Crafted

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of B2B marketing at Adswerve.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crafted?

We needed help with our website's rebranding project. We wanted to ensure our new brand was represented through the site and showed our new messaging.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Crafted was responsible for developing our new website in HubSpot. A creative agency helped us with our company's rebranding and what we wanted the site to look like. Crafted then took those designs and developed them within HubSpot, making the designs come to life through code.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Ted and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Crafted?

Crafted had done business with a colleague of mine and came in recommended. The team was responsive in sending us a quote with their capabilities and pricing for the project. Crafted did a great job presenting their capabilities to us, and they had competitive pricing that met our budget, so everything aligned.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–September 2024.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're still analyzing the project's results, but the biggest positive thing we saw was great feedback from our clients and partners. We have partnerships with Google and Adobe and received positive feedback on how we repositioned ourselves in our industry's marketplace. Our partners were very happy with how they were showcased on the new site.

How did Crafted perform from a project management standpoint?

Crafted came in on time and on budget. The team communicated well with us primarily via Slack, and we met via Zoom a couple of times a week. We also used a project management tool called Linear.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I’d like to give a shout-out to Ted.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Crafted was relatively new to HubSpot and had to spend a lot of time learning about how to develop within that platform. A lot of time upfront was spent learning versus the project. While we ultimately launched on time, it was a big scramble at the end to ensure we could meet the launch date because we fell behind due to so much learning on the team's part. Overall, the project may have been a little bit under-scoped or not thought of how much learning curve Crafted would need.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure the project is scoped at an in-depth level. When Crafted gives you their project plan, it’s pretty high-level. I encourage other clients and Crafted to work on that presentation and project plan and ensure both parties are aligned before signing off on all the project deliverables.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Co-Owner of Truckster.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crafted?

We wanted to find a way to allocate our development budget more efficiently and improve our product for growth.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Crafted conducted some advisory and brainstorming sessions with us to help us with our product management, focusing on our future development goals. One of the most important things they did for us was define our scope, giving us direction for product design and engineering. What we wanted to accomplish was pretty broad, so we first contacted them and told them about the challenges we were facing. Then, they helped us break our goals down into a few succinct projects we could tackle.

From there, we had a number of educational calls with Crafted. On the first call, the team educated us and walked us through different methodologies that we should be using for our product management. We then had another call during which we did a proactive exercise.

During this exercise, Crafted used our products to participate in it as well. We did a brainstorming session where we created a two-by-two prioritization matrix, one of their product management frameworks, to define the greatest risks with our product and what we needed to tackle as soon as possible.

What is the team composition?

I worked with five different team members from Crafted, including Laura (Head of Product), Adam (Founder & CEO), the head of design, and the head of engineering.

How did you come to work with Crafted?

We found them through our network.

How much have you invested with them?

Crafted did this project as a goodwill gift for an up and coming company sponsored by the City of Denver's DEN-SUN program.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together in June 2024. It was a one-month project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Crafted ultimately helped us identify pain points, provided us with great techniques, and allowed us to define things we were uncertain about. Thanks to them, we learned different methodologies we could use to improve our decision-making around product management. Moreover, they helped us reduce the number of issues by 75% in key areas and root problems we needed to address.

In terms of quality, Crafted's work quality was very high. They not only provided us with helpful things for this one-off project, but they also provided us with tools that will improve our company in the future. We've continued to see the benefits of working with them, even long after the project has been completed.

How did Crafted perform from a project management standpoint?

Crafted delivered work on time and on budget, and they communicated well with us. As for collaboration tools, we used Google Docs, Miro, email, phone calls, and Zoom.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I would like to give a shout-out to Laura. She was a gem to work with, as she was very friendly and personable. In addition to being a relatable partner, she was also extremely knowledgeable and great at listening. She truly heard our problems, cared about them, and helped us address them quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Crafted is caring and sincere.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Crafted provides so many presentations and knowledge that it would be helpful if they had a database for their customers to quickly access those materials and refer to them again in the future.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be 100% honest with what you're trying to accomplish, as well as vulnerable with your business pain points and weaknesses — they're a group you can fully trust. If you lay your cards out on the table, they'll help you find the right solutions to tackle the key vulnerable points.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-Founder of Focal Forensics

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Focal Forensics provides professional media forensic services including audio and video authentication, enhancement, and redaction services for private individuals, lawyers, law enforcement, and public companies. Based out of Denver Colorado, Focal Forensics is an award winning service provider that has helped hundreds of customers since 2017.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crafted to accomplish?

