Cinnamon

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of a company called Smart Build, a construction software startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon?

I was looking for someone to develop my vision and idea for a mobile app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cinnamon built and developed a fully-functioning app and was able to launch it in the Apple App Store.

We started the project with a scoping of the project where I described my idea and concept. They then introduced one of their team members who had a background in construction and architecture, so they took my concept and essentially created a real program that implemented all my ideas and requirements.

Furthermore, they provided us with logo redesign, research, consultancy on the best practices, and maintenance and support.

How did you come to work with Cinnamon?

We came across Cinnamon through a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested over $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–December 2021.

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

We had to hold their hands throughout the development process and help them understand our expectations and what we really wanted. Despite all that, they were still able to deliver a working app and meet all our expectations.

We had to workshop a lot of ideas for the product and they were proactive in recommending ideas, so the partnership was more of a collaboration.

How did Cinnamon perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well from a project management perspective, as they communicated consistently, adhered to our schedules, and kept us updated throughout the progress of the project.

We typically interacted through email and video calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

While I can’t compare them to other providers, we were still impressed with the cost-effective solutions they provided us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be great if they can simplify technical terms and describe the project in a way that non-technical clients can understand.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I advise you not to be rigid and be more flexible and open when it comes to ideas.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of pinetree.marketing, a digital marketing agency.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon?

We needed their team’s web design expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve engaged Cinnamon to support our web design efforts since we’re mainly involved in digital marketing. Their team creates landing pages and designs different websites for our clients, depending on their industry and needs.

Our usual collaborative process starts with brainstorming and scoping — we present our client’s specific requirements to Cinnamon’s team, and they’ll proceed with conducting thorough research on the client’s industry before they kickstart the design process.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of 2–5 resources, depending on the project.

How did you come to work with Cinnamon?

I found them online while searching for potential design agencies to onboard for this project. I liked their organized approach and reasonable price points, so I chose them among their competitors.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Cinnamon commenced in March 2017.

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

Our clients are happy with the increased engagement and positive feedback they're getting for Cinnamon’s design work — their affirmations are clear indicators of the team’s expertise and understanding of our clients’ businesses.

How did Cinnamon perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via email and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with their commitment to meeting our clients’ industry-specific standards.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be detailed in outlining your goals and requirements — it shortens the process and helps their team to focus on delivering tailored services for your business.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product at a fintech platform and service startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon?

We’re a startup, and we started with a great idea and product-market fit. We only had limited users when we started, but as we scaled, we realized that we needed our platform to be significantly better to allow self-onboarding. 

Our app enables online sellers to create a visual plan for their supply chain. Nowadays, that has soared into relevance because of everything going on with global supply chains. We wanted to give our users an intuitive custom tool that mapped, managed, and maintained their supply chains. 

We had been providing a lot of manual and hands-on support on our user’s onboarding process. It became challenging for us to see the app as something that could live without being handheld by our team. As such, we needed help with our app’s UI/UX.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cinnamon helps us step up our UI/UX. They are working with us to reimagine our product for a wider audience and make it a self-service solution. They define the different components of our web-based product, understand the different use cases, and design various screens and interactions. They use Figma in creating their designs. 

Cinnamon is constantly reining us towards best practices to ensure our updates don’t create more work for our team. They’ve helped us to gradually release our team from providing hands-on support.

We were still developing our brand when they started, so Cinnamon used general guidelines and neutral coloring. However, once our branding partner stepped into the picture, Cinnamon had to update their work. They were great at providing input to the other agency about the site’s UX. 

What is the team composition?

I work with an account manager, a senior designer, and a junior designer. 

How did you come to work with Cinnamon?

Cinnamon was recommended to me. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’re spending around $7,500–$9,000 a month.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and it’s ongoing. 

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

Thanks to Cinnamon, we’ve made the shift from manual to self-service onboarding. As a result, our onboarding completion rate has improved. 

How did Cinnamon perform from a project management standpoint?

Cinnamon is excellent at project management. We’ve never experienced issues about timelines and budgets. They are easy to work with.

