Croud (formerly impakt Advisors)

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of a piercings and jewelry company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with impakt Advisors?

We’re trying to get our first dashboard for business analytics reporting purposes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In my mind, I needed a set of dashboards that could help me assess the business’s health per week. impakt Advisors is helping me build them using our data sources in Tableau.

What is the team composition?

I predominantly work with Cynthia (Data Analyst) on a recurring basis, and frequently with Conrad (Owner).

How did you come to work with impakt Advisors?

I can’t recall the person who recommended them to us, but, in terms of choosing them over their competitors, I love working with Cynthia. There have been times when they’ve felt like an embedded member of our team.

How much have you invested with them?

For my estimate, I believe we’ve invested around $60,000 over this period of time.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership began in November 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have been producing and delivering what we needed from them. It’s a constant work in progress and it’s more about helping people understand the value of the data and how they can use it to their advantage. Our team loves the work that they do.

How did impakt Advisors perform from a project management standpoint?

Their performance is really good and I never have to worry about anything. They use Asana to communicate with us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Conrad has been very open and flexible with the different types of working arrangements with us. They have different ways of achieving goals and from my perspective, they do not seem micromanaged at all. I like that because it’s easier to scale up or down. It’s unusual because most agencies don’t really operate like that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If they want to be a true outsourcing business, they should hire someone else to direct the work because I’m the one directing all the work right now. That’s the only minor thing they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Working with them needs a lot of management. This is not something you can set up and forget about because it won’t work like that. But their management isn’t bad, it just needs more engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a single-day touring and activity company that specializes in bicycle tours. We also offer Segway, walking, skip the line, and food tour experiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Impakt Advisors?

We brought them on to help us take the raw data from our data warehouse and build necessary business intelligence dashboards. We had the data, the business-use cases of what we were trying to measure, but we needed help with the visualizations themselves. We had them combine, take those concepts, and actually build out the design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were the designers and developers of building our business intelligence data visualization dashboards. So they use Amazon QuickSight to build the reporting dashboards that would allow our company stakeholders to have a better visualization into our company’s analytics.

What is the team composition?

We had a contact through the contract process, but during the project, we were exposed to two project managers. There was also at least one designer and developer in the background that I did not interact with.

How did you come to work with Impakt Advisors?

We put out a call to bid on the project. When Impakt Advisors submitted their bid, their response was very timely and they were thorough in their response. In a phone interview, their representative did a phenomenal job of listening, hearing exactly what our business cases and needs were. They iterated back to us what we needed, so we knew they understood what we wanted. In that process, we told them that we were choosing Amazon QuickSight or Microsoft Power BI, and the limitations we had internally. Microsoft Power BI would have been more expensive, but they were able to articulate why it wouldn’t be a good fit for us. They would have earned more money with us if we went in that direction, but they knew that it wouldn’t have been a good product.

They met our financial and time constraints, so we brought them on.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from March–April 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are extremely satisfied with both the process and the quality of the work. It was very iterative. What we thought we wanted, wasn’t what we ended up getting—not because they were unable to deliver—but because they were able to provide better options and better solutions. Once we saw it getting built, we changed what we thought we wanted. It functions well and doesn’t have any bugs.

How did Impakt Advisors perform from a project management standpoint?

They asked what business solutions we were using for communication. When they found out we used Slack, they encouraged us to create a shared channel to communicate effectively. They suggested Asana, but we said we’d rather just have regular updates, and they were fine with that.

They always took notes, and we never left a meeting without addressing an action item. They met every functionality at every milestone and deadline that we gave them.

We used G Suite—Google Sheets, Google Docs, all of that. We stayed in constant contact through Slack, and we used Zoom for our meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They can communicate an idea at a really high level. They’re good listeners and are very thorough and organized.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I honestly can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come prepared with the resources that are needed. Be responsive, and be present through all steps of the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of platform technology of an inventory management application.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with impakt Advisors?

We wanted to understand our platform's value adds to then make a roadmap of decisions based on data.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

impakt Advisors completes data investigations to gain insight into our user base. They investigated what drives users to convert, how people use the system, and what features are most used. Their team collected usage data. We have a couple of information sources that we curate for our own purposes such as Amplitude, Google Analytics, and other third-party services that record event data.

We have three calls a week with Adam (Data Analyst). We set goals for what we want to investigate, so an overarching question. Then, Adam investigates the data between meetings. At the end of a couple of sessions, he usually gives a presentation that shows the data and conclusions.

What is the team composition?

We have a main point of contact and a different person works behind the scenes to help him.

How did you come to work with impakt Advisors?

The decision to work with Impakt Advisors was made before I started at the company.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$50,000 on their services probably.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with impakt Advisors in December 2019 and it’s an ongoing contract.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their core metric is providing an answer to a question in a quick timeframe. The questions from our team, our board, and our CEO. For instance, we just needed to dig into the value of our free user tier. Their team did a great job.

How did impakt Advisors perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s great working with Adam. We talk frequently, so I know exactly what he’s up to and he’s responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team’s incredibly gifted in getting an answer from data. Adam’s an impressively smart guy who's good at dealing with data. We can pose a question to him and as long as we provide him with the necessary information, he’ll get an answer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so, we’re happy with impakt Advisors.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

To have a successful software company, you have to dig into your data. It’s an expertise that probably doesn’t exist in-house, so it’s worth doing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and COO of Public Goods. We make healthy household essentials like personal care products, cleaning supplies, groceries, and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with impakt Advisors?

We identified a need for both a data warehouse and the pipelines to connect our various data sources to that warehouse. We also needed a dashboard to display KPIs which would pull from the warehouse and automate the task of measuring our performance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team at impakt Advisors began by setting up the necessary Amazon Cloud services we would use, such as Redshift, Lambda, and S3. Before the team began construction on data pipelines, they used a data stitch program to identify existing pipelines so they could integrate them into the new ones. 

The new pipelines were built in C#. 

The final phase, once everything was set up, was for the team to conduct analyses to make sure the data was accurate. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, Konrad (Managing Partner, impakt Advisors), and his team.

How did you come to work with Impakt Advisors?

We found impakt Advisors on UpWork. Before selecting them, we conducted a fair amount of research and interviews, and ultimately decided to go with impakt Advisors as we felt their capabilities fit our needs best. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $100,000-$110,000 on this engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began the project in April 2019 and the work is ongoing, but coming to a close.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The implementation of the data pipelines and warehouse has been extremely helpful internally. Prior to impakt Advisor’s work, we had to input all of our data manually, which was not only time-consuming but also subject to human error. impakt Advisors has given us confidence in the accuracy of our metrics and the business decisions we make based on them. 

We’re extremely satisfied with everything they’ve done, and feel their team has been a really useful tool.

How did impakt Advisors perform from a project management standpoint?

Konrad and his staff are very reliable partners. We have two standing four-hour meetings scheduled per week where we’re able to go over any details around the project. 

We connected the team directly to our internal Slack channel, which allowed for almost instantaneous communication.

Also, as we phase impakt Advisors out and bring in our own employees to support our data engineering and analysis needs, Konrad and his team have been instrumental in finding and screening qualified applicants.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the reasons we selected impakt Advisors was because of the well-rounded nature of the team. Not only are they accomplished data engineers who deliver great architecture, they’re also very capable on the data analysis side. There are few firms that excel in both skills the way that impakt Advisors does.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a few tasks that we think could’ve been completed more quickly, but other than that, we’re satisfied with the work they’ve done. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You’ll get the most out of your engagement if you have frequent, in-person meetings. You’ll be able to get things done more quickly and efficiently than if the team is remote or not meeting with you on a regular basis.