Innovation, design, and technology that transforms
Crema is a digital product agency making people's lives better through design, technology, and culture, ultimately creating a world where individuals and companies thrive.
Our approach is forged in proven agile processes and a culture that drives everything we do. Crema was founded on the concept that small, cross-functional teams can work together to create exceptional digital products.
We promise to:
- Unlock the hidden potential of your idea
- Listen intently and share insights generously
- Bring a culture of radical collaboration
Expertise:
- Multisite and on-demand marketplace solutions
- Real-time custom applications
- Community and communication networks
- Helping teams work better together through custom coaching
Our Services:
- Rapid Prototying
- Design Sprints
- Web Application Development
- Mobile Application Development
- Digital Product Design
- Innovation Consulting
- Creative Strategy
- Design Audits
- Technical Planning
Core Technologies:
- React.js
- React Native
- Flutter
- Angular.js
- Swift
- Node.js
- Ruby on Rails
- Python
- Bots
Focus
Portfolio
See more of our work on our site https://www.crema.us/work
Testing the Solar Market on Mobile and Web - Solarhood
As the Solarhood team was forming inside the larger organization, there was a desire to create a distinct solar brand and validate that the concept would be welcomed by consumers. With growing competition from tech powerhouses, the Solarhood team wanted to move quickly and efficiently and decided to hire an outside team. That’s where Crema came in.
Over the course of several years, our two teams collaborated on multiple phases of the Solarhood product. Each of these phases have presented market opportunities that are continuing to evolve today. The phases Crema was involved in broke down as follows:
- Product Branding, Prototyping and Validation
- Mobile Development Revitilization, B2B exploration
- Mobile and Web Development, Continued Validation
When our two teams began working together in late 2016, the original focus was to further refine the Solarhood product concept and design unique product branding that is still being used to this day. By creating a high-fidelity mobile prototype and testing it with real users to glean feedback on the application, we were able to measure a response on the product in two solar markets – Kansas City and Portland.
Mobile Development Revitilization
This phase of work, beginning in late 2018, opened up a new type of partnership between Solarhood and Crema. Crema was asked to continue to support the Solarhood product with a lean, full-stack team, made up of product strategy, design, development, test engineering, and product management, to reach core metrics for their mobile app.
Today, Solarhood is available on the web and for download on all iOS and Android devices. With their robust tech stack and flexible design language, they’re positioned well to scale quickly consistently exploring new geographic regions, customer segments, and additional revenue models. The Solarhood team also continues producing engaging, informative solar information across many different channels, educating consumers on the benefits of going solar.
Positioning a Rapid-Growth Startup for Scale and Acquisition - ProfessionalChats
When Crema connected with the founder of ProfessionalChats, Scott Hansen, they were a small business with explosive growth. The business had strong month-over-month sales, but the technology they used to start the business was not holding up to the rising demand put on the system and their team. In order to bolster support for growth and defend their position in the market, the ProfessionalChats team entrusted Crema to help solve many of their technology challenges over several years of working together.
Objectives and Goals
- To rebuild the bootstrapped platform of off-the-shelf technology into a proprietary chat system capable of meeting the demands of their growing business while improving chat performance, scalability, HIPAA compliance, employee efficiency and accuracy, and improved customer experience.
- All of these improvements would not happen overnight. Our team worked to prioritize the product development process to solve the largest challenges first, while supporting the day-to-day technical operations of growth for ProfessionalChats.
- Concurrently, the teams needed to ensure that current customers did not lose any sense of value from the system. We worked closely on a transition plan from the old platform to the new, monitoring for performance and creating contingency plans.
- Knowing that the ProfessionalChats platform needed to be HIPAA-compliant, our teams worked closely together and with trusted outside partners to review the data security and storage requirements for compliance. This even included switching to a new chat platform and iterating on the product to fit a new workflow.
Results
- 1000% revenue growth during the time we worked together.
- Scaled from 10 employees to 150 employees to support hundreds of new customers.
- Ability to enter into new markets with a HIPAA-compliant chat system.
- Company acquisition by Ruby Receptionists in Portland, Oregon.
- Integration of the ProfessionalChats system into the Ruby Receptionist system is actively underway.
Prototype & Technical Plan - WorkSmart.ai
WorkSmart.ai is prepared to disrupt the retail intelligence sector. Traditionally, retailer POS data is the primary source of data being monetized in the market, but WorkSmart.ai identified that most retailers are not capturing their fair share of the revenue. As a data and intelligence monetization company, WorkSmart.ai helps businesses build a better data and intelligence ecosystem with their marketplace-as-a-service platform.
