Darwin

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're an employee benefits technology and consulting company on a mission to provide everyone with access to better benefits. Our company's apps, marketplace, and services are designed to help employees discover, buy and use the benefits they need in order to live a healthier life. As a freelance graphic designer working for the company, I bring the brand to life across teams and mediums, designing their marketing & sales materials.

For what projects/services did your company hire Darwin, and what were your goals?

The company was at a point in time of having new strategic messaging and benefits solutions, and was looking to redesign & develop a new website for their refreshed brand. Given the size of the company at the time, the goal was to bring the website onto an easy-to-use platform, while still having custom features on the site. Darwin was hired for front & back end development for the site, as well as charged with providing the Bennie team with an easy-to-use back end experience for updates going forward.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I had worked with Darwin previously, and have always been pleased with the partnership, work ethic and outcomes from the team. For initial contact with Darwin, we had found them online and vetted the team against goals for a web development project. The team came back with options aligned to the goal of the project, and a well-laid out plan for each.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

For the initial website development, we sat down with Darwin to outline the goal & scope of the site by hopping on a general kickoff call. Our goal was to develop the new website on Squarespace given the ease of use, however we also wanted custom functionality/features outside of the standard templates. After outlining the overall objectives and scope, Darwin was able to provide an estimate to our team with a timeline & plan for development completion.

Once agreed upon, we provided the team with designs and direction, and Darwin's team was able to take those and build the entire site on Squarespace for us in Dev Mode, with the custom functionality we were looking for. We are able to update the website easily from our end, but also have the benefit of custom features. We continue to use Darwin on an ongoing basis for development needs! The team is amazing with helping build out any custom features/functionality/integrations within the site- we are constantly linking Hubspot forms, and updating widgets that link to other platforms used by Bennie (ie Workable).

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We communicate primarily with the Account Director, however we also have emailed and been on calls with the COO and lead engineers on the team- also very accessible!

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Darwin helped us elevate our overall brand presence! They were able to bring our company's mission and strategic offerings to life for us, and we've had clients and prospects alike tell us how easy it is to understand what we do based on visiting our site.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Darwin has a well-thought out system for project management and communication. With our Account Director as the main point of contact, we have direct access to the Darwin team. Our Account Director is always incredibly responsive, and ensures we get updates about the project weekly / as needed. With his knowledge, he's able to translate any of our requests to his team, and communicates effectively between the two. Specifically for the website development we've used, Darwin provides us with a UAT tracker that makes it really easy to provide & log any feedback, as well as check the status of updates.

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

So very responsive! We can always count on Darwin to guide us in the right direction if/when we ever have a complicated set of requirements for web development. Given we use them on an ongoing basis, the team is always incredibly responsive and works within any parameter we throw at them. We're grateful to have a partner who feels like an extension of our team.

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

On a rare occasion I found that on the first build of a new webpage, a design element didn't match the sizing from the art files 1:1. Once logged in the UAT doc it was fixed ASAP by the team!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a designer at Namely, an HR SaaS company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Darwin, and what were your goals?

We hired Darwin to develop and maintain our marketing website, namely.com, as we didn't have internal resources for this work. Over the years, Darwin has been willing and happy to assist us with various tasks related to web development, SEO, and overall optimization of our website.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I wasn't at Namely when we selected Darwin, but my understanding was that we were looking for an external development service that would handle the building of our website on the front and back end. Darwin seemed like the best option for us because they came with everything, an account manager, a team of front end developers, a team of back end developers, and an overall expertise in optimal web development.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Darwin was involved in projects from the very beginning. We were able to lean on them to tell us if there were design limitations and met with them weekly to discuss tasks and goals. We used 2 different CMSs, Hubspot and Contentful, and Darwin was able to build out pages on both and frequently troubleshooted any issues that arose.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked closely with an account manager who I met with on a weekly basis and occasionally, the CTO joined our calls if there were more technical constraints to be discussed.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The design updates that Darwin helped us to build and execute on for our website resulted in a 20% increase in traffic. Darwin also built several new landing page templates for us that allowed to more easily build and customize new landing pages for our various product verticals.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had weekly meetings with our account manager and used a Trello board to stay organized with ongoing tasks and projects. Darwin always met any deadlines we had, even if it was a tight turnaround. They did a great job of being accommodating and did their best to always support our team.

