Create Neptune

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the CEO of a software company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Game developer, currently focused on educational games.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Create Neptune to accomplish?

• Build a freemium math education mobile game that exceeded the quality of current freemium math games available

SOLUTION

How did you find Create Neptune?

upwork.com

Why did you select Create Neptune over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit

How many teammates from Create Neptune were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

They helped me make my vision for a freemium mobile math game come to life.  They offered guidance along the way, built the UX/UI, and custom mobile/game development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I now have a fully working mobile math game that is unique and better at what it does than other similar apps.

Over 50,000 users

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

They balance projects for multiple clients at once.  Knowing I have a smaller company with less urgency, sometimes their other projects would take up more of their time.  But they communicated this and were clear about how long tasks would take along the way.

What was your primary form of communication with Create Neptune?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The most impressive thing about this company was the quick and easy communication

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

It would be better if they had artists in their network who are fans of and specialize in the video game art style I'm trying to create. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Project Manager of Matt Donner Consulting

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Consulting services in the nexus of the Educational, the Technical and the Creative.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Create Neptune to accomplish?

Build a language-learning application for adults

SOLUTION

How did you find Create Neptune?

Online Search

Why did you select Create Neptune over others?

• Company values aligned
• Background in education

How many teammates from Create Neptune were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

We systematically converted the loosly-held curriculum of the client (a private Charter school in Sacramento) into custom langauge practice games for an immigrant adult audience.  Through rigorous interviews and discovery practices, we aligned 10 different games to the overarching CASAS standards of language acquisition as well as the custom teaching methods of the client school.  

This required a team workflow with representatives of on-the-ground teachers, academic leadership, Deans and senior leaders to align both business outcomes, technology (managed by their internal IT teams) and learning outcomes.  We created over 900 different game play stages, managed through a custom curriculum "Map" with various other gamification and engagement techniques to both entertain and educate the audience.  We tracked usage (input vs output scores, Time to lesson acquisition and other retention metrics) using differentiation of learning styles AND a set of non-verbal / non-linguistic set of help and instructions.  We found that the vast majority of our metrics were well above industry standards AND had cut the time to lesson acquisition by our test audience who played 15 minutes a day by 50% vs the control group (who didn't play the game).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

6000 daily active users per month out of 14,000 students at school and as mentioned previously, a shrinking of the metric "time to lesson acquisition" by up to 50%.  We also beat most industry standards for retention and other engagement metrics

Language concept learning improvement of 30-40%

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

Yes!  We scoped work orders every 8 week, ultimately speeding up our workflow to account for 6-week work orders.  With very minimal exceptions, all work was completed on time!  When work was delayed it was mostly due to 3rd party vendors that we knew would be late in delivery.

We tracked with various tools, including Monday and Shortcut along with Slack and other communications.

What was your primary form of communication with Create Neptune?

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

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

Create Neptune is nothing but professional and personable.  We established a deep relationship quickly and were able to build trust equally quickly.  They're focus on outcomes and progress made it easy to navigate the unknown and they always offered fresh ideas instead of just sitting back and waiting to be told what to do.

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

They're a bit "chatty" - but its endearing :).  In fact, it became a positive as through discussion, we often found new ideas and new approaches that would have been missed had we kept it "all business".