Cultivate

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of corporate marketing and communications at Superior Construction, a heavy civil contractor.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We originally hired Cultivate to help us out with our video and photography needs for a couple of our projects, but our scope of work grew after working with them. Now, they do a lot of different things for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cultivate helps us with pretty much everything related to our branding. Among other things, they’re in charge of about 90% of our video production and photography projects, which is why we hired them in the first place. Most of their video production work involves editing footage that they take. However, some animation work is also involved.

One of our biggest projects in Indianapolis has been launching a couple of different marketing campaigns. For this project, Cultivate has done all the photography and video production work, and they’ve helped us all the way through the campaigns, from posting the content on social media to building a new page on our WordPress site for these campaigns.

Additionally, they’ve done our holiday cards for the past two years. The first year, the holiday card was really last minute, and they decided to create an animated one — they pulled it off, of course. Last year, Cultivate took six of our project sites and put a little Christmas tree on them. Then, for the holiday card itself, they did two versions: a video one and a printed one. The video was a lit-up Christmas tree that was lifted up on a crane, and the printed card included a Christmas tree hanging from a crane and a nice message they wrote for us.

Currently, we’re getting ready to launch our new visual identity and brand refresh with them, which should be ready in a couple of weeks. As part of this rebranding effort, Cultivate will also help us create a new website.

The input from our side depends on each project. For example, if we need a redesign of an asset we had previously done, we provide Cultivate with it. However, most of the time, we just talk through ideas and define what we’re hoping to achieve, and we let them run with their creative genius.

What is the team composition?

We work with Mark (Co-Founder & President), Kimberly (Brand Strategist & Creative Director), Hope (Project Manager & Copyeditor), Wally (Design Director), and Rick (Creative Producer).

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

Cultivate came recommended. A lot of our team in the Midwest was familiar with them, and they also had a good relationship with one of our subcontractors. As we already knew who they were, we decided to reach out to them. After working with them once, I fell in love with them — they’re amazing rockstars!

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2020, and our engagement is ongoing. I don’t foresee an end to our relationship in the future; we still have a lot of work to do. Just the other day, during our monthly call, I realized how much work they're currently doing for us. I knew that I had them working on many things, but I didn’t realize how many they were until I saw the list.

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

Everything that Cultivate has done for us has gotten excellent compliments from other employees and clients. I wouldn’t be able to do my job without them.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

Cultivate is really good at project management, especially since they’re growing. They recently hired Hope, and from the project management perspective alone, she’s very good at tracking everything.

We have a monthly call to go over our projects, and there’s always an agenda, so we constantly know what projects are going on. Additionally, they always know the status of each project.

Cultivate is also very communicative. If I send them another request that needs more time or more urgent attention, they communicate with me to reorganize the priority of our current projects. There hasn’t been a time when we haven’t met a deadline, but if there’s ever an issue, they definitely let me know.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I find two aspects of working with Cultivate to be impressive. Firstly, the quality of their work is awesome. They’re familiar with the construction industry, which helps them deliver quality work.

The second thing I love the most about working with Cultivate is how well they try to understand every project, digging deep into what we’re hoping to achieve and how we will measure its success. They have a questionnaire they call AIM with 10–15 questions that I need to fill out before they start working on the project, and those questions go through every aspect of it, which is fantastic. If I forget to fill the format out, they always remind me — I love that approach.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, no. I have nothing but positive things to say about them — they’re fantastic!

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust their process because it works. A lot of people tend to want to get right into the design and creative work from the get-go, but that’s not how Cultivate operates. First, they need to understand the project before they start working on it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and founder of Trinidad Construction, a general contracting company founded in 2010 that does commercial and industrial work for corporate clients throughout the Midwest. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

Our company was asked to be the headliner of a global virtual event, and we needed a professional video to tell our story. Simultaneously, we wanted to make a corporate overview video that we could send to prospective clients and people that wanted to have an understanding of our business. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cultivate was involved in the entire production process. Initially, we had a discussion about the key aspects that we wanted to include in the video. Then, we talked about the ways we could achieve our goals. Our teams then developed a strategy for the interviews we wanted to conduct. 

