us tweak it. That was really successful.

How did UPQODE perform from a project management standpoint?

They use ActiveCollab for project management, which is really effective for communication despite the language difference. Some of their developers don’t speak English, but their software is intuitive for all. We also hold video conferences through Zoom.

We got used to the time zone difference—we send edits in the late afternoon and everything is ready by morning.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were burned so many times and embarrassed by previous vendors, so we were thrilled to find a much more cohesive and reliable partnership with UPQODE. They stay up late if our clients want edits with an immediate turnaround.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Learn how to make the time zone difference work for you. For example, at my previous company, our developers would have morning scrums and work through the day. Now we have scrum meetings at noon and everything is done by the following morning.

Also, if you’re working remotely with them, communication is critical to ensure you don’t lose a day of work due to misunderstandings.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

doxo is a simple, secure all-in-one bill pay service that facilitates secure payment to any biller, with any payment method, on any device. doxo currently serves over three million paying users who can make payments to over 50,000 local and national businesses, making doxo the largest bill pay directory in the nation.

Billers on the network get paid directly, fast and free – and consumers have complete bill pay independence over when and how they pay their bills.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire UPQODE?

Outside of doxo's core bill-pay application, we needed web development support for all of the marketing and administrative pages of our website - about, offers, contact-us, terms & conditions, etc.

We wanted to decouple the development of these pages from our core development team, so we hired UPQODE to help design, implement, and support those pages in a WordPress environment.

What were your goals for this project?

Transfer, redesign, ans support all non-core bill-pay application pages to UPQODE, so effort could be decoupled from our core development team, and projects could be handled on an as-needed basis.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

UPQODE was found through UpWork. They had a high rating and have had many successful projects.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project was broken into 3 phases.

Phase 1 - Consult with UPQODE on determining the best practices for choosing a new WordPress theme, hosting environment, and structure for Wordpress support.

Phase 2 - Implement the new structure, and copy all pages over to achieve parity with our legacy WordPress platform. This included about 50 webpages and several areas of custom PHP code within the old environment.

Phase 3 - Develop new pages and content for the ongoing needs of the business.

What was the team composition?

The UPQODE team comprises of a project manager and 1 or 2 developers/QA people depending on the project. The initial project took more resources, but now, we primarily work with a single project manager and developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've been very pleased with the results. It was of strategic importance to our business to be able to decouple the marketing and administrative pages of our website from the core bill-pay application. We now have a separate dev team (UPQODE) who can scale as needed, and we don't run into prioritization issues that interfere with our core application. UPQODE responds far more quickly to development changes than our core team would be able to.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

UPQODE uses an internally built project management tool called ActiveCollab. It is an excellent tool, and we've found that it works well for determining status and communicating with UPQODE.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are highly knowledgable about best practices in WordPress, and their ability to rapidly scale up whenever we need a project completed makes them a valuable asset for us in our development needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Working in timezones has its known challenges. I wish we didn't have to deal with timezones, but it's a reality of global development methods.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a partner with an investment fund for venture stage companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire UPQODE?

Our website was buggy and dated, and we had issues getting in touch with our developer.

What were your goals for this project?

To have a complete refresh to make our website clean, intuitive, and professional.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Work product samples, and ratings from customers.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Designed, developed, and iterated on a new webpage. Set the theme, built the pages, and iterated based on feedback.

What was the team composition?

Not sure.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It looks MUCH better...we send investors and others to our site because it reflects well on us.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We let them take care of all that, so we just set timelines together and they executed.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed with their solid communication and quick, quality work. They even accomodated us for smaller followup work in the months after we engaged them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None based on our experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Program Manager of a local governmental focused consulting agency in the solid waste arena.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire UPQODE?

Upqode was hired to solve and end-to-end solution redesign and development of our regulatory management website. Challenge was to correctly integrate internal database and user management system and enhance the design and operational efficiency of the website as well as increase the overall usability and aesthetics of the website presentation.

What were your goals for this project?

Enhanced usability and overall aesthetics. Corrected back end integration with internal database engine and user management system.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Through online research, portfolio and prior user testimonial reviews, along with personal discussions and provided feedback, balanced with company wide staffing and service offerings, we felt Upqode would be a good fit for our needs as a small, but growing firm.

Describe the project in detail.

