Berkemeyer Concepts

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company interfaces with most of the e-commerce companies to help them scale their businesses to six and seven figures. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Berkemeyer Concepts?

We were working on a series of projects. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

I worked with a third-party company on establishing problems and solutions. I also explored what they were looking for and what goals they were trying to accomplish. We also collaborated on creating strategies, wireframes, and worked it all out with our external stakeholders. 

Then, I sought out Berkemeyer Concepts to help us solve and develop those solutions. I presented them with all the information I had and everything that we were looking to do. We also went over different technologies to implement for long-term growth. From there, they started working on our project and provided milestones to us when they would reach certain points. 

One of the projects that we worked on was developing a website for an e-commerce store. The third-party client already had a website, and Berkemeyer Concepts built an entirely new website completely from scratch based on what was already on the previous platform. The team implemented new technologies, codebase, and more. 

It was built using the Shopify platform, but we also took advantage of not having to specifically work through Shopify to build, develop, or maintain the website. As a result, we used programs like GitHub to create a repository of the website and build on top of that using GitHub and push out updates out to the website. In addition, there was a series of technologies used that we have to keep confidential. 

The team also worked on increasing the site's conversion rate optimization (CRO) and engagement across the website. In addition, they made it easier to update and maintain the platform for the customers. They only focused on the technical side and we took care of the content. Right now, they’re working with us on developing a standalone app that’s compatible with all devices. It’s still in development with investors. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with Drew (Owner) directly. I also worked with a project manager and collaborated with their teammate who served as a developer, programmer, and strategist. 

How did you come to work with Berkemeyer Concepts?

I reached out to them because I heard about their work in the past and we also had a few conversations with them regarding other projects and more. When I asked them if they were interested in taking on this project, they said yes. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent approximately $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from October 2019–January 2020.

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

We saw immediate impacts from it such as increased engagement on our site. We saw numbers increasing and we had some of the biggest months after the rollout of the new website for about three months. We were doing better than we’d ever done until the pandemic happened in March. 

During that time, we started to see a slow decline, which was also experienced by other companies — it wasn’t directed at the work of Berkemeyer Concepts. However, with the rollout of the new website and features, we were able to pivot in the middle of the pandemic and even came with a 31% growth over the previous year. 

It was a pretty smooth working relationship and they delivered a great product to us. There was a lot of collaboration and the team came back to us with potential challenges that they experienced, and we would talk about those things, and agreed on a direction to go. Overall, I was really happy with our partnership.

How did Berkemeyer Concepts perform from a project management standpoint?

We stayed in close communication and they were able to get the project done fairly quickly. We used Jira where we discussed features, layouts, and designs that we wanted to implement. They had a constant queue of projects and things they needed to work on. We also used Slack and GitHub.

They were great at communicating with us and because of that, we ended up working on more projects with them. They were extremely proficient and organized. They continually kept us up to date and gave us tons of ideas and concepts of routes, so it really helped with the implementation of new features.

They had a great idea of setting the company up for success in terms of long-term growth, and not building a platform that’s going to be outdated in five years. They really did a great job of making sure that we implemented the best features and the most realistic technologies for what we were trying to accomplish. Most of all, we never dropped any deadlines, and we were right on point with everything that we agreed upon. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked with other companies in the past and they took longer to get things done with our project. The reason that they were able to deliver as fast as they did was because of their ability to communicate, not only with me but also with other people that were involved in making this project happen.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, honestly, I don’t have any constructive feedback for them. I also didn’t hear anything from our third-party company owner and there was nothing he wished that could’ve made things better. He was happy with their performance and deliverables. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just be ready for lots of questions because they’ll spend a lot of time talking to you and making sure that they understand what you’re asking for upfront. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Fives Lund LLC is a customer engineering service provider. We provide industrial robotic work cells and we’re developing work cells for composite manufacturing applications which includes building things such as wing skins and airplane fuselages. Basically, everyone’s trying to build things out of carbon fiber.

I’m the program manager of a specific system which is an industrial IoT application — sensors that are monitoring the robotic work cell and trying to make decisions about whether things are going to plan. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Berkemeyer Concepts?

We were delivering a real-time streaming application where we could stream data at very high rates from a sensor — in gigabits per second. You can think of it as similar to a camera which was multiplied by a thousand.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The data comes to us very quickly and we needed to be able to process, analyze, and visualize it in order to show it in a UI. Additionally, the user has to look at it and see it updated immediately. 