In April 2019, Crema and WorkSmart.ai set out to design and test the initial vision of the product, as well as identify a technical plan to bring the solution to market.
In April of 2019, our teams set out on a 6 week engagement to:
- Identify a product strategy and design that could prove out the concept, allure potential customers, and create a path for development
- Test the product designs with real users to gather data & inform the product roadmap for the initial build of the product
- Create a technical plan to accompany the product roadmap for the WorkSmart.ai platform
Today, WorksSmart.ai is equipped with a professional brand, a modern clickable prototype, and a comprehensive technical plan that will act as a catalyst to pitch to potential investors and begin the development of their MVP.
WorkSmart.ai’s solution is powered by an innovative technical stack and end-to-end services that centralize creation, accelerate go-to-market, and generate new revenue at scale. You can learn more about WorkSmart.ai here.
A Design Sprint to Increase Velocity & Gain Leadership Buy-in - Major Retail Chain
In Q4 2019, a Senior Product Manager at a Major Retail Chain (hereby known as the Client) was looking at his roadmap for a customer experience that they hoped to redesign by late Q3 2020. In order for the development team to hit this timeline, designs had to be done in Q2, which meant that the new product direction would need to be done in Q1, only a few months away. In other words, they needed solutions fast. For this reason, he began looking up companies that could help run a Design Sprint with their team.
Pre-Engagement
Our teams met regularly leading up to the kickoff date to make sure all parties were aligned on expectations, schedules, and deliverables.
Days 1-3Each day from 10 am - 4 pm, the team would be fully present for the collaborative workshops. Knowing that Design Sprints are a large time commitment, it was important that the Client’s team had 8-10 am to take care of other pressing items. Not only this, but both the 8-10 am and 4-5 pm times hosted essential stakeholder conversations that gave crucial context into the work that had been, and was yet to be, completed.
Post-WorkshopsAfter designs were finalized, the Client immediately hosted a large-scale stakeholder review to receive suggestions & buy-in from the team before moving forward. The designs were finalized and presented to users for feedback. With user feedback in place, the Client presented their work & findings to key stakeholders to hear any further suggestions and finalize next steps.
With this feedback, the team integrated the most successful parts of 2019’s experience with the new designs, resulting in a richer and more robust set of designs. These designs were approved by the Client stakeholder team, and are currently being implemented to be rolled out in late 2020.
Developing a Design System for a Healthcare Credentialing Product Suite - Symplr
Founded in 2006, symplr is an industry leader in compliance and credentialing software solutions that help healthcare organizations mitigate risk and ensure compliance. Over the last year, they acquired additional products and needed to unify their product experiences with the creation of a UI component library.
symplr and Crema collaborated to design & develop a UI component library for their Form Builder product. This included designing and developing essential UI components while considering any necessary UX changes within the Form Builder tool to allow for sustainable and unified development moving forward.
As symplr has grown to lead the healthcare compliance & credentialing industry, they have acquired key players in the space to increase their market share and value. As with any type of merger, there are complications when bringing disparate products together.
In the instance of the Form Builder tool, the product team at symplr was running up against project impediments during the development process due to a lack of reusable components. There was also a desire for more unification in the product suite to increase velocity down the road, as well as a need to leverage user feedback within the overall roadmap.
Crema was approached to bridge the gap between where the Form Builder tool was & where they wanted to go.
Our goals were:
- Remove development blockers by delivering essential UI components
- Continue momentum towards the unification of reusable products and standards across the symplr tool suite
- Utilize existing user feedback to guide component-focused UI/UX decisions, while being mindful of symplr’s goal for longterm integration
Our teams were able to accomplish the original goals of the engagement – creating a UI library to unify the product suite. At the end of the 6 weeks, symplr walked away with:
- A UI component library delivered in GitHub
- HTML/CSS and SCSS files for the components
- All final designs delivered via Sketch & InVision
Simplifying Complex Energy Projects with One Streamlined Solution - Diode Ventures
When our teams set out to work together in January 2019, we had determined there were immense opportunities to learn from each other and design a beautiful and useful UI to validate the platform. We began with a full-day Strategy & Alignment session to unpack Diode’s business model, desires, and initial vision for the product. Once those assets were organized, our teams worked together to:
- Design and prototype a clickable product experience that demonstrates an improved workflow for the Diode team
- Outline a product roadmap for the initial release of the product
- Create a high-level technical plan to develop the platform
Our teams focused on the early stage project workflow & client experience of the platform during this time. In a later phase, we collaborated on an updated marketing site that would help to improve their positioning and client onboarding to the platform and marketing to their target audiences.