We video conference with Cinnamon’s team twice a week, and we regularly communicate through email. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cinnamon’s UX expertise is impressive. I know they also provide aesthetic and other design solutions, but they are focused on the user journey and interactions. 

When you’re an early-stage startup trying to prove product-market fit, you have to ensure your features shine over other details. It’s of the utmost importance that your core capabilities are there and running smoothly. Users need to know how to get to them, and they need to understand the logical flow of your app. Cinnamon has been helpful in this regard.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Dedicate time to the project, and make sure they understand your team’s knowledge of your users as quickly as possible — that’s going to enhance their work. They can work off of how much you share and provide to their team. 

Once I’ve equipped them with the necessary information, we’ve seen improvements on their deliverables, and they started to actively participate and suggest things. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an AI software company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon?

We needed help with frontend development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cinnamon mainly focused on frontend development and the utilization of frontend software tools. They built the dashboards that enable us to deliver data to our clients.

What is the team composition?

We initially talked to their CEO. There were a couple of project managers and developers we were in touch with throughout the entire project.

How did you come to work with Cinnamon?

They were one of the first agencies that contacted us, and they gave a good impression when they went to see us.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about €400,000 EUR (approximately $480,250 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2017-January 2019.

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

We’re very happy about the outcome and process of the large software project.

How did Cinnamon perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Trello. We had a joint board where we added bugs and issues where they took care of them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The results were very good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The scheduling of the project was lacking a bit, but I think it was common with software projects. It was hard to define the schedule accurately before the project itself.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It was extremely important to define every single piece of expectation before starting — everything went smoothly thereafter. The whole project design and specification were extremely important.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a platform to help online coaches deliver their programs and content.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon?

We needed help with UI/UX design for our platform since we’re building it from the ground up.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before we started, I wrote a wireframe for the application. They took that and turned it into a full-blown design that our programmers can work off of.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one designer and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Cinnamon?

I found them on Upwork. They had impressive testimonials, a good portfolio, and great style. Working with them was a no-brainer.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $17,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and our work is ongoing.

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

I can’t give them enough credit. I’m super happy with their work. They delivered upon expectations. They took ownership of the project. They don’t feel like a contractor; it feels like they’re part of my team.

How did Cinnamon perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. In a way, they’re better than my own team. We use Workplace for communication. We share links and designs through Figma and Trello.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It doesn’t feel like I’m just another project. It feels like they’re 100% committed to the results. Our designer listens to my ideas, and by the next week, it’s there. It’s always spot on.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you like their portfolio and style, there’s no one better than Cinnamon for the job. Give them a small project to see how they operate; you won’t be disappointed.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Corrily, a startup that provides price optimization services to SaaS companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon Agency?

We outsourced completely our UX/UI development to Cinnamon.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cinnamon provides us with UX/UI design. They’ve done different services, ranging from website usage flow enhancement to creating animations of all kinds for UX/UI work. The team has done extensive user research — interviewing around 50 end users — and has looked into our competition.

The website is running on React, however, Cinnamon didn’t recommend any specific technology and just delivered the actual design files. They’ve made the website incredibly simple to implement.

What is the team composition?

The team composition varies depending on the specialization we need for each phase. We have worked with over 6–7 designers.

How did you come to work with Cinnamon Agency?

I found Cinnamon on Upwork and saw they had a perfect rating, so I contacted them to work first on a personal project. I had been very satisfied with the partnership, so when we launched Corrily, we engaged with their team for the initial design. We got paired up with a really good UX researcher that managed the job quite well. Because of that, we decided to hire Cinnamon and rely on them for all of our UX/UI needs, instead of recruiting designers for our internal team. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our startup has invested around $15,000–$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement started in November 2020, and it’s ongoing. 

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

Our website traffic has tripled thanks to their efforts.

How did Cinnamon Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management is extremely well done. They onboarded us with a Slack Connect Channel and assigned us a project manager. She checks on us and always makes sure to give us the resources we need. She also assigns designers depending on specific needs. 

We communicate mainly through Slack and have video calls on a weekly basis. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m definitely impressed at the speed at which they operate. The team understands quickly our business needs and is able to put together designs in a week. All their work is fantastic; they can do anything that’s design-related, from animation to web design They have a broad set of skills and operate pretty independently. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything I’d have them improve. Maybe they could expand into copywriting. 