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

I was most impressed by Darwin's commitment to meeting our needs. Our account manager was always available to discuss any urgent requests and frequently brought bugs and site issues to our attention. I don't think we ever had a request or project that Darwin said no to or pushed back on in any way. They did everything in their power to meet our deadlines and offered alternatives when they believed there was a a better way to handle a given task.

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

There were times where we found minor bugs on the site, but Darwin was quick to address them. We never faced any large issues that were caused by engineering issues on the Darwin side.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a sales planning manager at an auto retailer. I oversee all of the sales production and planning activities.

What challenge were you trying to address with Darwin?

The opportunity involved data management and business analytics. We needed a vendor that could support the business in a role that combined IT and business analytics. We wanted a partner that could dive into business analytics and turn around solutions to problems on a technical level.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have two teammates from Darwin who work with us on-site on a full-time basis. They sit with us as part of the team, supporting us with all the technical issues. Their team’s with us day-to-day, so we don’t have to describe our ideas technically. We just describe the direction using normal business terms. They fill in the rest for what needs to happen on a technical level.

We tell Darwin when there’s an issue, and then their team handles it. When we have ideas for how to forecast or improve results from our IT databases, we turn to them. We also ask them to implement enhancements such as additional data fields.

What is the team composition?

We work with two people from their team and communicate with the company’s president.

How did you come to work with Darwin?

I was introduced to Darwin through my predecessor. He left the company, and I took on his role. During the transition, he introduced me to Darwin. I picked up the relationship from there.

How much have you invested with them?

Since we started working together, we’ve spent probably $1.5 million on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Darwin around July 2016, and we’re still working together.

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

They help us solve data challenges. Before engaging them, projects took years to complete. We now turn to Darwin, and they finish complex projects in a matter of months. If we need a quick deliverable or have an idea, they’re able to solve a lot of the pain points. Darwin’s our go-to team.

We rely on them. On the business side, we had highly technical people on the team that held the keys to certain processes, making them irreplaceable. When people moved to other opportunities, they left big holes in the business. Darwin has stepped into those roles, either remaking the processes or figuring out how to manage them.

How did Darwin perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly calls with their team. For day-to-day communication, we use either Skype or Microsoft Teams. Otherwise, we use email. The president of Darwin contributes and generates a lot of ideas for improvements.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I used to work with a different provider, and it was an absolutely horrible experience. Their team was robotic, and I had to ask for extremely specific deliverables. Most of the time, they sent deliverables that didn’t work. Their team only saw the project from a technical perspective. Darwin’s different. They understand the ultimate results for the business and checks them on their worn. By the time I receive a deliverable from them, it’s absolutely accurate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Darwin does great work for us. To take them to the next level, their team could be more proactive. For example, they could introduce us to innovative tools and technologies. I gave their president that feedback too.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for a vendor to solve your technical or analytical needs, Darwin’s the best vendor for it. They put in the effort to understand the business and then figure out the technical pieces.

Please describe your company and your position there.

At the time, I worked in the company’s operations; I oversaw the web development and design teams, as well as any contractors hired to do major development and design projects on our web properties.

For what projects/services did your company hire Darwin, and what were your goals?

Previous to hiring Darwin, we had worked with another web development and design studio who’d advised the use of (what turned out to be) a little-known publishing platform.

This decision became an issue after we launched our new site, because as time went on, we realized that not many web developers (both back- and front-end) were familiar with this platform, so long-term our in-house staff were having issues doing work on our sites after launch.

We hired Darwin to accomplish the Herculean task of redesigning our current properties onto WordPress, and then to also migrate a huge amount of existing content into the new sites.

Darwin was also extremely helpful in implementing security measures, moving us to AWS, and maintaining a wonderful vendor relationship that included helping to solve “emergency” website issues that were beyond the scope of a mid-level web dev and required web engineers.

How did you select Darwin and what were the deciding factors?

I had known of Darwin’s work for at least 5 years previous to the project mentioned here, and had worked with them as a vendor via previous employers.

Even so, we did send them an RFP, and they responded with so much professionalism and thought into not only our media properties, but also who we were and how to assist long-term business operational needs, that it was no question that Darwin was the partner we wanted.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a kick-off meeting to make sure we were all on the same page regarding the project; we set goals, deliverable dates, etc. Darwin introduced their project lead and POC for our team, and they presented shared documents so that we, as their customer, could see where Darwin’s team was on task lists per media property and more of the nitty-gritty details on their team’s work.