It became clear in the initial weeks of this engagement that the platform was far more complex than originally expected. To simplify a robust workflow is no easy task, and it took the minds of all team members to identify the most important elements to focus on and refine. There were opportunities to go deep on some features, and shallow on others in order to validate the product experience as a whole.
Our teams were also able to pioneer a new concept for planning financials in asset development that could be tested with stakeholders. This is still being considered and socialized around the organization, but it was a result of tight-knit collaboration between product strategy, design, and industry knowledge.
At the end of the engagement, Crema presented the prototype to the entire team to cast a vision for the future. It was valuable for stakeholders to see what the product could actually look like, and compare this to their current day-to-day operations. This created buy-in from the whole team and team alignment to move forward.
Custom Workflow Software for Lockton Companies
Ultimately, our teams created a custom presentation template solution for Lockton that converts CXML to InDesign files for a subset of document types. Crema created a frontend interface that draws on Typefi’s platform and allows Lockton users to go through and choose a base template to then customize with their own data. The user can then go back in and rerun all the presentation on their own without having to engage with the design team for edits. Once the data is pulled in, the user can download their final document as a PDF created in InDesign. The download comes with all of the style and branding details that’s consistent with Lockton’s brand guidelines.
Perhaps most compelling of all is the time and cost savings as a result of this workflow solution. It’s projected that a process that once took 12 hours will be reduced down to 15 minutes. The cost savings from this initial product will open up Lockton’s design and account management teams to be more creative and drive more impact for the business.
Currently in beta, the product is being introduced to more users within the organization, and iterations are being made to support additional needs.
tilr | Skills meets jobs
tilr fully automates the recruitment process by matching worker skills to company requirements. They differentiate themselves by vetting and providing on-demand workers based on skills, not job titles.
A founding team with a vision to change hiring forever.By working closely with the founding tilr team, Crema partnered to refine the brand and create a product experience for both workers and companies. We built an API that drives matching skills to opportunities, work shifts, and payments. Eventually, Crema built the web, iOS, and Android builds for the platform we iterated through releases toward market validation. Crema served as the product team for tilr for the first two years the platform existed, and worked hand-in-hand with the founding team as an extension of their team.
Algorithmic-based hiring on skills, not resumes.
tilr entered into a market dominated by traditional hiring processes involving resumé bias, long wait times between job postings and fulfillment, along with other challenges that prohibited connecting job seekers and employers. Up front, tilr knew the solution had to involve algorithmic-based hiring on skills, not resumes, for effective and efficient job placement. Creating an accessible platform that efficiently onboarded and connected job seekers with employers was the core challenge that needed to be solved.
"Crema is great at pushing me to do the right thing for my company, as opposed to doing the right thing for them."— Luke Vigeant, Former CTO, tilrtech is a tool, we're building ventures.
Kudelski | MSS Portal | One central experience for a suite of security services
The Challenge of MSSIn a time of increasing threats and a proliferation of technologies promising answers, Kudelski’s Managed Security Services (MSS) Portal needed to demonstrate key offerings:Beautiful: Is it finely crafted and presented?
Crema was asked to design, prototype, test, build and deploy a new service called MSS Portal, which took all the different tools their clients had to use and pulled them into one, easy to use centralized tool - with the end goal to make security more effective and remove complexity for the end user. We created a design system that was consistent and clear across every view in the solution, providing valuable insight and depth into their MSS services and security posture across a global client base.
In Q3 of 2018, Forester Reports reviewed 10 emerging MSSP's in the market ranking Kudelski among the top two
A platform that's positive, not fear based.
Kudelski Security received its highest scores in the following criteria:
- business and technical value
- reporting capabilities (including dashboard and user interface)
- artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, automation
- user experience road map and talent management.
Crema continues to support the product with a maintenance and design retainer.
PhysEmp | The leading platform for physicians to find jobs
PhysEmp (short for Physicians Employment) has been connecting physicians with employers since 1991. Originally starting out as a print magazine, founder Bob Truog evolved his offering to the early days of the Internet with great success. Since then, PhysEmp has been the industry-leading platform connecting talented physicians with employers and recruiters across the nation.
Today, the platform allows physicians to search over 24,000 jobs in more than 200 specialties and subspecialties in all 50 states.
What sets PhysEmp apart
- Other job aggregators aren’t built to support the needs of physicians or the recruiters looking to place them in jobs. PhysEmp was created to uniquely support this population.
- PhysEmp has been around for decades, and has built meaningful connections & trust with physicians, hospitals, practices, and recruiters every step of the way.
- They meet physicians and recruiters where they are – offering an efficient and relevant job board available across devices.
- There are no placement fees that other competitors require.