Any advice for potential customers?

It’s important for you as a client to be sure of what the project scope is and define it very well. The team is very good and gets the work done, tell them what you want from them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Hello, I am Camille and I work in digital marketing at Attitude Hotels, a 100 % Mauritian (Indian Ocean) hotel brand, managing 9 hotels across the island and employing 1600 family members (staff).

I am responsible for the digital guest experience during their stay and coordinate the e-business department.

For what projects/services did your company hire Cinnamon Agency?

Our main challenges were :

• Our main paint points with the actual website 2.1
• Design Confusing differentiation between sections
• Quite monochromatic
• Very rigid in the look, very squarish
• Static feel to the website (no auto-animation present on website to catch attention)
• Not enough immersive home page.
• The HP does not reflect the strong Attitude commitments (cf. Positive Impact Movement)
• User experience: Lack of pictures in the Hotel Page (rooms, experiences,...) clickable to enlarge
• Difficulty for users to understand and differentiate our products/hotels (No graphic elements, or table, ...). It is challenging for users to be sure they have chosen the right hotel.
• Business: Not enough conversion oriented (complex navigation, lake of strategic CTA,...) Lack of booking engine entry at the bottom of the Hotel page

What were your goals for this project?

• Increase of qualified traffic
• Better online conversion
• Display of our new visual identity
• Neat and smooth user experience
• Display our new company purpose

How did you select Cinnamon Agency?

Initially we wanted to work with our previous UX/UI designer, but he was not available for this project. Therefore we did a first selection on Upwork of 2 UX/UI designers + one recommended by network. The selection process included our art director, the e-commerce manager and I.

Our criteria for choosing Cinnamon was the work done previously for other companies and the fact that they were an agency so it was reassuring due to our deadlines (a team vs a single person).

Also, our first call with agency helped us as we had a very good feeling which is the perfect starting point for a good collaboration.

Describe the project in detail.

We hired Cinnamon for designing UX & UI prototypes for our new website. My manager (e-commerce) and I, worked on a precise brief, shared some materials, websites benchmark, our personas + we arranged a call between our Art Director and the UX designer, Emili, so he could present our brand visual identity and each hotel visual identities.

Emili (Cinnamon) helped & advised us during the whole process, what we really appreciated because her goal was not to only satisfy us but also to make sure our website will be 100% optimized in term of UX/UI design.

She did as well a great research job in the beginning of the project as it was her first time designing a hospitality website. Same when we were facing difficulties at this design phase, Emili has always taken time to do some research and revert us with the best solution.

What was the team composition?

So the team was made of :

• our assigned project manager, Anamarija
• the UX/UI designer, Emili

The team remained the same over the time

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

Our website is still being developed by our developer (agency we worked since 2015) so we do not have yet figures to share, but we received great feedbacks from our colleagues and our top management.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was really effective. We worked on Trello, and received each week a reporting mail of job done and pending points from our side (if any) so we could tackle them the soonest.

For quick and fast communication process (ie. missing info or visual,...) we talked through Skype to not lose time. I would like to precise that we had 3 hours jet lag and we did not feel it at all. The workflow was really optimized.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What we liked with Cinnamon is their organization and their web design skills. What we have been promised has been delivered. They did on they could do to help us with our tight deadline. We also had a great collaboration, working with Cinnamon was a real pleasure.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No Everything was perfect

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief medical officer for a health tech company. We’re a startup focused on rapid cancer diagnostics. The other focus is the digital health platform which is more focused on data, analytics, and providing new biomarkers that help clinicians to do a fast diagnosis or optimize treatment.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon Agency?

We needed additional domain experts for specific languages we use for our digital health platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work in collaboration with them on our digital health platform. The main focus is to have high-quality structured data input, data analytics, and the means of new biomarkers. They worked as part of the team. They were contributing to all deliverables. They did 100% of the design.

What is the team composition?