We had weekly check-ins with the Darwin team, though of course some deliverables needed our team’s input and we’d speak more on a daily basis during some weeks of development and design. We would give feedback pretty much live, i.e. as their work progressed, as this project’s timeline was very short for this type, and scope, of work.

As the development and design of our sites was completed, Darwin would hand the “keys to the kingdom” to our in-house developers and make sure they were comfortable with what had been created.

As for the technologies used on this project — Darwin custom-built a tool to migrate our sites from the little-known platform to WordPress, after custom-building WordPress to match the design of our current sites.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager was our main point-of-contact during our projects with Darwin, and at least 3 full-stack developers and web engineers (with design knowledge), were working behind-the-scenes.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our stress levels surrounding our media sites went significantly down since our project hand-off with Darwin.

Our site traffic was actually measurable, clickthroughs were up, we loved the infinite scroll functionality they developed for us, and the sites were incredibly quick to load on every device and browser (even though they were media rich/heavy).

The platform’s backend was developed to be user-friendly for journalists and their editors to upload content. We couldn’t have been happier.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We had at least once-weekly meetings with Darwin’s project manager, who would then communicate to the rest of their team. For daily communication, we’d use Slack and Google Sheets, as well as GitHub for assets that needed floating between our teams.

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

Darwin’s team is friendly and approachable, and do well working/communicating with people who may not be as knowledgeable in the web development field as they are. Darwin clearly thinks “big picture,” making sure that their solutions line up with your business’ needs.

Plus, their final products are easy-to-use and the Darwin team makes sure that their customers not only understand how to use them, but are actually *comfortable* — a rare quality.

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

Nothing very specific that I can think of regarding improvement — there were occasionally some minor human errors, but as soon as Darwin or one of our team members noticed them, any errors would be remedied quickly.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Evault was a subsidiary of Seagate Technology and I came into the role of Manager for the web platform and experience as part of the marketing organization. My role was to build/maintain, expand, and deliver brand awareness and leads for the marketing team via the global corporate web properties.

For what projects/services did your company hire Darwin, and what were your goals?

We hire Darwin to help the corporate website for the company's new branding, and global expansion to many language sites. Once completed, additional functionality was needed in order to help drive marketing leads via personalization and user experience.

How did you select Darwin and what were the deciding factors?

Overall, Darwin was selected because of their teams ability to help scale the project technically and rapidly while staying within our budget. The team at Darwin helped translate our marketing goals into a comprehensive set of technical requirements. Through their efforts, we were able to add personalization for our global audiences which later enable us to initiate our ABM strategy.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

During my tenure in the role, there were several goals that needed to be accomplished. At the foundational level, we needed a web infrastructure that is robust, easy to work with, and cost effective.

We selected WordPress as it was cost effective and a smaller learning curve for the rest of the marketing team. However, we also need specific functionalities and provide some integration points to many of the platforms within our marketing tech stack.

Due to the many language sites, we needed a way to easily accommodate our translation and localization process. Lastly, we need to provide a personalized experience for our audiences in each language sites, which enable us to take one step further and activate our ABM strategy.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Interaction was with key members of the Darwin team including their brilliant technologist and various project managers for each separate projects. Additionally, we had other members of the Darwin team to support with technical maintenance on a day-to-day basis.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

My impressive working with Darwin was a positive experience. We were able to achieve all the goals that I set out to accomplish when I started my role. Through our collaborative efforts, we did it all in a very fast paced and often ever evolving environment while staying within tight deadlines and budgets.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

As there were many global sites to maintain, we needed a sun never sets support. From an day-to-day operative perspective, Darwin was able to provide that service because of their unique business model and helped the team avoid severe backlogs. On more complex projects, we leverage Trello to manage and communicate key milestones.

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

What I found most impressive part of the company is their truthfulness, responsiveness, and creative solutions. I valued their matter of approach when it came to accessing the various projects and allowed me to easily manage my department budget.

I never had to wonder if I put myself in a situation where I will not be able to find additional budget in order to finish a projects because we were tether at every step thus avoiding surprises, and when a change is needed they were able to help find creative solutions to maintain timelines while meeting requirements.

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

In my experience with the role and working with Darwin, I found that in a chaotic environment with competing priorities, Darwin has the ability to help solve them all.