Reviews
the project
Mobile App Dev for Online Plant Retailer
"It’s hard to find a team that’s as easy to work with as them."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Bloomscape is an e-commerce store. We deliver plants to people, and we’re expanding into care products for plants. I’m the senior product manager in charge of our app.
What challenge were you trying to address with Crema?
Our big focus in 2020 was to figure out how we could help customers after they’ve purchased our plants. Our CEO made a push to acquire an app for this purpose, and we settled upon Crema’s Vera app.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Crema worked to transition their app over to us. The app is available on iOS and Android.
What is the team composition?
We talked with their CEO, and their head of engineering helped us with the more technical aspects. We also worked with one of their designers. She helped us define features to improve the app’s customer support. They also gave us two developers and a product manager.
How did you come to work with Crema?
Our CTO and CEO scoped out the project and researched available apps, both domestically and internationally. Crema’s offer fit what we were looking for.
How much have you invested with them?
We spent $200,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with Crema in August 2020, and the app rolled out that December.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We really liked working with Crema. It isn’t easy to find developers that really care about what they’re putting out in the world.
Vera had a really loyal customer base, and we wanted to make sure that the app would have a smooth transition over to Bloomscape. It was beneficial to collaborate with the core team that built the app and was very passionate about it.
The user feedback has been really positive.
How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?
Everyone was supportive, and it felt like Crema was part of our in-house team. They communicated really well. Although it was a short-term project, they didn’t treat it like one, and they answered all our questions. We had an aggressive timeline to get the app to where we wanted it, and everyone worked hard to deliver on time.
We used Slack for daily communication and Jira for project management and task prioritization. We focused on both new tasks and addressing the needs of the existing customer base.
What did you find most impressive about them?
It’s hard to choose just one thing. If I were to describe them in one word, it would be “collaborative.” Crema took care of everything we needed.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Crema built the initial app in their venture labs. It was available in several languages and over 100 countries. There was a big list of things to do for the transition when we decided to use it. If they plan to offer other apps in this way in the future, they should focus on streamlining this process.
Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?
I’d tell them to go ahead and sign a contract. Crema is in really high demand, and it’s hard to find a team that’s as easy to work with as them.
the project
Developing Digital Tax Prep Journey for Tax Company
"One of the best parts of this project was how well our teams worked together, acting efficiently as one unit."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I lead the digital products and services team for one of the top tax companies in the United States.
For what projects/services did your company hire Crema?
We hired crema at the beginning of the year to help us visualize concept and prototype the next iteration of our tax prep experience. Their work spread across mobile and.com designs.
What were your goals for this project?
Our goals for this project were to create a tax experience that was unlike any other, faster, more intuitive, and more personalized. We used the prototype to showcase the concept internally and get feedback externally.
How did you select this vendor?
We evaluated two primary vendors. one located in Kansas City, which ended up being Crema, and the other which is housed between Portland and Brooklyn. We made our decision based on the way we wanted to engage with the contractors and the pricing for the effort.
Describe the project in detail.
The project for which we hired crema is a flow through a tax prep journey that a returning client would go through when coming back their second year with us. The experience considers simple tax return scenarios and increases their speed to complete by four times.
The experience is more intuitive than what we currently have, leverages our new design system and helped to push that further forward, and considers differences between the mobile and web experience.
What was the team composition?
We had two designers dedicated to the effort and a project manager/product manager that helped with strategic direction and keeping things on track. The team spent part of their time embedded with our team in our offices so that we can work closely together. I truly believe that this helped us with our alignment and speed of execution.
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
The project was certainly a success from my perspective. we had requested that the team create an experience that was faster By two times. When they were done it was faster by four times. And the reviews that we got from internal and external users were certainly delightful. though we are early in the project, this certainly helped us to sharpen our focus of what could be.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
One of the best parts about this project was how well our teams work together. our lead product manager, lead designer, and the team at crema acted efficiently as one unit.
Because they were partly co-located and spoke together often, there wasn't a sense of us versus them. It was like we were truly one team. And the crema designers and strategists were so kind, thoughtful, and open to feedback that it was just delightful to work with them.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
I love the creativity of this firm. And it's not just design creativity. I see the way that they solve problems for their clients and how they view problem-solving and tackling challenges as just part of their DNA.
They're an incredibly curious and creative company. I love the product management staff that they have and would love to work with them more in the future. I follow their LinkedIn page and I'm always delighted to see the new projects that they post.
Are there any areas for improvement?
I'll start by saying that this comment is not unique to crema. I feel this way about most agencies that I have worked with over the last 5 years.