We needed to demo for a third-party customer that was going to be showing off this real-time streaming system. As a result, we came up with a proof of concept (POC) design that would process the data and demonstrate to our end customer that we were capable of tackling this problem.

Then, Berkemeyer Concepts helped us architect and build the software layers that were used in all the processing. We were streaming the data using a messaging queue called RabbitMQ and processed it through a Python Sandbox or a Python algorithm engine that had to be optimized. Then, we visualized it using a real-time rendering tool called Skia.

What is the team composition?

Four people worked on the project.

How did you come to work with Berkemeyer Concepts?

I was on a Slack channel with Drew (Owner). He and I had collaborated and came up with some concepts. They gave a proposal and it was very good, so we went forward with it.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent approximately $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–August 2019.

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

We had a successful customer demo that was on time. Along the way, we broke down the scope into many different sprints using agile, so we had two-week sprints which allowed us to know that we were making progress.

How did Berkemeyer Concepts perform from a project management standpoint?

We were communicating well. They didn’t wait for us to ask about the project, they were very proactive. They pushed their status almost daily, so we had stand-up meetings and a monitoring tool which allowed me to quickly see what was going on without having to ask. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They had a good grasp of the agile methodology and didn’t use it for ‘window dressing’. They used the methodology very clear when things got bogged down and we quickly figured out what happened. Sometimes, the reason things got bogged down was not that they weren’t performing — it was just because the problem was difficult and needed to be triaged and broken down even further.

In the end, we were able to pivot and adjust our schedule really quickly without taking a lot of time to figure out that things weren’t really what we thought it would be.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think there were any areas they could improve. I was really impressed with Berkemeyer Concepts. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and they are one of the top companies that I’ve worked with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give a concrete scope about what the end product needs to do and allow them to be part of the design process instead of just giving them a module to code. The team is very sophisticated and they do their best to work when they’re able to apply their architectural experience — and not just assigned as coders working by the hour.

They’re solution providers, so you don’t have to have a lot of in-depth architecture and have people on your staff that will spoonfeed them. Overall, they can really pick the ball and run with high-level business requirements. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of Chess4Life - teaching life skills through chess - mission of reaching 1 million kids per week

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

 - launch site to deliver our training content for families of preschoolers. Track progress, include some interaction/response forms to provide data back to us.

Site that will be made accessible to many thousands of users nationwide. Multi-language capable. Easy to manage/update with needing a tech person on staff. Mobile friendly. Video, pdfs, content management. Course framework.

How did you select Berkemeyer Concepts and what were the deciding factors?

Recommendation from friends. Liked the conversations - focus on solving our problems or finding the BEST solution for us even if it's NOT for them to do the work. Clear communication. Quality outcomes. GREAT first draft mockup of ideas

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

Wordpress was ultimately the chosen platform with various plugins. Had a team member project manage it from this side, so I was a bit more distant from the project. Great collaboration, weekly checkins, great communication. My team bottom line said "Best experience ever so far with technology development!"

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

3 - Drew as company owner, overall manager - identified our needs. Then their project manager. Then the developer

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

AMAZING experience. LOVED the process, timeline, and outcomes. My team loved it - had NOTHING negative about the whole experience. Price is not cheap - but very reasonable.

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

provide a project board (JIRA I believe) - I wasn't in there- but very helpful for our team weekly updates and checkins - clear communication on what is happening, what is needed, any roadblocks, and setting expectations with updates on progress

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

communication!! they delivered above and beyond what was promised Easy to work with Understood our needs when we are 'not' a technical team - asked the questions that understood very well not just the technical, but the customer experience needs

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

none to mention at this time - we are eager to (and already starting) on the next project with them

Please describe your company and your position there.

Principal overseeing software development

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

We were working to build a platform focused around automation of marketing analytics and data collection.

How did you select Berkemeyer Concepts and what were the deciding factors?

We've worked with team members of Berkemeyer Concepts in the past.

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

Code development, management of objectives, weekly reports.

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

There were 3 other people on the core team working, in technical support and software development.

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

We were able to make significant progress on our project during a transitional phase for our team.

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

The group was very communicative and easy to work with, they wasted no time in getting integrated into our Slack channels and Jira workflow.

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

Their attentiveness to outcomes for our project was impressive. They helped us allocate the project budget between a technical project manager and developer to ensure best use of time and production.

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

The only consideration we would have for improving the experience just centered around the limited budget we were able to allocate for this project.