• To automatically redact sensitive information from video with the help of AWS
• To leverage machine learning and AI to assist our process
• To help reduce the time spent on redaction and speed up our turnaround

SOLUTION

How did you find Crafted?

Online Search

Why did you select Crafted over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fits our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Crafted were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

The team at Crafted developed a custom solution to leverage existing facial detection models in our effort toward a semi-automatic video redaction solution. The custom UI and video management solution were part of the project and final deliverables. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our company was looking to develop a purely automatic or semi-automatic solution to our work which was entirely manual. Having a tool that does any automatic detection and facial recognition is progress at a very fundamental level. 
While we measure success based on the amount of time saved, we have also eliminated some very tedious and mentally exhaustive processes that can lead to employee burnout. Since the initial start of this project, we have been impressed by the progress and overall success in a challenging landscape of computer vision and video processing. 

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

The team at Crafted were extremely dedicated to meeting all our deadlines that were set forth from the beginning. The talented individuals at Crafted were always responsive to our input and available to discuss any roadblocks or challenges that we came across along the journey. They took the time to learn about our company, our processes, and our needs, which helped us develop a custom software tool that now has the potential to completely change the game for our company. 

What was your primary form of communication with Crafted?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Our company did years of research and vetting to find a company like Crafted. Their team, from the very initial meeting, took the time to listen to our specific needs and challenges. Developing software is not something that our company has ever undertaken before. We believed it was essential for us to find a group of individuals who were trustworthy and eager to solve a very difficult problem. We just wish we would have found them sooner! 

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

No, everything has been spot-on so far and we have enjoyed this journey and look forward to where it might end up down the road. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product at a tech startup. We’re creating a new way for physicians or people in the healthcare community to find new jobs. We’ve taken a new, creative approach to recreating a job board for healthcare professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Crafted?

We had a gap in our product development and dev cycle. We needed someone who could come in and bring their experience from a UI/UX perspective, not only work on user feedback and UI design. We wanted an in-depth Figma design to enhance and expand upon some of the product’s features that we wanted to roll out inside the application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Crafted offered us their expertise in UI/UX design. When we decided to work with them, we identified a handful of features we wanted to finalize on our member application. Additionally, there were a few things on the employer side because we worked with associations, members, and employers.

We had specific goals to achieve on the member side, and Crafted helped us tackle some of them. They also prioritized and were strategic about what we wanted to accomplish on the member and employer sides of the application.

What is the team composition?

Our primary contact was the UI/UX designer, but we occasionally collaborated with the founder and CEO. Additionally, a project manager would step in every once in a while.

How did you come to work with Crafted?

We looked around for local UI/UX firms in the Denver area and talked to a firm that was way out of our price range. Our project scope wasn’t large enough for them, so they recommended we contact Crafted. Once we had our soft introduction, we quickly developed a relationship with Crafted.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2024. However, due to our startup status, funds, and ability to execute some of the designs Crafted created, we put our partnership on hold on May 1st, 2024. We’d like to continue in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s hard to gather feedback because we were improving some UI elements that just needed to be cleaned up, but one of the things that I can highlight is the feature that allows users to pick an area they’re interested in on a map. Users can specify what they’re looking for on the map, and anything added inside that area will notify the user.

Moreover, the new implementation that Charlotte (Product Designer) introduced increased our market-follow functionality engagement quite a bit. I don’t know the exact value, but we noticed that the market follows she implemented were impactful.

Charlotte also did a fantastic job creating designs for us around the new features. She iterated on them several times, brought 3–4 different designs to compare, and walked us through them at the initial stage. She’d give us several options, and we could combine some things or focus on different elements.

Overall, Crafted did a thorough job from a design perspective and put everything together from a feedback perspective.

How did Crafted perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t have specific deadlines; we had goals we wanted to achieve on the member and employer sides and made our way through most of them. When we looked at the features, we started at a high level, and there were many small things to incorporate along the way. 

Crafted did an excellent job of prioritizing those, completing one thing, moving on to the next, and then going back. They allowed their schedule to be flexible while accomplishing everything we had set out to do with the team.

We did a little bit of everything. Charlotte was in the office with us twice a week, which was wonderful. Meeting in person helped us to sit down and have screens right next to each other to hear different feedback inside the office from various team members, which was invaluable.

Additionally, we communicated on Slack and made virtual calls as needed when we weren’t in the office together.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Charlotte was the UI/UX designer, and she did a tremendous job of coming in and understanding our business from the member and employer sides, representing each association specifically. She quickly came in, immersed herself in the business, and created relationships with our departments to gather feedback.

