Deca

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-Founder of MIM Prep

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We help students along their journey to selective education programs around the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Deca to accomplish?

• Create a clean UX/UI for the platfrom
• Develop the platform
• Gather user info with interviews
• Design brand identity for SmartPrep.io

SOLUTION

How did you find Deca?

Referral

Why did you select Deca over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Deca were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Our goal in our project with Deca was to create a preparation platform for test takers (mainly for GMAT test takers applying to Masters & MBA's around the world). It had to stand out from the competition by its innovative algorithm to boost learning & progression speed, social gamified learning features, and an overall clean and intuitive easy-to-use interface. Here is an overview of the deliverables:

• Scope the idea: figuring out how the platform would stand out, its main novel features, how we would optimize students's progression curves in their test preparation, and the overall development plan of Smart Prep.
• Wireframing of the idea: we then worked together to find what sense of design we wanted to incorporate—the logo, the color tones, the fonts, the various collectibles, and overall design elements present on the platform to make users feel at ease.
• Algorithm Design + Custom AI Learning: A crucial part of the platform was developing an algorithm capable of simulating the real GMAT algorithm, as well as figuring out a truly adaptative learning algorithm that would mold to each student's strengths and weaknesses. This is a key point of the platform and is really what makes us stand out from the competition, retaining users throughout the length of their preparation.
• Design of the platform: this included building out the different interfaces on the platform, including a skills section, leaderboard, XP levels, progression bars, support systems, and much more to make it all functional.
• Implementation of the platform: this consisted in making sure all features and elements were functional, that the questions were indeed adaptative, and the different parts of the platform worked well.
• Additional features: as feedback rolled in, we added new features such as custom lessons, custom tests, and new features to augment the social gamified experience unique to our platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Some of the noticeable measurable outcomes included :

• Rapid delivery of the platform over the summer (2 months) as projected
• Well functionning custom AI Algorithm with no issues
• Over 500 users upon launch
• First round of very positive feedback from 15+ users

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• The project management was top-tier. 
• The reponse time was always quick, with frequent updates during the week, tracking of progress centralized on Notion, which ultimately led to an on-time and rapid delivery of the platform. 
• Any feedback or suggestions were rapidly implemented along the way.

What was your primary form of communication with Deca?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I was really impressed by Deca's ability to think ahead independently without us having to stress about results. We knew Deca understood our vision and was comitted to building a great platform, and not on rapidly shipping out a project for comission. This led to out of the box thinking, managing problems and generating solutions for things we would never have foreseen. 

I was also impressed by Deca's ability to consistenlty keep the schedule despite roadblocks, and always generate creative solutions to ensure Smart Prep was delivered on time, above expectations.

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

Not much to add here, was quite impressed along the entire journey. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-founder & CEO of Savvy

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Investment sotware

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Deca to accomplish?

• Low code development of an investment simulation web app for our banking clients.

SOLUTION

How did you find Deca?

Referral

Why did you select Deca over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Deca were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

User login/signup flow:
- Allows users to login and sign up to the portal with email and password.
- Language selection.
Basic user account edit / password reset:
- Allows users to edit their profile information.
- Allows users to switch their preferred language.
- In case the user forgets their password - Sends a password reset email and redirects
to the password reset page.
Sustainability onboarding experience:
- 8 Questions to determine the sustainability profile of every new user.
- Connected to a pre-built backend via API.
- Once the user has completed the questionnaire, he is matched with one of four
profiles/portfolios but can select his preferred profile if he wishes to switch.
- The user can select the investment amount for the simulation.
Portfolio tracking page:
- Shows total amount invested, total return, return in last 30 days.
- A chart of portfolio performance from the past 3m / 6m / 1y.
- Information on current user sustainability profile.
- Widget gallery of the calculated sustainability impact of the user's current investment
in reduced CO2 emissions, renewable energy generation - etc… (as in the figma file).
- Brief portfolio information.
- Portfolio composition widget, types of organisations invested, exclusions from the
portfolio.
- Widgets of the focus goals (from the 17 goals) that this portfolio encourages.
Animated.
- A scrollable table of fonds in the profolio (with price variation) and possibility to filter
according to the 17 goals
- An animated widget that breaks down regions and sectors of this portfolio in % - with
tooltips.
- Relevant article recommendation.
Portfolio projection page:
- A projection of performance of this portfolio for the next 20 years.
- A projection of impact of this portfolio on the planet.
Admin Portal:
- Track the name and email of each user.
- Customise the privacy policy and terms and conditions pages of the application.
- Check the amount of total users, signups in the past 7 days, amount of active users
in the past 7 days.
- Edit the welcome / marketing emails (if integrated - see below)
All pages built for this project will be built responsively for web and mobile.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The product is fully functional and can be integrated with our clients existing software. We have strong integration of our Machine Learning modules and the logic is working. 

The app is fully responsive and to a high standard that can be deployed to clients.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Everything was delivered on time and with documentation either as requested or before requested. 

Mark was extremely responsive and efficient. 

What was your primary form of communication with Deca?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The efficiency. 

Mark was able to ask key questions early on to ensure that the work was carried out to a high standard. Aspects that were unforeseen to us were raised early on to ensure that the product was delivered in the way we wanted. 

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

None, we were really happy with the result as well as the way of working. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO, Co-Founder of Tactic Academy

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Marketplace for educational products (tutoring, courses, resources ...) for students of highly demanding degrees (STEM, medicine..) 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Deca to accomplish?

• Build a web app (desktop and mobile) to allow us to grow and scale
• Create a design style for the company
• Help with initial strategy

SOLUTION

How did you find Deca?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select Deca over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned
• Fast execution

How many teammates from Deca were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Creating a web platoform (educational markteplace) to connect creators (tutors, course creators) with students on Bubble for desktop and mobile. 

• creating the design and user flow 
• implementing in bubble 
• create the database for the project
• creating the payment system for the platform using stripe

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Creating the platform fast
• Automating the payment process

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Delivered faster than promised (3 weeks for the main part instead of one month) 
• Responded always under 30 min
• Extremely fast, responsive and friendly 

What was your primary form of communication with Deca?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?
We were impressed with their fast execution, high-quality work, attention to detail, and high-level thinking.

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

The interaction was almost ideal for us