They have front- and backend developers, domain experts in Angular, domain experts in GoLang, a QA person, and a designer. We scale up and down as needed. At the moment, there are two people working with us. At the maximum, we had five people.

How did you come to work with Cinnamon Agency?

They had a project in Switzerland and we had an informal meeting with them. We realized they could help us with their services.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

They respond really fast to our needs and provide the domain experts we need in a short time. We can adjust the dynamic of the project in a very agile way. We have regular one-on-one meetings on a monthly basis and the internal team provided positive feedback about them. Their deliverables per sprint are very good.

How did Cinnamon Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication is excellent. Mladin (Managing Partner) is our contact. Communication is very prompt. We get quick responses because they’re very proactive. They’re completely embedded into our team. The project management is done completely within our company.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They find candidates very quickly and are proactive. They do pre-screenings so we don’t have to go through the whole hiring process. It saves us time. Their hourly rate is very competitive. They provide flexibility.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Maybe they could have a strong professional development for their people to acquire new skills. Our programs have a steeper learning curve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you clearly know what you want, they will provide you better service. Have regular meetings. We have at least one monthly progress meeting. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the e-commerce manager for Play&Go, and we are a children’s toy brand.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cinnamon Agency?

The challenge for us was to develop a platform that supported improved performance in B2C and B2B sales.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team significantly built out our website, focusing on the addition of the B2B section so that we could expand that side of our business. They also allowed us to add integrations displaying estimated shipping time and cost information on the product page to help decrease the site’s drop-off rate. The site itself is built on Magento, and they handled both front- and backend of the components they worked on.

What is the team composition?

We had contact with 3–4 people from their team, including a UX designer, a programmer, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Cinnamon Agency?

I found them on Upwork, and our initial interviews went well so we decided to move forward with them from there.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of the project was around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in May 2020 and are continuing to work together.

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

The project is going very well, and we plan to launch the new website components in three weeks. Because we’re still working on the project, we obviously don’t have any formal performance metrics, but the design files have all been finished on time and we are very optimistic about the quality of the final product.

How did Cinnamon Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

I have been surprised by the speed of their responses and general communication. When we ask questions, we always hear back within 12 hours, and they have never hesitated to make a change that we requested within the terms of our agreement. We’ve been very pleased with their performance so far.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team’s design skills definitely set them apart from any other companies that we’ve worked with. They do excellent work in all areas of the project, but it is specifically their design work that puts them head and shoulders above the rest.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I honestly don’t have anything negative to say. Every aspect of the experience has been great so far.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Krome Photos. We provide image creation and editing services to families and businesses. Customers submit an image (photo) and we make recommendations on how to design that image. The customer can visualize their photo in the new design and submit a request for our crowd-sourced team of editors to create the final perfect image.

For what projects/services did your company hire Cinnamon Agency?

We needed UX/UI designs for both mobile and web apps. Our designs were dated, the flow was causing confusion, and we were rolling out several AI-based features. They would make it easier and fun for families to use our service.

What were your goals for this project?

We set out to improve conversion rates from start to finish and lower drop-out rates across the board as customers progress through the app’s ordering process.

How did you select this vendor?

We’d used two vendors before but we weren't happy with their designs, costs, and delivery. We did a test with Cinnamon, and they did a great job at a cost-effective rate. We switched all our UX/UI work to them.

Describe the project in detail.

Cinnamon typically provides sketches with different ideas for us to review and select a direction from. The chosen version is then expanded into a set of finished designs and assets (images, buttons) and is delivered to the developers. The finished app looks identical to the designs.

What was the team composition?

We meet with a project lead twice a week, and a team of designers worked out different solutions. Several times we would ask for two or three different versions, or even end up going with a designer who had a different idea than the main group.

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

After one of our previous projects with them, we saw constant conversion rate improvement. We also introduced new features that changed how customers perceived and interacted with the service. All metrics improved significantly.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have Skype calls twice a week. Before meeting with the developers, we share screens to pass ideas back and forth in a timely manner.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Working with a group of people when it would normally be one resource significantly improves the results. They provide different perspectives and designs. Their European perspective has also helped modernize our UX/UI.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None that I can think of. We’re using them to make major updates to our apps.