Then, Charlotte had an elegant way of gathering all the feedback and opinions within our company, sorting through them, and prioritizing and calling out certain elements to put everything together and allow us to be on the same page for some of the features. We had previously struggled with getting those new features rolled out before she was here.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The two things that impressed us the most were how well they integrated themselves into the team and how quickly they understood our business, which was hugely impactful. We could talk about anything and didn’t have to give them any background information.

Moreover, Charlotte picked up exactly what we were talking about and understood how it’d impact the users on the other side. She was quick to design things, and her professional level was outstanding. We could get several designs and iterations on the designs, and the quality she put together was very high.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Feedback is always helpful, and Charlotte and I quickly developed an excellent working relationship, so I provided some input while we were together. One of the things I mentioned was to pause for feedback. Since she had so many designs, she would meet with the team, present an option, and move on to the next. I encouraged her to walk us through the different designs and wait before moving on to another section. She was very receptive to my suggestion, and I saw growth from her from a presentation perspective from the beginning of our contract to May 1st.

We also learned a lot in this process. I wish we had more time because the project went by so quickly, and there was much more that we could do. As a startup, we wear a lot of hats. We would’ve done things differently upon onboarding Charlotte and ensuring we had users available to talk to the member and employer sides. Moreover, we would’ve wanted to involve her more in the initial conversations during the first couple of weeks, so it was a good learning opportunity for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

From a team perspective, be organized and come to Crafted with the exact goals you’re hoping to achieve. However, be open-minded about some of their industry and design experience, which can be incorporated into your business.

Crafted is flexible, collaborative, and willing to work with you. Anybody who can work with Charlotte and the team has a wonderful opportunity; it’ll help them enhance their company.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Direct, Product & Engineering Operations of Choozle

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Choozle – Digital Advertising Made Easy®—provides a digital advertising software platform that leverages detailed consumer data to power programmatic advertising campaigns across display, connected TV, video, mobile, and other mediums—all from a single, intuitive interface.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crafted to accomplish?

• Accelerate designs for a refresh of out latest DSP Integration (Amazon DSP)
• Inform design and discovery with real user input
• Make meaningful progress elevating the product design approach with standard processes

SOLUTION

How did you find Crafted?

Online Search

Why did you select Crafted over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Crafted were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

We are embarking on a new product roadmap initiative to elevate Choozle's second product line and bring it to the market. As the Product leader, I needed to accelerate the Product design and discovery process with a fully embedded team member while also moving the organization forward with aspects of product-led and balanced team approaches. The deliverables were: 

• Design concepts for developing full-fledged designs as the initiative moved into the committed development phase. 
• User research using live conversation and our FullStory integration. This work included developing product personas, which will be of immense future value to our Product org. 
• Hands-on mentorship and training for our in-house designers and design helpers. 
• Foundational implementation of a DesignOps pipeline that offered Choozle designers Figma as a private sandbox and Zeplin as a place to publish their work for review with Engineers, Product Managers, & Stakeholders.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• (Annecdotal) I would say at least 2x speed to designing what the real experience will look like in production. 
• (Annecdotal) Team morale increased based on regular check-ins. 
• 30% reduction in Figma cost by switching to Zeplin. 
• 4+ new artifacts added to product documentation, to be used in future development and design

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

They easily adjusted to our project workflows. Everything was delivered on time and as expected. Met regularly with me and team members. Kept me privy to their progress and hours usage.

What was your primary form of communication with Crafted?

• 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 seamless integration into our team and how they just seemed to 'get it,' which would refer to how hard it was to work in an ever-changing landscape of tech. They delivered results despite how much things had changed, even in 8-week engagement. It has me wanting more of it.

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

Not really - it would've been that on my initial approach, I almost didn't reach out because I thought it was an all-in engagement whereby I thought I had to bring on players in all areas (Design, Product Management, & Engineering).

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the SVP & Head of Product of Constellation Digital Partners

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Provide flexible digital banking services and solutions to credit unions across the United States.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crafted to accomplish?

• Redesign digital banking UI/UX
• Level up the expertise of existing UI Design and Product Management team members
• Inject research-based design and development methodologies into our company DNA

SOLUTION

How did you find Crafted?

Referral

Why did you select Crafted over others?

• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned
• Train while performing philosophy

How many teammates from Crafted were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Lead existing team resources through an effective and comprehensive plan for improving our UI/UX to be market leading experiences. 
• Drive and train existing team in performing right-level research and data-driven planning. 
• Assist in selecting and incorporating a new UI theming tool (selection was Material UI). 
• Augment staff capacity and expertise while leveling up existing team resources in their own expertise of user research-based design and development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Initial designs researched, sized and delivered to engineering for development. 
• Existing team resources left confident in leveraging user research best practices on their own throughout the design and development lifecycle.