The Cultivate team took it from there; they did all the interviews, filming, editing, and post-production tasks. Ultimately, they produced a seven-minute video that we used for the virtual event. We also used it on our website as a background with a link. They took 15 seconds of highlights from the video and turned it into an animated background for the website. Then, if users clicked on the background, the link would take them to the full video. 

As a minority-owned business, our goal for the video was to talk about our beliefs and to inspire others. It wasn’t only to encourage people to work with us; it was also to inspire diverse people to consider a career in the construction industry. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with three people from Cultivate. Mark (Co-Founder & President) was involved throughout the process, while other teammates came in and out as needed. 

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

I was familiar with a company that worked with Cultivate over the years. When this project came up, I reached out to them and went over its details. That was how we started working with Cultivate.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent somewhere under $10,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began and finished the project in August 2021. It lasted for 3–4 weeks.

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

We received a ton of positive feedback. Our company shared the video not only on our website but also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. On top of that, the video resonated well with our target audience. People have reached out to us asking if they could show the video to high school students attending a career fair. In other words, the message of the video was so strong that it inspired young high school students to consider working in our industry.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

Cultivate had a quick turnaround time. I was in contact with Mark throughout the process, and their process was quite streamlined. Watching the video, viewers wouldn’t realize it was only done on two separate days of production. We thought the process would take longer, but it didn’t. Overall, we had a schedule that we wanted to keep, and our teams pulled it off. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Cultivate team did a great job understanding the emotional and human side of our cold industry. The team understood the human elements of the video and extracted them to get our message across through the story we were telling. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. We were truly satisfied from start to finish; we didn’t have anything to complain about. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t change their style; let Cultivate do their thing. Remember that you hire them because they’re better at the project than you are. You should have an idea of what you want; at the same time, let them do what they’re good at. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a nutrition, communications, and consulting company. I do both B2C and B2B services in the health and wellness industry with a focus on food and nutrition. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We wanted to convert our web-based app into a mobile app with cross-platform and cloud-syncing capabilities. Our goals were to improve our UX, increase our visibility, and strengthen our brand positioning. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, we scheduled a call with Cultivate and told them what we were trying to do. After that, they delivered the app we needed and shepherded it through the app stores’ review and publication processes. They also ended up doing brand refresh and UI redesign work for us.

The app was a quiz-based platform that tracked users’ results over time. Refining the app’s UI, the team built the data visualization portion of the platform. Our original version was crude and displayed limited data. To resolve that, Cultivate worked on an elegant way to let users see short- and long-term trends and communicate plenty of information in an intuitive way. 

In addition to those things, Cultivate also proposed an entirely different element to the app that I never thought of doing before. They wanted to integrate content from our other channels right into the app. That way, the app would be more usable and could draw more users into our business more deeply than the original app. They came up with this idea based on their research into our business and by listening to our goals.  

In terms of tools, Cultivate used InVision, which allowed them to build the app’s mock-up. This enabled me to go through its functions as if I was using it on a phone; it let us visualize and clarify the flow of the app. When I needed to check something or stay aware of what they were doing, I used InVision.

What is the team composition?

I primarily interfaced with Mark (Co-Founder & President) and Jenny (Senior Product Manager & UI/UX Designer). Other people worked behind the scenes, although I had limited interactions with coders and developers.

How did you come to work with Cultivate? 

Cultivate came through a referral from someone in my personal network who knew one of their principals. We also interviewed a handful of different firms that we identified either through an internet search or a personal network of referrals. 

Ultimately, Cultivate’s proposal and presentation blew all other vendors out of the water in terms of research. I was dazzled when we got on our first call; they simply knew all about us and every corner of what we were doing. They looked at our original app and told us what they thought about it even before we spent any amount of money on them. In short, we were truly impressed with the amount of research they did, so we chose them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $20,000–$25,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from April–September 2021. 