Having been at DirecTV from 2009 to 2015 and working with some of the most talented designers including motion graphic designers that I've ever experienced, I often feel that agency work is not as flashy as I'd like it to be. that would be the only thing that I would call out if something I'd like to see more of.
the project
Custom Development for Presentation Template Management Tool
“Strong, open communication, creativity, and genuineness are their most impressive traits.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m an account manager of an insurance brokerage consulting company. We consult our clients about the benefits we offer their employees. I have a book of business that I service to our clients, but I’m also in a project role where I work with our operations team.
What challenge were you trying to address with Crema?
We have designers who use Adobe InDesign to create client presentations or communications for our client’s employees. Our team has a very difficult working relationship with them because we’re creating thousands of standard and bespoke documents. Everyone is recreating the wheel over and over again, so it’s wasting time and creating an inconsistent work product.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Crema built a custom presentation template solution from scratch. The tool can covert CXML to InDesign files. Their team built a frontend for users to go through and choose a base template to then customize with their own data. This allows the user to go back in and rerun the presentation all on their own, without having to engage our design team. This ends up being a manual process because if they’re engaging the design team, they’re waiting between 24–48 hours to get revisions back.
There are two parts to the solution. The first side is a template creator tool that allows our admin to go in and create the best work product templates. These templates are pretty inclusive of most things that’d go into presentations but also contains different templates clients may need.
Once a template is created, it flows into the document builder side. Here, an end-user can select what side of the business they’re on and what type of documents they’d like to prepare. Then, they choose a base template. At this point, they can go through and upload Excel or PDF files to upload their data.
Once the data is pulled in, it runs through and the user can download their final document as a PDF created in InDesign. The download comes with all the style and branding details that’s consistent with our company’s style.
What is the team composition?
I’ve worked with a handful of people from their team including a QA person, two developers, a strategist, a designer, and a project manager who’s my main point of contact.
How did you come to work with Crema?
Our head of operations found them, and I got pulled in to lead the project. They had been in touch with Crema over the years. The Crema team had a good reputation for custom software development. There was a budding relationship for a while, and we didn’t know exactly how we could engage them. Everything lined up for this project.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve invested between $250,000–$500,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
The project started in August 2019, and our engagement is ongoing. The MVP was completed by late November 2019. We had an engagement that ended in May 2020, and we’re now in a nine-week extension period.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The deliverables were amazing. It’s a little difficult to quantify the impact because essentially, we sat in a room all together, brainstormed ideas, made a bunch of post-it notes, and then Crema turned our ideas into a reality. It was a team effort, but they certainly did the creation part.
We have some beta testers for the solution, but we’re still cleaning up some things. Overall, the tool is amazing, and I’m very happy with it. Going forward, we’re going to make it more intuitive and reasonable for real business and that’s where the real test is going to come in. There have been demos, samples, and tests but no real business testing yet.
How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?
Their team has done an excellent job with communication and in teaching me through this learning curve. We use Slack for correspondence and Trello for some bug reporting. Slack has been fantastic. I’m really happy with our use of it and don’t know how we could’ve done the project without it.
I appreciate the Crema team for pushing us into Slack because it’s helped incredibly to alleviate some burden on the communication side as well as just made the experience more efficient in general.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Strong, open communication, creativity, and genuineness are their most impressive traits. The Crema team is full of real people trying to get real stuff done. They’re sincere, and I’m very impressed with the individuals and overall company.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, I can’t think of anything. Any pain points we’ve had have been due to the nature of the project and creating a product in general. If there was anything that needed improvement, we talked about it, resolved it, and moved on.
the project
Development of Various Web Apps for Large Consulting Company
“They really work as an extension of our team.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I run product and technology at a large consulting company that serves clients on a large variety of management topics.
What challenge were you trying to address with Crema?
We frequently need to build assets that help clients solve different challenges that they're facing.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They help create our applications, with a Ruby backend and React frontend. These are mostly related to organizational design, talent, and other things of that nature. Crema helps build applications, and they've been a partner of ours for two and a half years, helping us in building different apps.
What is the team composition?
We work with 10-12 people from their team. Each team has three developers, a designer, a product manager, and a QA specialist. I also have one point of contact that manages the entire project.
How did you come to work with Crema?
After seeing the prohibitive prices in larger cities, we decided to move our search to smaller cities with larger populations, which led us to Kansas City and Crema. They came highly recommended so we tried them out for a small project. We really liked the results and ended up moving a lot of our development projects to them afterward.
What is the status of this engagement?
We began working together in November 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We recently let go of a vendor because of the stark contrast in how they are versus how Crema is, in terms of collaboration. They have unique flexibility with how they do work; a lot of companies that we've worked with have very strict, regimented process of managing the development cycle, and sometimes we need to work more flexibly than that.
