Concise Studio

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and founder of a small marketing agency called SMM Headquarters.

What challenge were you trying to address with Concise Studio?

We needed a new website since our original WordPress-based platform had become outdated. We wanted to improve its look as well as its load speed.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Concise Studio designed and developed a new WordPress site from scratch. They presented me with several design options and wireframes early on in the engagement. I was very clear from the beginning that I was looking for someone who would guide me in understanding the site structure so that I could take full advantage of admin capabilities in the future.

What is the team composition?

I was primarily in contact with Diana (Co-Founder), but I also spoke briefly with Anton (Co-Founder) about a few technical things.

How did you come to work with Concise Studio?

They were referred to me by a friend.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent around $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began the project in July of 2019, and the site was finished by the end of August.

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

The new website is very fast, which is excellent since load speed was one of the primary issues with my old website.

In terms of qualitative feedback, I can confidently say that everybody’s happy with the website. It’s functional and looks great. My clients often comment on how user-friendly my website is. Recently, an acquaintance of mine — totally unprompted —gave me a compliment about how it looks professionally designed.

How did Concise Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

I was very happy with them on this front. They were very easy to get in touch with if I needed something. They were also very proactive in terms of asking what they needed and clarifying what I wanted. They went above and beyond in offering suggestions for improvement on items I wasn’t necessarily thinking about.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team is excellent and can bring on different specialists based on what the project requires. Their attention to detail is also stellar. Finally, I appreciated that they guided me throughout the process since I’m not well-versed in the specifics of web development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything, no. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with them again when I need anything else.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very specific about what you want. The more examples you can provide of what you’re looking for, the closer they’ll be able to get you to your goal. Just like in any other project, it pays to be well-prepared.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and founder of Consigo, a cloud accounting firm. I operate 100% remote in the cloud for mainly Canadian clients but there are a couple of U.S. clients as well.

What challenge were you trying to address with Concise Studio?

I needed a company to develop my website. I had a website that I built myself but it didn’t look professional or work as I wanted it to. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and developed my website from scratch and used WordPress. There was a designer involved from the very beginning and I gave them comments and suggestions early on. We made a few revisions a couple of weeks into the process. 

The site establishes a communication channel between my business and the clients, with a CMS that they built for me. Though it doesn’t have much e-commerce function to it, they optimized it for search engines. 

What is the team composition?

Diana (Co-Founder) was my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Concise Studio?

A couple of my friends had worked with them and they recommended the team.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November 2019–January 2020. It took about eight weeks including holidays and leaving time for me to provide materials to them.

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

We went from having a website that didn’t look good to having a website that looked professionally made. Though it’s too early for metrics, there’s certainly more visits every month. Some clients told me the website looked good and better than before. They delivered the foundation I really needed to get my web presence going. 

How did Concise Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very responsive especially considering the holidays we worked around. Initially, I reached out to them and we went over what the project would entail, the pages I require, and the content I needed to produce myself. They responded within 24 hours, so I’d give them a perfect rating in project management. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like the size of their team — they weren’t big but it made them very approachable. They were fluid and easy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything negative to say about them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you know what you want. The better you can formalize your requirements, the easier the process will be.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and director of marketing at York Region Tire Ltd., an automotive company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Concise Studio?

I integrated an open-source billing software into the business to keep track of customers. I needed help developing a custom-made module to keep track of our inventory.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Concise Studio developed custom software for our existing billing system. We wanted a module that could be applied to other software as well. If we need to install the same software for another company, this module can be applied to the other company as well. It’s pretty much built in MySQL and PHP, but there might be some JavaScript.

While working on this project, we together came up with another project that we will do after this one is fully completed.

What is the team composition?

I work with Anton (Co-Founder).

How did you come to work with Concise Studio?