As much as they are willing to help, we found ourselves being too helpful and adding workload burden that was not necessary. Setting communicating a priority and expectation classification up front would have been an easy resolution.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior manager of growth marketing at a commercial real estate software company. We license software to commercial real estate landlords and brokers to help them facilitate their day-to-day. Our solution is similar to Salesforce but for a different market.

What challenge were you trying to address with Darwin?

We hired Darwin a number of years ago to develop our marketing website.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Darwin built our WordPress site to make sure that it looked attractive and functioned correctly. They used HTML and CSS on the frontend, though I’m not sure about the backend. Currently, they’re creating HTML emails for us to run in Marketo. The team has also set up our analytics and reporting in Marketo and Google Cloud Manager.

What is the team composition? 

Jeff (VP of Production) is my main point of contact for the day-to-day work, and Aleksandr (CTO) comes in for the more technical questions.

How did you come to work with Darwin?

The decision to work with them predates me. I believe someone had referred us to them.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started to work with them in March 2020, and we’re still working together.

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

Overall, I’m happy with the level of quality that Darwin has performed for us. Their team is quick, flexible, and great to work with. I’ve never had a problem with getting a fast turnaround, either.

How did Darwin perform from a project management standpoint?

I enjoy working with Jeff since he’s always willing to hop on a call to talk through an issue. Sometimes, it takes a few rounds of feedback, but that’s natural with any type of development. 

We also have a shared Slack channel to exchange thoughts and updates on projects as well as a weekly video conference. That’s when we go through any outstanding tasks and plan for the following week. They track tasks through Asana and use an internal Trello board.

In terms of meeting deadlines, they’re great at keeping to schedule. If anything is looking tight, they’ll send an update, and we understand when things have to be pushed out as a project becomes more complex. They’re also flexible enough to accommodate anything urgent that I send through.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like how flexible they are. Even though we throw a lot on their plate, they’re always willing to assist us. Our project manager has also been great to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any criticisms.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Similar to other development projects, you have to be clear about what you’re trying to do so that they have the full scope of things. If all the specifications aren’t there and there’s some wiggle room, it can take a bit longer to get things done. 

The other thing is to make sure you have a good relationship with your point of contact. Their developers are in Belarus, but having Jeff has helped us coordinate successfully.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Aircraft Services Group. We manage a fleet of private jets, which we manage for owners of those jets. We also, on behalf of those owners, charter them to anyone who needs to get somewhere quickly and safely.

What challenge were you trying to address with Darwin?

They’re our primary engineers for our website, which is a funnel for our business. We do transactions through it, and people land on our site to book a flight.

We enlisted their services to maintain the site, make updates to it, and make sure we’re always running secure technologies.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The website was initially built by another party. They were able to add new features and work within the design to better meet our needs for the frontend.

Along with developing our WordPress website with AWS, Darwin built a custom ticketing solution with one of our sister companies. The system allows us to offer seats and helps passengers checking in and out when they arrive for their journey.

What is the team composition?

We have two main points of contact and 3–4 engineers.

How did you come to work with Darwin?

I’ve known about them for a very long time in our area. Darwin has a reputation for working on complex and challenging jobs.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $100,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2016.

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

Darwin works so efficiently that they end up doing additional work for us. They’re always exceeding expectations. I now call them for any high-level, professional advice. I tell them my challenge and ask their opinion. They’re always there as an extra gut check for me.

As for the site, SEO ranking and load times improved after they optimized everything. We’ve seen an uptick in leads translating to the website since working with them.

How did Darwin perform from a project management standpoint?

I couldn’t be more pleased. When working with vendors, I’m usually very involved. Darwin is so on top of things that I don’t have to do anything myself. I just wait for them to tell me when things are done or if they need something from us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team guiding us through the ticketing system was huge. When I understood everything they were saying, they far exceed my knowledge base. While we’re able to talk shop with them, they’re also able to speak in simpler terms, making the process easier for non-technical people.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very calculated when it comes to budgets and hours. If they come back to you with a budget that doesn’t make sense for you, cut things out of scope. You need to give their team the breathing room and resources to perform. They’re the A team, and you don’t want to give the A team a C budget.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder and CEO of an online virtual dating company that brings daters a new and exciting way to discover each other through the curation of virtual events/experiences made possible by the partnerships we create and cultivate with third party vendors.

