Cube84

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the former business operations manager for a legal news company, providing online newsletters to government contractors. Currently, we manage three newsletters related to government contractors, compliance, and cybersecurity. We operate the business from a WordPress site using WooCommerce. We also use Salesforce and Pardot to manage our customer database and deliver newsletters.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cube84?

When we bought the company, there was little professional infrastructure to track payments, manage mailing lists, and distribute the newsletters. As a result, we lacked a method to effectively track subscription changes and update reader information. We needed resources to set up a Salesforce server to accurately identify our subscribers and track logistical data. We also wanted a holistic view of our clientele.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, they established our Salesforce server to develop a comprehensive customer database. We also used MailChimp to distribute our newsletters. However, because many of our subscribers worked in government and law firms, they had strict firewalls that blocked MailChimp. Cube84 helped us transition to Pardot to bypass those firewalls. In addition to general maintenance, they’re currently making adjustments in Salesforce, adding additional integration to improve internal efficiency.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked primarily with their project manager. Occasionally, we’ve also worked with their data developer, a web developer, and a Pardot manager. The data developer has changed a few times.

How did you come to work with Cube84?

One of our consultants had worked with them. She referred us to Cube84, and we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We prefer to keep the project cost confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work began in spring 2015 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Although we don’t have specific quantitative metrics on their performance, we attribute our sales representatives’ increased conversion and renewal rates to their efforts. Frontend automation through Salesforce and Pardot has streamlined the distribution process, allowing our sales representatives to prioritize other tasks.

How did Cube84 perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project manager excels at track project logistics and disseminating them to his team. He prioritizes tasks and divvies the work to the appropriate resources.

However, although Cube84 communicates well, they could benefit from reminding us of necessary changes to the timeline. If we change the scope to expedite a specific task, they don’t always reiterate that other projects will be pushed off to accommodate the new project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciate their independence and ability to conceptualize solutions to our problems. We’ve worked with previous developers who’ve waited for us to give them the answers rather than giving us options. Unlike the other vendors, Cube84 has synthesized our goals and project requirements to produce potential solutions. This has allowed us to consider the different options and determine what makes sense for our business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While we work primarily with their project manager, we sometimes contact other team members with direct questions. It can be difficult to discern who is working on our project and the ideal contact for quick answers. Their data developer has changed a few times, and we wish they would have communicated this clearly. They could benefit from encouraging communication with all team members and maintaining transparency.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Cube84, while excellent at development, does not have a large design group. If you are looking for design work to be done, they may not be the right fit.

Customers should also focus their time on the frontend and initial planning stages. Communicating the project goals and requirements clearly will help Cube84 create a system that is effective for the client. This also alleviates frustrations once the system goes live.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

MaiaLearning is a career and college readiness platform for middle schools, high schools, and school districts. Students take assessments to figure out who they are, what their personality type is, and most importantly, what they love to do and what they are passionate about. We also have an Intelligences assessment, Learning & Productivity assessment, and the Holland Interest Profiler. Once the students complete them, they receive career suggestions based on their answers.

Then students can research the careers that have been suggested for them. If they’re interested in the career they’re researching, they can add it to their favorites list and return to it later. Counselors and Educators help them narrow down their choices, so they can begin building their Career Plans.

Through our college search, students can see colleges that offer the programs and majors that match their careers and add them to their list. In 12th grade, they can choose the colleges where they want to apply. Through our integration with Parchment, we send letters of recommendation, transcripts, school profiles, and other supportive documents to colleges across the world.

We also help with academic planning by allowing districts and individual schools to automate the upload of their course catalog from their Student Information System, so their students can begin building their four- or seven-year plans. Once we begin working with our schools and districts on their implementation of MaiaLearning, and we have successfully uploaded their course catalog, that is when we automate the import of all of their students verified course work, once their grades have been posted. This functionality gives staff, students, and parents visibility in real-time, to ensure that the students are meeting state and school graduation requirements.

We help students with financial aid planning. We try to introduce that as soon as possible. Some students think they cannot go to college because they don’t have the money or because their parents never went to college, which leaves them feeling like they do not have any other options. The students create resumes and portfolios that include the activities students do outside of school. They can submit all those documents alongside their college applications. MaiaLearning also allows students to track different experiences they are participating in, like community service, which is required in multiple states for graduation.

I handle outside sales for the company and am preparing myself to one day transition into a leadership role, where I can pass all of the knowledge and experience that I have acquired over the years to others and help them achieve their personal and professional goals. We’re a growing, transitioning startup that provides an EdTech SaaS solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cube84?

When I first came on board, the company didn’t have a CRM. They were tracking everything through an Excel spreadsheet. I knew it would be hard to continue like that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We delayed the project a month because we were evaluating two data companies to move the high schools and districts data onto Salesforce. Once we decided on a data partner, we sent Cube84 the district and individual schools data. Each district/school has their own account record in Salesforce, with the district as the parent account and the individual schools as the child account, attached to their respective district. We also purchased contact records for each superintendent in every district, which they uploaded and attached to the district accounts. Cube84 then began building out our internal sales processes, and how we create opportunities, exactly the way we wanted them to look.

We used AdobeSign for electronic contract submission. I worked with some of the Cube84 developers to build out our order form and proposal templates. We integrated AdobeSign into Salesforce and tested with them to make sure that the order form worked correctly and looked the way we wanted. 

They helped us build out our marketing workflows and processes and helped integrate with MailChimp. Then our CEO brought them an additional requirement for building and implementing an invoicing solution. If there were things that couldn’t be done how we wanted it exactly, they explained why and showed us what to do until we could add more functionality to our Salesforce instance.

Before we started with the work, they sent us a Google Drive document where we could fill out the project specifications, including sales, marketing, and professional services. They were very helpful in setting up dashboards for our sales and marketing. We can track all tasks and activities, sales pipeline, and all things marketing related.

What is the team composition?

It was easy for me to work with their team because I was very familiar with Salesforce.

How did you come to work with Cube84?

At my last company, two of my mentors told me we should reach out to Cube84 if we were planning to use Salesforce. They work with larger companies but are also affordable for startups that don’t have a large budget to implement everything they want. My CEO and I sat down with their Salesforce consultant and explained our needs and requirements. My CEO added everything he needed, and I worked with Cube84 on the sales and marketing side.

What is the status of this engagement?

They uploaded all the data, which contained over 30,000 records, in a day. Building everything else took a few months. I’m not working with them anymore because my side of the project is complete. We will continue to work with them because they are so responsive and did such a good job.

I first contacted them in May 2017, and we started working with them in June 2017. They uploaded the data in August and the work was completed by November.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It has drastically increased our production. We made a video testimony to show them the impact they’ve made on our business.

How did Cube84 perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been very responsive whenever I contact them on Skype or email. Sometimes we even needed things to be done over the weekend, and they did that for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re so responsive and helpful. When they were setting things up, they recorded online training sessions so we could use them later. They were also very accommodating to our budget.

They’ve helped me in so many ways. Our CEO is so impressed by how much easier it has made his life. We’re lightyears ahead of where we were a year ago. Everything is set up to make us successful as we grow our business and hire more team members.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They did a great job. I can’t think of anything they could have done better. They made themselves available to me instantly with Skype.

They could have kept us better updated on the total number of hours that we purchased. At one time, I wanted some work done but didn’t know we had already used all our hours. They did apologize for that. When we did the video testimonial for him, he gave us some free hours.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend them to any type of company. They handle big corporations but will work with you even if you have a tight budget. They will do outstanding work.