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

We haven’t had any specific success metrics in terms of referral traffic or installations, but we’ve received highly favorable responses from our existing audiences. Around 3,000 users of the original app have transitioned to the new app. The transition involved some fairly fancy footwork in terms of exporting their usage histories, so we had to make sure we didn’t lose any users in the process. Cultivate took an extraordinary amount of care in helping us through this tricky transition, making it seamless for our users. They worked hard to make it happen. 

Moreover, everybody was impressed and dazzled by the new app. The feedback was highly positive. In fact, I received several emails from users who told us how much they appreciated all the work we’ve done. On top of that, Cultivate provided support and materials that we didn’t expect; they even designed email templates, press releases, and a whole new landing page for the app. Simply put, the marketing support that they provided was truly unanticipated. I had no idea that they were going to step up and do all of those things. 

Ultimately, I felt that Cultivate was a part of our company. They thought about everything that we might need and didn’t simply stop working for us when our contract ended. 

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of project management, Cultivate was truly responsive and kept in touch with us. There was a long period where we weren’t communicating unless I wanted to talk to them. I appreciated that because I had so much confidence in them. In simple words, the team was highly independent and self-sufficient but was also responsive to my questions. On top of that, they were also highly personable, so it felt great working with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I worked with two other development companies in the past, but Cultivate provided an entirely different level of experience for us both in the development process and the end results. They were in a wholly different league of developers. 

Meanwhile, the way Cultivate saw their role in our business also stood out. The team was so much more than app developers or designers; they truly functioned as if they were a stakeholder in our business. From a marketing, customer service, and accounting perspective, the team was deeply codependent on us in the best possible way. They even gave me a marketing video that I could use for promotions; it was beautiful and professionally produced.

Overall, I wish I had another project to work with them right now. We had such an enjoyable and successful collaboration that I’d definitely hire them again.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have confidence in Cultivate’s attention to detail. Even if you don’t tell them your goals, they’ll find out. Moreover, to be fully successful in your engagement, you need to be open-minded to the ideas that they’ll bring to the table that might not be a part of your original vision. Such ideas can turn your project into something even more valuable than you anticipate. In other words, don’t keep them in a box; let them do their thing. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Mvmnt, a freight technology startup. Our tech platform connects companies with shipment needs to nearby truck drivers across the country.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We needed a new website and branding strategies to amplify our online presence.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cultivate’s initial work for us centered around brand messaging and strategies, which involved logo and business card redesign and rewriting our company's mission statement. 

Upon accomplishing all the necessary branding and design elements, Cultivate has developed our website using WordPress, focusing on its UI to implement our particular design and functionality preferences. They’ve integrated product and career pages into our platform, and they’ve taken our team’s headshot photos, which we’ve put up on our information page.

We continue to rely on Cultivate’s site maintenance services, and they’re responsible for implementing site updates when necessary.

What is the team composition?

We work with Chris (Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director), Kimberly (Brand Strategist), and Wally (Design Director).

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

I found them on Google while searching for potential local agencies to onboard for this project. I checked their website, and I was impressed with their extensive portfolio that mirrored their familiarity with our industry. Additionally, I also discovered that they worked with one of our customers in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Cultivate’s team started in May 2021.