How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?
They run everything that's required and are very transparent, while also being able to handle 90% of the issues that come up. Things only get elevated to me or my team when there's a real issue to address; they're great about addressing the vast majority of things that come up, like timeline shifts. They've learned our domain enough that if something ends up being complicated or taking longer than anticipated, they're good at recommending solutions. They can usually do that independently, without having to have too much back and forth with us, which we find a lot of value in. We need to be able to respond to some client needs that are more immediate. They're really adaptive and responsive to what's needed.
We use Jira, Slack, and regular meetings to keep in contact. They really work as an extension of our team. We do in-person meetings once a quarter that's having them come out to where the majority of us are in LA.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They're exceptionally trustworthy. There's an ample amount of transparency and we have a lot of trust between our teams, which lets me know they're always going to do the right thing. There's never any feeling like you don't have the information, and there's never a “negotiating with the vendor” type of dynamic. It's what we most appreciate since I don't have to worry about if they're doing the right thing.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I would love for them to get bigger.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
My advice is to invest in a personal relationship. The more information you can give them about the problems you're trying to solve, the better they will be able to be at anticipating your needs. We give them access to our problem, which is why we work so well together. Establishing that relationship from the beginning is so critical.
the project
Web Application Portal for Global Information Security Provider
Drawing out exactly what the product needs to be is something they’re fantastic at.
the reviewer
the project
Software Development for On-Demand Staffing Platform
"Crema is great at pushing me to do the right thing for my company as opposed to the right thing for them."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the CTO and founder of an on-demand marketplace application that matches workers with companies that need them. This can be for as short as a 4-hour bartending gig on a Friday or as long as a 4-month warehouse or HR professional gig. We’re like Uber but for other types of jobs. A company posts the job, our algorithm matches the appropriate user, and that user gets a push notification on their phone. When they hit “Accept,” they get that job—no interview needed.
What challenge were you trying to address with Crema?
We were an idea-stage company. Our original interaction with Crema was to work on product definition for our MVP [minimum viable product]. That relationship subsequently transitioned into evaluating different ways of building that app, including either building a full team internally or hiring a different kind of technology company. We ultimately ended up hiring Crema to do the product build as well for our MVP. We built our relationship with them to the point where we both took a significant amount of ownership in the product.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We did something with them called an ideation session. The goal was to get, from my perspective, additional engineers to estimate how difficult the product would be to build, figure out what type of product we should build, scale it back a bit, and get an external set of eyes on the features to figure out what our core MVP could be. Subsequently, post go-live, we transitioned quickly from that market-ready team to re-subsidizing our labor internally with employees that used to be handled by Crema. We went from them being our whole product team down to just having some resources for a couple days a week. There are very few full-time resources on the project now. They helped me with everything from new hires to transitioning the knowledge base from them to my new internal employees.
There was a UX designer, a product strategist, a project manager, an iOS developer, an Android developer, a web developer, and a backend Ruby on Rails developer. At some point, we had an extra frontend React web developer and an extra backend Ruby developer. Our core team was a person per discipline—Ruby, React, iOS, and Android. We subsequently decided to rebuild our mobile platform on React Native, so we just have a React Native resource now building on Android and iOS.
How did you come to work with Crema?
I had a friend that sold a company to Facebook, and he’s now at Airbnb. He’s smarter than me, so I reached out to him asking which outsourced companies he’d recommend. He mentioned two firms—a Midwest company and Crema. I’m pretty upfront and like working with people who are humble. We chose Crema over rebuilding the product alone or outsourcing it to a different company because they were an established team that would allow me to get the product to market as quickly as possible, which was our main goal.
How much have you invested with Crema?
We’ve worked with them quite closely to establish a structure that works for both of us. I can provide their card rate, but I am uncomfortable disclosing our relationship with them.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in November of 2015. The first product launched in July of 2016.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
The product has never been rejected from the App Store on any submissions. That first time you submit a product, it can be scary. There are these horror stories of companies having products stuck in limbo. It’s amazing that we always ship a product every 2 weeks. They’re very good at allowing me to iterate fast.
From my perspective, the most beneficial thing for me, as the co-founder of the company, is that I rarely get to spend enough time on the product as I’d like to since I have to go fundraising for a week or work on a new partnership. Before, I had internal hires that could replace me during those early months where you can be pulled in many different directions. I knew that I could go away for a week and that the product would continue humming along and they’d execute what I wanted. In the event that my absence would have made a material difference for the product, they would find a way to get in touch with me and make sure that the right thing was delivered.