Upqode was hired to solve and end-to-end solution redesign and development of our regulatory management website. Challenge was to correctly integrate internal database and user management system and enhance the design and operational efficiency of the website as well as increase the overall usability and aesthetics of the website presentation.

What was the team composition?

A project manager was assigned as we worked through an extensive build and design process, incorporating several levels of review, feedback and software management. This process was followed by the assignment of a designer, who worked in conjunction with the daily input of the project manager. The project manager confirmed the process moved along, managed communications, and added clarifications when needed. They were always available during our business hours and ready to jump on a phone call to work through any issues requiring further discussion.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A welcome design resulted from our involvement with the Upqode design team and process that resulted in a much more direct and simple user interface, yet much more aesthetically pleasing and operationally efficient.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was seemless and extremely efficient. Using two different design and build cloud based platforms, we worked daily through design concepts, followup, back-and-forth discussions, and eventual approval of all items, on a per item, and then overall page basis with constant input and management by our project manager.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We have been most impressed with their efficiency, control, and breadth of staff. UPQODE was always willing to discuss and make changes and maintain control of the design process. We enjoy working with them on a daily, or as needed basis.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The time constraints of input, feedback, and redesign take time between any two or more firms working together. We are comfortable with the time and responsiveness to our needs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Demand Science is a leader in end-to-end demand generation solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire UPQODE?

With a truncated timeline, we needed to create a website specific to certain corporate initiatives. We needed a development and design company that could quickly and efficiently launch a well-designed site.

What were your goals for this project?

Primary goal was the expedited launch of the website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have worked with UpQode prior to this project. We knew them to work quickly while producing a superior product. There was no question in our minds who would be best to complete the work.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

UpQode provided us with the website UX/UI, design, and development with minimal input from our team.

What was the team composition?

I am unsure of the total number of individuals on the project team. That being said, UpQode was so efficient that it was really of no concern.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Not at this time.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was arranged through Active Collab. The manager of our project, Viktoria, was a very transparent communicator and made the process seamless.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The speed, accuracy, and quality of their output.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a senior application engineer. Our company provides cloud migration, managed services, and managed security services. We deliver secure and compliance-oriented IT solutions to the highly regulated financial, automotive, and energy industries. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire UPQODE?

We hired UPQODE to develop a brand-new WordPress site with a great logo and visuals. 

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to create a new website that could effectively communicate our organization's many services to customers. We also wanted to create an attractive visual identity for our business. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Another business recommended UPQODE to us as a team of creative web designers and reliable WordPress website developers.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

UPQODE designed, developed, optimized, configured, and then launched our WordPress website. Our project mainly focused on the UX/UI. Their web designers developed a new visual identity. They provided us with a complete backend solution. 

What was the team composition?

We worked with their business manager and a dedicated project manager who both communicated well. Regarding backend tasks, we interacted directly with the skilled developers on their team.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

UPQODE developed and launched our new website within the agreed-upon deadline. They created a unique and creative web design that was just what we were looking for.

After just a few months of web design and development, they delivered the exact results we were expecting. Our customers love the website's design and simple, intuitive navigation.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management was very effective. We appreciated the workflow they facilitated via ActiveCollab. They suggested using an agile development approach.

Our project manager communicated well and responded very quickly. She kept us informed about the progress of development via the ActiveCollab tool.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

UPQODE delivered outstanding web designs and an impressive website. I was impressed with their excellent communication.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I honestly don't see any areas for improvement. We really enjoyed working with UPQODE. Everything about our engagement was great.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I own Sew Sketchy, an illustrated fashion icon that loves anything to do with fashion, travel, and luxury.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire UPQODE?

We hired UPQODE to create and develop our e-commerce site.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create a beautiful and high-fashion online store that was fun, efficient, and user-friendly.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found them online. We chose UPQODE because they seemed to understand our vision and have the same work ethic as our team. Plus, they were committed to meeting deadlines.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed and helped design our first ever e-commerce store.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a project manager who managed about 10 people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They drastically changed our business by developing the best website we could have asked for.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

UPQODE has the best team. They were incredibly efficient. Not only did they work quickly and professionally, but they also had the best problem-solving skills.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed with how well they translated technical language so that we could understand our own website as well as they did. They were also super trustworthy and honest.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There’s no need for improvement.