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

Cultivate has seamlessly put together a professional-looking website that’s successfully elevated our online presence. I don’t have exact KPIs to share, but I can confirm that our investors and internal stakeholders have expressed their liking for the website, pointing out its straightforward and improved UI. We’re looking forward to achieving more milestones with the help of their team’s expertise.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

We primarily communicate via email and Zoom. Cultivate accommodates both our feedback and requests professionally, so all our change requests are processed within quick turnaround times.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cultivate’s understanding of the complexity of our industry and target market has helped them flesh out spot-on solutions, which have addressed our branding and development needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I honestly can’t think of anything in that regard — Cultivate has even exceeded our expectations with their top-notch performance.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear in communicating your goals and preferences to their team. Additionally, identify your target market and take your time in explaining the ins and outs of your industry to help them devise tailored solutions for your business.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of a family-owned investment company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We needed their team’s web development and branding expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cultivate’s initial task for us centered around website development. They built our platform from scratch and based the iterations on our brainstorming efforts and functionality and design preferences. I specifically wanted them to focus on optimizing its UX by giving our customers options for seamless payment methods. Over the course of the development process, they created five iterations to apply panel and design changes.

As for our branding pipeline, we tasked Cultivate to generate brand strategies that mirrored the mission and vision of our family business. Their team also conducted thorough research to determine which industry-specific strategies worked best to get the word out about our company. Cultivate then proceeded with designing our logo based on the color scheme they chose for us. Additionally, their team came up with our tagline, which we still use on our website to date.

Cultivate currently performs web hosting-related tasks for us. They update our site content on a quarterly basis and put up new web links for our customers when necessary.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with Cultivate’s co-founders.

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

We knew one of Cultivate’s co-founders as a family friend, so it was easy to reach out to their company when we needed their services. We were confident that they could deliver the results we needed because their company was known for the high-quality projects they took on in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $25,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off our partnership with Cultivate in December 2019, and it’s ongoing.

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

Cultivate has done a great job in understanding the right aesthetic for our business — the main reason why our company has entrusted them with our branding efforts for quite some time now. They have a natural talent for optimizing the visual aspects of a business, and that’s well-reflected in their deliverables every time.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicated with their team via email and regular in-person meetings. Cultivate generally meets our project management expectations, but there are times when some tasks take them a while to finish. However, this is understandable since any artistic work takes time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with their capacity to comprehend and implement the right branding approach for us — they understand the importance of a good logo and a striking tagline.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Cultivate can benefit from a more articulate scoping and timeline management approach. Additionally, they can be more transparent in defining the services included for every price point they negotiate.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be particular in outlining your needs to their team. If you’re hiring them for creative work, you have to consider that this aspect requires artistic liberty, so you’ll need to have clear goals from the get-go.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a communications firm that works for a number of nonprofit clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We needed help with web development for a small charter school network that serves 2,000 students in Chicago across two high schools, grade 7–12.

We needed a brand refresh to be able to share our vision in a way that was concise and made sense to other people. We also needed to update the structure of our backend system so that our website was easy to maintain and update over time.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and refreshed our logo. The team took parts of the old logo that we knew we wanted to keep and made it better. They also made it better; the team made another option to have in our back pocket for once COVID-19 is over and we’d want to do a bolder logo swap.  

They also built our new website completely from scratch on WordPress. There’s a ton of images and color that we didn’t have before. It has an easy-to-find update on our response to COVID-19, since this is a public school.

We needed to be able to have that front and center so that families would know that their kids are safe. There are also seven different sections that are pretty deep. Once you happen to learn about a school’s mission and approach and learn about our two different approaches.

They’ve also built interactive forms and ways to express interest that are tailored just for us. That way, if you’re a parent and want more information, there are steps you can take that make it very easy to express their interest.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four people, including two project managers, a backend developer, and  the president of Cultivate. 

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

I’ve worked with them on a bunch of past projects that were really well done. I knew them and trusted. I reached out to them last summer after a proposal.

The examples of their past work were all right and very visually appealing to us and felt in line with the clean and modern approach that we wanted. Their cost also seemed fair and reasonable for the work they were going to do.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $48,000 on this project. It was a bargain.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2020, and our work is ongoing with hosting.

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

They built us a masterpiece. We went to them having a pretty high need and a relatively short time frame. They offered a lot for what we pay them. We’re a young and growing organization. Because of that, we haven’t put as much attention as we normally would have into tracking the impact of this in the last year or so. 

