9thCO Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Web Manager of an education company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We work with employers to design and implement strategic talent development solutions that create a resilient, future-ready workforce.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 9thCO Inc. to accomplish?

• Headless codebase management
• Site optimizations at the code level
• Site migration and new tool integrations

SOLUTION

How did you find 9thCO Inc.?

Online Search

Why did you select 9thCO Inc. over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• capabilities fit our needs

How many teammates from 9thCO Inc. were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

We brought 9thCO on to help us 1. bring our site into accessibility standards 2. to help us lift and shift our site to a more sustainable, less brittle infrastructure 3. to redevelop our codebase and optimize our site performance 4. to implement ground-up redesigns of our modules.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Shiny new infrastructure designed for our company's future growth; huge increases in technical performance metrics and accessibility; state-of-the-art system integrations to allow us to reach our key target audiences.

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

They used an external system for comms and task tracking, and then had an internal system for time tracking per task. Overall, the project management has gone smoothly and they did deliver by our deadlines by securing additional developers and putting in long hours to make it work. In the rare instance that something was going to be delayed, they were upfront about the delay, kept us regularly updated, and worked diligently toward project completion.
There were some unexpected expenses related to what was budgeted in the SOW vs. what was charged, but we were able to work through those issues and that issue has resolved.

What was your primary form of communication with 9thCO Inc.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

9thCO's AVP of Development is a talented and knowledgeable developer, and he has built a skilled team. They are accessible for questions and do try to bring us along on the technicals of our integrations.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 9thCO Inc. could have done differently?

Part of our MSA included training in our systems and codebase once they were built out, but that has not happened to the extent we expected. Part of that is because there weren't clear expectations up front that 9thCO should be fully handing off management of our integrations to us, and they are receptive to requests for training and reviews.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-founder of Kelly's Bake Shoppe

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are an award-winning 100% gluten-free, plant-based, dairy-free, egg-free and peanut-free bake shoppe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 9thCO Inc. to accomplish?

• A fully functional and optimized e-commerce site
• A Beautiful design
• A site that we can grow into in the future

SOLUTION

How did you find 9thCO Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select 9thCO Inc. over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Referred to me

How many teammates from 9thCO Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

We couldn’t be more thrilled with our experience working with 9thCO on the launch of our new e-commerce website for Kelly’s Bake Shoppe. Justin and the entire team brought our vision to life with such care, creativity, and technical excellence. From start to finish, they truly understood our brand, our values, and our commitment to quality—and it shows in every detail of the site.

They were collaborative, responsive, and went above and beyond to ensure that our new platform was not only beautiful and on-brand, but also incredibly user-friendly for our customers. The end result is a stunning, seamless online experience that makes it easier than ever for people to shop our allergy-friendly treats.

Thank you, 9thCO, for helping us take this exciting next step in our journey. We’re so proud of what we’ve created together!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• functional and optimized e-commerce site
• goregous design
• a site that we are able to grow into in the future!

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

They delivered on time and were expectionally responsive to all of our needs and requests! The team was very well organized, and everyone at 9thCO had very intentional responsibilities within our project that kept things moving along.

What was your primary form of communication with 9thCO Inc.?

Virtual Meeting

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

We've (sadly) had some negative experiences with web delveopers in the past and the entire team at 9thCo was the complete opposite of that with all of them being over the top professional, courteous and just a pleasure to work with. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something 9thCO Inc. could have done differently?

Honestly, 99% of the project went very well. If I had to think of one area it would have been what items were going to be a launch item and what would be post-launch. There were a few additions that we made to the project during the development and those were not communicated for either launch or post-launch and I had to reach out to them to address it. Not a big deal at all, I just can't think of anything else to improve on!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President and CEO of Asensus Surgical

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Asensus Surgical is a Medical Equipment Manufacturing company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 9thCO Inc. to accomplish?

• Our primary aim in partnering with 9thCO was to improve our equipment booking process for internal departments, external customers and administrative staff. Our goal was to reduce booking overlap errors, streamline billing and increase user satisfaction.

SOLUTION

How did you find 9thCO Inc.?

• Online Search
• Clutch Site

Why did you select 9thCO Inc. over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from 9thCO Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• a: Architect a relational database for all equipment, customers, bookings and invoices. 
• b: Develop a simplified front-end interface to enable users to perform bookings intuitively. 
• c: Create a secured admin portal to manage equipment and bookings, as well as process payments.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• a:Enhanced Engagement: the new interface reduced friction and time required to make a booking by over 80%. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback and observed a substantial rise in the number of users returning to book again. 
• b: Decreased Administration: We previously had two full-time admin support staff, constantly resolving booking conflicts and handling frustrated users. It now only requires one person, part-time, and complaints have been nearly eliminated.

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

9thCO showed commendable project management skills throughout the collaboration. They were very thorough in the needs analysis phase, and the timeline projection was within days of expected delivery. Their responsiveness to our feedback and quick adaptation to necessary changes were highly appreciated. Their professionalism and meticulous approach significantly contributed to the overall project's success.