They were referred by another IT company. Concise Studio gave me a reasonable price and had experience working with the same billing system. The other developers I found on Upwork had zero knowledge of this open-source billing system. Concise Studio also said the whole project wouldn’t take more than two months, while other companies gave estimates for 6–12 months.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $8,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

The software is not fully complete yet; we’re working on finalizing the functionality, and we haven’t worked on the look yet. At this point, it looks 100% functional and ready to work. We just need to fine-tune it.

How did Concise Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m extremely satisfied with the project management. There aren’t any issues. The communication is good as well. They’re on Skype 24/7. If there are any bugs or issues to report, they’re always available.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Concise Studio team always gives ideas, which is very rare in my experience working with programmers. Anton gives suggestions on how to avoid future issues. Concise Studio is also fast. I thought the project would take at least six months, but it’s been one month, which is pretty incredible given that this is not a small project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re doing a great job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to share all the technical tasks and everything you can think of. To get the proper estimate, you have to put everything you need on paper. Describe it in as much detail as you can.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief of staff for a municipal politician, representing around 120,000 residents in the east end of Toronto. I run operations for the team and coordinate the Councillor's city hall work.

What challenge were you trying to address with Concise Studio?

The Councillor I work for was newly elected and a young politician, so, among many other things after winning the election, we needed to set up a new website. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They set up our WordPress website. They integrated all of our social media platforms, making sure our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter content show up on our site. 

We also needed the site to be easily updated because our team has varying degrees of technology expertise. The navigation needed to be easy, especially since many constituents may fall into the demographic that is less familiar with online tools. 

They highlighted a few different elements to share information and emphasize the simplicity of the design. They added features to mobilize users, like integrating petitions to the site and being able to extract the data. 

What is the team composition?

Dan (Backend Developer) was our main point of contact and we also coordinated with Diana (COO & Co-Founder). 

How did you come to work with Concise Studio?

We had a pretty broad scope but a limited understanding of the technical nature, so we reached out to a few different teams. We spoke to Diana about their proposal, we came back with a budget and they ran through the possibilities. Their proactive, collaborative approach toward cost really helped us pick them, along with a recommendation from the person who manages our project. 

How much have you invested with them?

The total we spent for Concise Studio’s help was around $1,500 CAD (approximately $1,100 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–April 2019. 

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

Generally, we’ve got good feedback from users and the site has been well received. On our end, we find the site to be relatively easy to update and we can present all of the information we need to, which is a lot, in a clear, simple way.

From looking at some of our Google Analytics metrics, the site is performing to our standard and overall we’re pretty happy. 

How did Concise Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They far exceeded our expectations in terms of responsiveness. Being in a political office, there were shifting priorities and they were very flexible to that.

They were always there when we needed them. Any delays in the project came from our end on the client-side, but they were patient in working with us. All bugs were resolved very quickly, too. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to translate our brief into a full scope of work was really effective. Their collaborative design process helped us figure out exactly what we needed. They made sure we got the right visual appeal and structure for our content while delivering the necessary information. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Walking us through some of the hosting aspects could have been helpful since we didn’t really have too much insight into how to make those decisions. That wasn’t really what they were working on, but we could have used more direction on that. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend as much time as you can internally coming up with a brief and bring examples. Be as informed as you can as a client. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Founder and CEO of Music Benefactors, an SEC registered investment platform for the music industry.

For what projects/services did your company hire Concise Studio, and what were your goals?

We need to integrate our platform with our escrow agent's.

How did you select Concise Studio and what were the deciding factors?

Concise Studio came highly recommended by Prime Trust, our escrow agent.

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

Concise Studio was able to securely connect our funding platform with our escrow agent's.

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

We worked with two people from Concise Studio. Our main contact was Diana, the COO.

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

Diana and her team were excellent about completing the work on time and on budget. The quote and final cost were exactly the same. They created a turnkey solution for us.

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

We communicated via Zoom. Diana provided updates throughout the process.

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

Concise Studio never missed a deadline. Everything they did was done when they said it would be and the work is impeccable.

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

No. Concise Studio did a wonderful job.