Anecdotally, we’ve gotten so much unsolicited positive feedback on the website. We have recruited students as we’ve needed to, had new people sign up for our newsletter and an increase in online giving. We also use the site to communicate about our board meetings and announcements. 

We’ve also been able to schedule tours of the school for students to come and shadow other students for visits. It’s also been nice to have the website work for teacher recruitment. On the whole, we’ve had positive feedback about the design and how it encapsulates our brand and culture at the school. It’s useful and efficient; we’ve had no roadblocks.  

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

They did really well. We were on an expedited timeline, and they were good about telling us what we needed to do by when. I felt like we were pretty well managed. They had us in a beta website where we could go in and poke around to see what the site would be like live. Otherwise, we used a lot of Google Docs because it’s free and easy. You can also share calendars to manage schedules and editing website language. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was excited that they were a fit for this project because their work is so wonderful. It’s very easy to work with them. Cultivate is really good at delivering on the day-to-day of the work. The process was a pleasure and the end result was impressive; it was the perfect combination of things.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I When you do a website or a project like this, the decisions you make impact a cost range they’ve given you. It took me awhile to figure out what the billing was for what aspect of the project was. I had to email them this week to be extra sure that I had the final costs. I want to be clear that this was a very minor thing. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to think about the pre-work that you can do to identify words or images that describe the brand that you want to communicate as well as the most important aspects of your work. If your timeline is tight, the more thinking you do ahead, it means that you can make the most of the time that you have together. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Albie’s Foods, a frozen calzones and sandwiches manufacturer. We primarily sell our products to school food services in Michigan.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We wanted to expand our customer base, and we wanted to meet the market needs of our current customers, so we brought in Cultivate to help us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In order to increase our engagement, grow our customer base, and meet the needs of our clients, Cultivate helped us with a complete brand refresh. They took our branding and messaging to where they needed to be within the marketplace.

First, Cultivate gave us a top-to-bottom pitch with their findings to help us understand what our customers were asking for in the brand, message, and vision of a company like ours. Then, they helped us create a new logo and the branding for our individually wrapped calzones.

Additionally, Cultivate built a new website for us, and they did a complete packaging refresh for our products.

What is the team composition?

I worked with four people from Cultivate. Chris (Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director) was my initial point of contact. Kimberly (Creative Director & Brand Strategist) was my main point of contact. Wally (Design Director) was in charge of the website and all the technology pieces of the branding refresh. Finally, Kristen (Creative Director & Brand Strategist) was in charge of our photography, images, and videos.

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

I’m based in Chicago, and I was looking for someone local whom I could meet with so that they could walk me through the process. I had just come into the company as CEO a few months earlier, so a brand refresh was one of the pillars for changing this company around.

I looked around and got a few recommendations from people. I reached out to 3–4 different brand agencies and listened to their pitches. When I eventually talked to Chris, he was really engaged, and I felt that Cultivate would give us the care that we needed.

After Chris presented his pitch and met our budgetary constraints, he issued a proposal within our budget, and the quality was far better than the other companies.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $85,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked from June–November 2020.

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

Our sales cycle is really long. Unfortunately, the ultimate metric, revenue growth, won’t be noticeable until the beginning of 2022. However, we’re currently looking at customer acceptance.

As our customers are school districts and the government, they go through a bid process to add our products to their bid. Getting bids on our products is a good initial metric for us. It tells us that we’re providing our customers with something that meets their needs for the following school year.

Cultivate mainly focused on our individually wrapped calzones, creating a subbrand around them. Currently, they’re getting a very high customer acceptance, so we’re really happy about that. Additionally, the customer feedback is nothing but great.

Our new branding has reached across different age groups in schools, from elementary to high school, which is difficult to achieve. Our products are topping the cafeteria line for the kids, engaging them visually no matter their age. Kids want to come back for more, and they tell the cafeteria workers how much they enjoy our product.