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

The Crafted team was incredibly responsive and engaged from start to finish of our 6-month engagement, with all goals being achieved and items being delivered.

What was your primary form of communication with Crafted?

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

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

They were not just consultants and staff augmentation like so many firms in the market, but truly melded themselves into our company to be a part of our team, both in work execution and in cultural fit. My team is sad about the engagement ending because they won't continue to be working with Crafted vs what they're losing their support in the actual task execution. 

They are, without a doubt, experts in what they do, but their culture and the human side of partnering with their employees and owners sets them apart from any other firms in the market.

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

No, Crafted went above and beyond in all asks that my team and I had of them, and we look forward to pulling them back in for a project later in 2024.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the SVP, Finance and Operations of a real estate company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Development and investment management of ground up hotel development

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crafted to accomplish?

• Put together wireframes for a future software development solution.

SOLUTION

How did you find Crafted?

Referral

Why did you select Crafted over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Crafted were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Develop wireframes and outline of software solution from the perspective of multiple user interfaces (project manager, project management executive, client.) as initial phase of project. Phase II will be the software development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Weekly check ins with project visuals to review every meeting. We were able to see project progress very quickly.

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

They delivered updates on time and overall project on schedule. Weekly meetings clearly identified next steps and required follow up from our side. They did a good job asking questions to understand our business context and develop an output that fits the market.

What was your primary form of communication with Crafted?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting

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

They had very good communication. We had a prior partner that asked a lot of questions up front and we heard little from again and they did not deliver required materials. Crafted was a great partner to follow that experience up with great communication and timely project updates that includes review of work product.

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

None. We would highly recommend Crafted for your project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP Product Development of an other industry company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Building materials distributor

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Crafted to accomplish?

• Launch a new digital experience for all customers
• Provide new free software tools to attract new prospects

SOLUTION

How did you find Crafted?

• Referral

Why did you select Crafted over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Crafted were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Crafted help us design & develop an entirely new digital customer experience. It modernizes some existing customer tools, and very importantly, provides free software tools that our customers usually pay other SaaS providers for. This is flagship product to our overall digital strategy.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The primary leading indicator is monthly active users on the newly launched digital product. We launched an MVP about six months after engaging Crafted, and earned our first active users right away. This grew to ~thousands of monthly active users within the first six months of the product launch and within the first year of our engagement with Crafted.

We also achieved our first revenue in the first six months of the product. We track dozens of other intermediate and feature-specific metrics, but active users and new revenue are the leading and trailing indicators of success, and have exceeded our expectations.

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

Crafted's management team was very responsive to our needs and delivered everything we needed on time. We had a large group of stakeholders with strong opinions, so frequent alignment was important to the overall success of the initiative.

What was your primary form of communication with Crafted?

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

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

Crafted's willingness to jump into a very complex problem and move fast was extremely impressive and critical to our success. I believe that was enabled by bringing a talented & engaged cross-functional team of PMs, designers, and engineers to the project -- from the initial kick-off, through regular iterative software releases.

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

Strategic problem solving on this project requires both deep industry knowledge, and specific context from within our business. While I'm incredibly happy with how quickly we got things moving, but it took some time to build the right relationships to bridge that context with Crafted's expertise in software development, which was critical to build the incredible momentum that powered our ultimate success.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a digital marketplace for sustainable commodities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I needed help building our first real end to end software product from a seed concept. We would then replace Crafted with a full time internal team as time progressed.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I interviewed 6 outsourced Product Development firms from East Europe to Silicon Valley. I got an intro to Crafted from mutual friend.

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

Flesh out the product and technical scope from concept / pitch Build prototypes for testing Learn, iterate, build for Alpha and then Beta launch with paying customers

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

2 PMs (incl CEO, part time PM) 2 to 3 Engineers (Incl CTO) 2 Product Designers (1 part time)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They built a fully functional battle station that we launch publicly!

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

They are very inclusive and collaborative, using frameworks to stimulate discussion and ideation.

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

Adam and Ryan (CEO and CTO) are deeply experienced and were stable forces as we iterated and adjusted our approach.

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

I think the blended pricing model could use some tweaking as we wanted less junior time and more senior time. I also think that some of the design processes and thinking could have been more efficient and would have benefitted from more senior opinions and experience.