What was your primary form of communication with 9thCO Inc.?

Virtual Meeting

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

What made the strongest impression on us was 9thCO’s ability to take complex business and data requirements, and translate them into a secure and working solution. The database was able to scale to manage tens of thousands of bookings with no performance degradation.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 9thCO Inc. could have done differently?

One area of improvement would be for the admin interface to gracefully handle mobile usage. Though this wasn’t part of our initial requirements, it would be nice to be able to easily manage the system from mobile when working remotely.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Noisy Cart, a fashion marketplace selling high-end designer brands.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 9thCO Inc.?

We sell brands from all over the world, and to get our catalog, we often sync our website to the APIs provided by our distributors instead of manually uploading inventory. Previously, we used a clunky third-party program that caused many errors and wasn’t updating in real time. 

For example, sometimes, when our distributors sold out on a product, our site showed it as available. Then, a customer would buy it, resulting in a very poor UX. We connected with 9thCO Inc. to build a custom app to sync the distributors’ APIs and efficiently update our products in real time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, they interviewed me to understand what my goals were. Then, 9thCO Inc. built a custom API application within our website using React, JavaScript, and AWS, among other technologies. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Justin (President of Internet Marketing & Development), Richard (Lead Developer), Rohan (SEO Specialist & Project MANAGER), and one more teammate from 9thCO Inc., who joined our calls. Rohan was our main point of contact. 

How did you come to work with 9thCO Inc.?

Justin had worked with a colleague of mine for many years and was amazing at the development and the Google Ads sides. I’ve known him for many years, so we hired 9thCO Inc. for this project. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $3,000–$5,000 CAD (approximately $2,200–$3,700 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from October–November 2022. Although 9thCO Inc. has finished the work, they’re currently doing final reviews before closing the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our primary metric for 9thCO Inc.'s success is our customers' satisfaction. Before working with them, we had many cases where customers were buying products that were no longer available for various reasons. Now, all of our customers' orders are accurate to inventory. Therefore, 9thCO Inc. delivered everything we needed.

How did 9thCO Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

They met deadlines and stayed within the budget. The team told me the project would take about eight weeks, and they were right on the nose. 

9thCO Inc. was also cost-effective. They gave us different quotes and options for how to build the product and suggested the most cost-efficient one. After further discussion, we went with the smaller solution. However, the more extensive solution is still an option to work with them in the future. 

As for communication, many of our exchanges happened through Outlook. We also used video calls. Although technology isn't my area of expertise, their communication was awesome. Justin was amazing, so whenever something wasn't clear to me, I could call him, and he'd walk me through things or get me the information I needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm very busy and sometimes not good at following up. 9thCO Inc. was very patient, understood my situation, and sent me follow-up emails. Therefore, they were the perfect partner for me. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I didn't find any areas of improvement in 9thCO Inc.'s work. Overall, we had a great partnership. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust 9thCO Inc.! With us, they were honest, understanding, and cost-effective; they didn't recommend the most expensive option to make more money, which I appreciated. You can't teach that approach, but you can appreciate it coming from a business partner.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Web Engineering Manager of Autodesk

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We make software that helps businesses make anything in the design, engineering, and construction worlds.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 9thCO Inc. to accomplish?

• Complete Project Energizer site migration

SOLUTION

How did you find 9thCO Inc.?

• Online Search
• Referral

Why did you select 9thCO Inc. over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from 9thCO Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Completing the porting of all major templates over to project energizer
• Implementation according to new designs in Figma
• Optimizations for performance to achieve at least a mobile score of 70 in lighthouse performance metrics

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Completing the project migration on time.

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

They were always responsive and organized. 

What was your primary form of communication with 9thCO Inc.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They're very flexible on how to work and very collaborative.  I also thought their engineers were able to self-lead and call out concerns as they discovered them rather than being robots that do exactly an only the work as it was prescribed.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 9thCO Inc. could have done differently?

There were a few attention to details that could have been a little better when it comes to things like adding, staging links in the PR descriptions but these were minor things.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President of Exclaim! Media

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Entertainment media focused on music, film, tv and comedy across print, web, social and newsletter platforms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 9thCO Inc. to accomplish?

• Reluanch exclaim.ca
• Provide cutting edge, future proof, tech architecture

SOLUTION

How did you find 9thCO Inc.?

Online Search

Why did you select 9thCO Inc. over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from 9thCO Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Working Strapi CMS with Apollo GraphQL implementation.

Data and SEO migration.

Hosting recommendations

Pipeline implementation

Live website

Post-launch reporting and maintenance

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

functioning new web envoironment at exclaim.ca that has been successfully operational with continued support and maintenace from 9thCo

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

Formally structured project management with regular updates, testing and training.

What was your primary form of communication with 9thCO Inc.?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We were impressed with their understanding of our underlying project and their strong and well-structured management of the software development process.

Are there any areas for improvement or something 9thCO Inc. could have done differently?

No