In addition to that, our customers think that the new branding and website are useful tools. They no longer need to reach out to us to get nutritional facts or additional information. Now, they can go directly to our website to pull the information and imagery to send them to the parents, which is easy to do and saves them a lot of time.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

Cultivate met all of the deadlines, and the few deadlines that we had to push were because I wanted to change something from what I initially had told them. They were also very flexible, and when I had a change of heart on something, they adapted it and made sure that it was what I wanted.

Cultivate also addressed any challenges and scheduling conflicts immediately, and they were very transparent whenever we ran into bottlenecks throughout the process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cultivate strived to understand what our customers were asking for, which was what I ultimately wanted them to do so that they could act upon it. They were really attentive, and although they didn’t have a lot of experience in the school foodservice sector, they wanted to learn, listen, and understand our needs. They did a great job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If I have to nitpick their work, Cultivate outsourced some of the photography and videography, which caused a delay longer than expected. However, we ultimately met the deadline. Aside from that, there was nothing that needed improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Throw all your ideas about your potential needs to them because Cultivate is very creative, and they can connect a lot of your needs and challenges to make them click. I initially didn’t want them to work on a couple of things outside of their scope. However, once we put everything on the table and talked about it, they made it all work together.

If you need them to do anything from the marketing perspective, tell them — they’ll be able to serve you better.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a commercial real estate company. Our main project is redeveloping a 140-acre brownfield site into a 6 million square foot commercial space.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We brought them in to help us raise awareness of our work among members of the community.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we brought them in to name our company. Once we settled on a name, they helped us build our brand identity. We had in-depth discussions about what we wanted to communicate to the surrounding community and how we planned to engage with our neighbors. They helped us develop key messaging points, build a website, and create a series of informational videos about our work. These include an overarching design video as well as several brand videos that include members of the community. They’ve also helped us with social media and billboard advertising.

What is the team composition?

My main points of contact are Chris (Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director) and one other member of their team who serves as our video and design specialist. Other members of my team have also worked with other members of their team.

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

I had worked with them in a prior position I held for multiple website design and ad campaign projects. Not only did they deliver high-quality work, but they were easy to work with and helped me articulate difficult-to-understand concepts and ideas. Based on these experiences, I felt comfortable working with them again.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked together since March 2020.

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

Colleagues of mine that I respect have asked for their contact information based on the work they’ve done. To me, that speaks volumes about the quality of their work. Their work has driven a great deal of engagement for us. We’ve been able to set up appointments at our engagement center and start a dialogue with residents in the community.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

When they say they’re going to do something, they get it done. I knew this from my previous work with them and it was a major reason I wanted to bring them in for this project. They’re great with deadlines, with most of our delays coming from our side.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They work diligently to help us communicate the unique aspects of our project. Their practical creativity is really special.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. We’ve never had to have any uncomfortable performance-related conversations with them. They communicate effectively, so we never have any issues.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go into the process with an open mind. Don’t decide on anything before hearing their creative ideas for your work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of MJB Restaurant Group. We have restaurants in Miami and LA and are about to open another in Chicago.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

We hired Cultivate to help us while we open our newest location in Chicago. The hospitality business can be very one-sided, and there are only a few restaurant groups. I needed help cutting through that noise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

 I asked Cultivate to build a brand. I needed a younger, more aware crowd to help create a vibe and look for our location in Chicago.

Our first concept is a supper series, and Cultivate’s job was to develop three WordPress websites from scratch.

They took all my jumbled thoughts and created a mission statement that included all things I wanted to accomplish. Being a black- and female-owned restaurant group, we needed a partner that wasn’t afraid to approach those topics and demographics, and Cultivate really helped with that.

I also have another partner that supports my visual identity, and Cultivate went as far as to help her sort out her ideas in order to create a more cohesive logo and branding situation.

What is the team composition?

At the beginning, most of my meetings involved ownership, but then he phased himself out and my team leader took over.