Crema is great at pushing me to do the right thing for my company as opposed to the right thing for them. That React example showcases this: they originally had 2 resources on the project to build 2 different apps that did the same thing. Because they’re such a small agency, when React Native came out and started to gain traction, they were able to champion that the firm should use it, get approval from the owners of the company that it’s now framework-based supported, and then pitch a project to me that allowed me to reduce my monthly spend and ship a product that can be built faster.
They’re uniquely small enough that if they see something beneficial pop-up, they’ll recommend it, as long as it’s right for me and regardless of their long-term billable hours. In a startup, cash is king.
It’s a trust thing. Working with contractors can be stressful, especially some of my other products. When I make a requirements document, it’s literally built exactly how I write it. Crema, however, does a pretty good job of knowing when I’ve mistyped a requirement, knowing when to push back, and knowing when to ask me a question to make sure that what they’re building reflects what I want.
How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?
There’s a specific resource on my team who’s our project manager, and he’s incredible. I wish I could poach him, but it’s quite clear that I can’t.
They hit every deadline. We’re Agile, so there aren’t hard builds that we’re trying to release. I know when people are going to deliver during a week, and I’m made aware during every sprint if we’re going to hit it. If they’re under risk, I’ll get a yellow light. I always know what’s going to be shipped. If for any reason the product that’s about to be shipped isn’t exactly what I think it is, they’ll let me know up front and give a solid reason why (usually because I added scope).
What did you find most impressive about Crema?
They have a strong product team, as opposed to just developers. Often, a company is quite strong in development, branding, user flow, or UX, but they’ve been a delightful mix of all that. It’s a product team for hire as opposed to a development team or UX team for hire. Having everyone who built the product, especially in those early days, are all around the table at the same time is significantly better than trying to piecemeal a team together between a branding firm and a development shop offshore. That’s been the main difference. I’ve never had a full product team for any product I’ve worked on before.
Are there any areas Crema could improve?
When I first started, Crema’s QA wasn’t as solid as I was used to. I actually gave them that area of improvement, and they hired a new resource. They listened to my feedback and improved.
The only thing that would be beneficial is spending more time on internal tools before a product goes live, but that would have pushed back my delay. They could emphasize internal tools for the company more, understanding that we’ll have users within our organization who should have tools before the product goes live.
I really don’t have anything negative to say or big areas of improvement for them. They send me forms every month to see if there was anything they could do better. They’ve fixed everything I pointed out.
the project
Web Development for Online Hiring Service
"I can't say enough good things about their project management."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the CEO of HipHire. The best way to think about the company is as a Match.com for part-time blue- and white-collar jobs that tend to have high turnover in industries like restaurants, retail, and logistics.
What challenge were you trying to address with Crema?
We wanted to find the right company that could interpret market research in order to focus and build the right product based on my 14 months of data. It wasn’t the traditional "I have a problem. I'm hoping you can help me solve this. Here's what I think the solution is." I had already derisked a lot of the typical things that a firm might be concerned about.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Crema provided a frontend and a backend engineer, a product owner in charge of product design, and a project manager, so it was roughly five people over the course of this initial stage. In the early stages, the product architect helped deconstruct all of the research I had done and the validated concept I came up with and put together what we thought the initial solution would look like.
To them, the most important thing was less about the tech and more about ensuring that we're building the right minimal viable product (MVP) out of the gate that will solve the problem and allow me to get traction. It wasn’t something to put out there with missing things and traction issues. They were really focused on making sure that I had a viable product that could start functioning from day one. It didn't have all the bells and whistles, and we didn't need all that; it just needed to be the MVP, and that was important.
What they built originally for me was a web platform. It was mobile-responsive because I have a marketplace business with a side for businesses and another for job seekers, so it needed to respond to the technology that both of those types of groups tend to leverage when looking for part-time jobs. The technology was important because I wanted to make sure that we were leveraging not the latest and greatest but were using a core technology that we're going to be sitting on for the next five or six years, and that was their skill set and strength. It wasn't leading-edge, where 1% of developers were using the platform, nor was it an older technology that's been around for a while. I know it was built in JavaScript, Heroku, and a couple of other technologies.
The solution was more about the vision and understanding user functionality. That's where I feel Crema is very strong. It's not just fixing the leaky pipe and then realizing there's another leak further down. They’re able to see the bigger picture and understand what you're trying to accomplish to make sure that it’s being incorporated into the design. That's also important because, as they see the bigger picture, they know how things are going to expand, change, and adjust, and we've accounted for that in the design. It's like we've looked at the five-year picture and shrunk it down to one year, but as you grow and build and add on, this is going to expand into that five-year vision. A lot of companies just fix for now. Then, as you push the rock down the road, you keep dealing with the problem.
