Army of Bees

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of engineering for Shiplify LLC, an IT services and consulting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Army of Bees?

We have an internal proprietary software that we use to verify customer data. We needed a company that could help us redesign the UI/UX of that system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started this project by providing Army of Bees with an overview of the requirements and discussing various interesting aspects and challenges with them. After that, they put together wireframes and a UI prototype for us. We went over two rounds of feedback before making the final changes to those wireframes.

They utilized Figma throughout this project.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with Martin (Founder) and Steve (Project Manager).

How did you come to work with Army of Bees?

We found Army of Bees through a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $50,000–$100,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have any specific metrics for this project. However, we have received a whole lot of positive feedback from the people who use this system on a daily basis.

How did Army of Bees perform from a project management standpoint?

Army of Bees has done a great job in terms of project management. They delivered the project on time and within budget, and everyone on my team had very positive things to say about the engagement.

We primarily communicate through Slack, phone, and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Army of Bees’ capabilities is far beyond the standard — the work they’ve produced is significantly better than any other third-party vendor we’ve worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything negative to say. Army of Bees did a fantastic job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you know what you want going into the engagement. Do your best to understand your users and your problems before engaging with Army of Bees.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Jumbo; we have a virtual events platform service where we work with companies and individuals to create customized event sites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Army of Bees?

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, we wanted to create a more highly-tailored virtual event experience, so we needed to find a technology that could power the platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Army of Bees has become our primary development team, and we have an ongoing partnership. They’ve taken existing WordPress environment coding from our end and customized and tailored it for our clients’ specific projects. Additionally, even though they’re a contractor, they’ve also become a co-creator team of the technology. Their feedback is as important as ours; every time we plan our roadmap, we go to them and talk about what we want to build next.

Army of Bees took a little of the foundation we already had to jumpstart the project, which was the basic concept they implemented inside a WordPress framework. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with three core members of their team. Still, they’ve also brought in additional developers of their other projects whenever we need them, which we massively appreciate.

How did you come to work with Army of Bees?

We’ve used them on a different project before this one. We chose them for this project because it was unique; we felt that we needed a development team with several approaches for WordPress and live engagement components with real-time database connection.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest $20,000 a month with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since they became our primary development team, we’ve gone from $250,000 in sales to over $1 million in a year with a very high client retention rate. Also, our clients have said that our platform is reliable and easier to use than other products. That speaks of Army of Bee’s ability to work on the backend, fronted, and Ui elements that bring their expertise to the project.

How did Army of Bees perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been great regarding project management; we outline the specific features we want to build to allocate hours. We then scope that out and assign it to specific developers that handle all the tracking and reporting. 

In terms of communication, they’re very receptive to developing a style that works for us, so we’ve been using Notion, regular team meetings, Slack, and text messaging to ensure that we have immediate communication channels because sometimes there are short turnaround times.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

They have a unique combination of a consistent core team that’s always there and additional resources for whenever we need to build a specific custom feature for a client. In addition, they can mesh with our team to address our weaknesses and adapt their strengths to whatever we need, so their flexibility is key in keeping us working with them happily.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — they’ve always done what we asked for.

Any advice for potential customers?

Spend some time upfront on designing your project’s architecture and come at it with the technology pathways you’d like to go down — their team is flexible and talented in many different approaches, so presenting them with those options can be helpful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing editor for the New Georgia Encyclopedia, an open-access publication published by the Georgia Humanities Council. We were established in 2004.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Army of Bees?

We wanted to redesign our Drupal website, which was facing deprecation. So, we hired them to build a new website on a different platform while adding all the functionalities we required.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Army of Bees built a new website from scratch, using WordPress as the platform. They included all the functionalities we needed, migrated content from our old site into the new system, conducted an SEO audit, and applied design improvements based on the data they gathered from user interviews. They also ran beta tests before officially launching the new website.

What is the team composition?

We work mainly with Martin (Founder) and Steve (Partner).

How did you come to work with Army of Bees?

A friend recommended them to us. We looked closely at their portfolio and felt that they were a cut above the rest in terms of their design expertise and functionality — we’re so glad this turned out to be true.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent $78,125 on this project.
   
What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them on this project from August 2020–October 2021, but we’ve signed them again to provide ongoing maintenance for the website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We couldn’t be more pleased with the website, especially with its functionalities, user-friendly features, and intuitive design. We’ve heard nothing but positive feedback from our users and partners.

It’s a little too soon to draw any conclusions in terms of website traffic, but we did experience a bump based on the recommendations they gave prior to the start of the work. We’re hopeful that we start seeing a significant increase over the next few months.

How did Army of Bees perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a small staff and a lot of partner groups, but they’ve kept everyone on the same page through their excellent communication skills — they respond quickly to requests and questions and provide enough information to help us make the right decisions.

They also hold weekly meetings to provide updates and bring up issues that need to be discussed together. We communicate mainly through Basecamp.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really can’t share enough good things about them because they’ve been exceptional in every regard. Despite being a small firm, they’ve always made us feel that we’re their top priority. They’re also patient, thoughtful, flexible, and dedicated — they go the extra mile to attend to our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve on?

I don’t think there’s anything they need to improve on; they’ve performed admirably in every aspect of the work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to provide as much information as possible about your project, be clear with your goals, and trust in their ability to deliver and overcome any issues along the way.