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

I was working with another partner, but, unfortunately, that didn’t work out. I started Googling the best branding company in Chicago who works for restaurant. It took a few weeks to find Cultivate, but after one meeting with their co-owner, I decided that his honesty was really valuable and that’s who I wanted to work with.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $30,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2020 and the site went live in September that year.  We’re in a slow period right now, but plan to continue our partnership.

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

They created a website that is beautiful, cohesive, and smart. People who came to our first supper series mentioned how much I got from the website. They clearly understood what I was trying to convey and thought the website was beautiful. Through this project, I learned how important it is to work with a quality agency like Cultivate.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re communicative, on-time, and focused. As the owner, it’s easy to be flaky, but they always follow up and keep me in line.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their reach and ability to get it done when they say they’re going to is what stands out. Also, the cost is great. I was nervous about the price, but they’re efficient and understanding, so they’re completely worth the cost.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve done a really good job. I don’t have any complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared to engage with them a lot. Being accessible is really important.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Early Autism Services. We provide home clinic and school-based services to young children with autism, so applied behavior analysis with intensive developmental therapy.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cultivate?

Initially, we brought them in to do a brand refresh. We’d been utilizing the same logo and materials for quite a few years, so they felt stale. We enjoyed the way that Cultivate worked and engaged them again to solve a different challenge.

We wanted to develop an internal app for our clinical staff to utilize during their sessions. Our technicians and clinicians had difficulty taking data during their sessions. They take 200–300 data points each session. Previously, our technicians and clinicians used pencil and paper while trying to work with a young child. We also can’t bill for set up, so it was an inefficiency issue too.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cultivate refreshed our logo and clarified our messaging. They interviewed key staff to get to the heart of what we wanted to communicate publicly. Their team put together messaging and materials aimed at pediatricians and diagnosticians to explain who we are and what we do in a clear and concise way. They looked at our website and made sure that anything public-facing matched.

We asked them to develop an app for us so that with just a push of a button, the clinician can go about their work and aggregate data. We asked them to take our process and map that onto the iPad. They took a clear look at our clinical process and created a 200–250-page binder with all of our programs and mapped our process. There are a clinical component and an administrative component of the platform. They delivered the first eight versions of the clinical iOS app, but we have a roadmap for the next year to continue to improve and add functionality to the product.

What is the team composition?

There were two people leading the project and other folks in the backend who helped build products. Jenny (Project Manager & UI/UX & Developer) is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Cultivate?

They came highly recommended. It came down to them and another firm. We were impressed with both companies, but the personal referral put Cultivate over the top.

How much have you invested with them?

Between the two projects, we’ve spent about $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We initially engaged Cultivate in 2018 and the engagement’s ongoing.

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

What they delivered to us is so much cleaner than anything else in the market. We’ve gained about 7% efficiency from the app on every single session that we run. The impact of that financially has been incredible. It was obviously a big spend upfront, but it’s already paid for itself.

Our marketing director’s happy with the messaging and branding that Cultivate created. Their tweaks made everything feel fresher and more relevant. Our team has been impressed with the dedication that the Cultivate team showed to understanding who we are and what we wanted to accomplish.

How did Cultivate perform from a project management standpoint?

They created timelines for the projects. Their team is easy to reach by phone or e-mail. With the initial project launches, we had bugs or glitches that made clinicians in the field frantic. As soon as Cultivate heard about an issue, they’d get on the issue and fixed it fast. They’re responsive and personable, so it’s easy to work closely with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They took the time to understand the project from a clinician’s perspective. Their team made sure that the app felt immediately natural to an end user.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re not a huge operation. On the first day, we had 450 people utilizing the platform. Users were supposed to push suggestions right over to the Cultivate team. When there were suddenly people pushing through comments or fixes, they got overwhelmed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get Jenny on your team. She’s wonderful. It’s always good to interview a few firms. Cultivate’s a great firm to work with if you’re looking for a personal, close experience.