How did you come to work with Crema?
For me, it's all about the people that I work with. I find the tech and design the easy part. I really focus on companies and people that I want to spend time with. Crema’s culture is something that's really important to me since my own background is naturally drawn to strong, culture-driven leaders and companies. That tells you a lot about a well-run, put-together organization versus just a team of people.
I had met the owners of Crema through various social and entrepreneurial events here in Kansas City, so we already knew each other. I had touched base with several other design firms, but I knew the reputation of and the quality of work produced by Crema. I always had intentions to work with those folks, and there was never a reason not to.
How much have you invested with Crema?
We did things on a fixed cost, and then our support contracts were annual fixed cost. I know for our support costs, Crema was initially designed to be the tech company until you were able to build up your own tech firm, and then they're able to hand you off things and you can take it from there. They limit their support, at least at that time, to a set amount of hours a month. If you want more than that, it's probably time for you to build your own team and start taking things over. We had a contract that was probably $2,000 a month that included 15 or 20 hours of support that we spread out over a year.
In terms of the bill, we just broke it down to one fee for the whole thing.
What is the status of this engagement?
We signed the contract in December of 2014. There was about a four-month design process. We had to ramp up in January and then ramp down prior to launching. We pushed dates out, so they were done way before June of 2015. We deployed the web version in mid-June.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?
The quality of the product is the most important thing, and we never had anything break on the website that kept people from doing stuff. All of the functionality was extremely well tested and deployed. We were never in bug-fix mode. We were always ahead doing feature enhancements and improvements as part of the support contract. In the support contract, for small features that were already there, we would make slight improvements based on analytics and user feedback. Then, we might build and budget in smaller projects when we realized a feature was missing, and Crema would work that into their Scrum process.
The biggest comment I always got from our customers is how well it worked. Look and feel was not as important as making sure that it was reliable, did what it was supposed to do, and people didn't just get hung up anywhere inside of it.
How did Crema perform from a project management standpoint?
That is one thing they are the best at. They assign you a project manager, and we would talk at least three times a week. I always knew what was coming up in the next sprint because we would always talk about in advance. They always hit all of their deadlines. They were completely open and transparent. I can't say enough good things about their project management. That is something that's so missed, and I think they're just hitting it perfectly and are only going to get better at it.
What did you find most impressive about Crema?
I haven't worked with a lot of other vendors. But, the difference that I see, which comes down to the technology design, is that people are only able to fix one problem. There was a recent issue that came up that I worked with another company for. They deployed a fix, but then it took me two days to deconstruct it and say, "Here's the bigger vision. This is really how it needs to work." This other group is made up of surgeons in terms of programming, but the vision process falls more on my shoulders.. In look and feel and other things, I think we've reached a little bit of parity in today's web and app development. The way Crema approaches design—thinking about the bigger picture, project management, and culture—is really where they have an advantage over companies looking past that.
Are there any areas Crema could improve?
That's a hard one. It may be their level of expertise. I was working with some of the newer employees, so take that for what it's worth. They were probably not as efficient, but they had other experts inside the company to fall back on. It's like you might have a new guy out of college working on your car, but he always had the 20-year mechanic to ask questions. None of that ever revealed itself in terms of design or deployment. That was taken into consideration on the bid estimate because it was giving an opportunity for newer folks to work on new technology.
I'm completely transparent. If I know there's a problem, I'm always happy to make other people aware of it. But, to be honest with you, it's hard to throw rocks at these guys.
the project
UI/UX Design for Project Management Platform
"They have timely responses and proactive planning."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am the founder of a management consulting firm
For what projects/services did your company hire Crema?
To assist with the product design of the project management platform and incorporate the brand standards into a digital project in Miro.
What were your goals for this project?
To have a product ready for market within a month that was usable and aesthetically acceptable.
How did you select Crema?
Refered from the software vendor Miro.,
Describe the project in detail.
Very short engagement
- 4 weeks
- Strategic discussion to develop Scope
- 4 iterations on deliverables
- final review and sign-off
What was the team composition?
Founder, Marketing department and Crema
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
Complete on time and on budget. Exceeded expectations on quality of scope.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Very effective. They have timely responses and proactive planning.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
Their ability to take very ambiguous scope and a tight timeline and budget that delivered results.
Are there any areas for improvement?
Contracting and payment were painful due to international realities.
The team at Crema was exceptionally caring and supportive throughout the project. User feedback on the app has been positive. Customers can expect a collaborative and knowledgeable team.