For what projects/services did your company hire Darwin, and what were your goals?

We engaged Darwin to develop a unique marketing website that would provide potential users (both daters and vendors) an experience that would enticed both to sign up for our services.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed multiple website developers and shortlisted the potential candidates to a few. Darwin proved that they were the partners we needed to produce the product we were looking for. They showed a mutual interest and desire to collaborate to produce an award winning website. Throughout our diligence process they showed an understanding of our vision and were able to communicate back suggestions that enhanced the experience for the visitor.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The scope of the work involved design and development phases that began with a discovery phase in which we discussed the brand, the vision, the user personas, and the overall experience. Darwin iterated on design proposals based on our feedback and held multiple live sessions to discuss changes. Once designs were finalized, development ensued and once complete we were able to participate in user acceptance testing. Throughout the testing we were able to propose changes and alternatives to which the Darwin team was more than accommodating, even suggesting other solutions given certain technical limitations.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We primarily worked with the COO who managed the project and the rest of the Darwin team to bring our vision to fruition.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

It's said that all is well that ends well, and while that remains true, Darwin provided a pleasant and collaborative experience throughout making the process that much easier and enjoyable.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Throughout the process we had a number of live feedback sessions with the COO who communicated our feedback to the design and development teams.

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

From the very beginning, Darwin impressed us with their ability to translate our thoughts and vision into reality. Their shared vision made subsequent designs that much easier to iterate off of.

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

We went with our intuition in selecting Darwin for the project and they delivered...we would and will seek them out for future work.

Please describe your company and your position there.

MES, Inc. is a full-service provider of global manufacturing and supply chain management services. The scope of our business is, literally, worldwide. We help our customers find the right overseas manufacturing sources for their products, working with highly qualified, ISO-certified suppliers from India, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Mexico. I handle our marketing strategies, planning, and execution.

For what projects/services did your company hire Darwin?

We hired Darwin to redesign one of our regional offices in Europe, which hasn't been updated in over 8 years. It needed a creative enhancement, improve UI/UX, content, SEO, etc.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed several web design companies, but Darwin proved to meet our wants and needs. A very talented, and personable team that gave us an outstanding product.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Darwin first sat us down to go through the discovery phase. they learned about business, competition, needs, expectations, etc. After the discovery phase, they came back with storyboards to ensure alignment. After aligning on the layout, they went to work and provided a very good finished product!!

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with several teams, including design, developers, sales, and marketing.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Darwin was extremely detailed with their work, which made it easy for us to follow along and keep track of changes. They were quick with their changes, timely with their responses, provided great insights on how to continue to enhance our overall look and feel.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our project manager was extremely timely with his responses and very easy to work with. He made the entire process smooth and seamless.

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

I liked their experience with design, and backend web development. They took several of our ideas and came up with a fantastic solution that was extremely well received. We didn't micromanage the process, their team was all over the details and execution.

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

The quality of their work was outstanding, and we were extremely impressed with their outputs. I would recommend them to anyone looking for a total site redesign.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I manage Business Development efforts and assist marketing in their objectives.

For what projects/services did your company hire Darwin, and what were your goals?

Our website was extremely basic and was built when we were first founded only 4 years ago. Storie and Severson has grown tremendously and we needed an updated website that was customized to how we wanted to be portrayed, differentiating ourselves from others while presenting the information our clients and potential clients think is important.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

They have been very helpful throughout the entire project, giving guidance and being open to our input the entire way. There was a lot of back and forth since general contractors online story telling is unique.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had many many meetings due to all of the redesign. The website was being built from the ground up and needed a ton of attention to content development which we needed to provide on our side.

Being the first website I've worked on, there was definitely a learning curve on key deliverables and what were the next steps in the website development.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had a Senior Accounts Director and COO for the initial kick off meetings and ultimately communicating with only the COO.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

No measurable outcomes yet, however I am very excited about how our website looks and the unique features the Darwin team were able to implement. Our website will stand out from the pack.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The Darwin team ran the show, setting meetings and deliverables with me. It was very nice to have direct and continuous interaction with an executive who was attentive.

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

Darwin was able to take on a project they were not familiar with and deliver a website that looks great. HUGE upgrade from our previous website.

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

I think there was some miscommunication or expectations in some parts of the website development. The modules were not created based on what I requested which led to confusion on my end.