dops.agency partner

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a start-up global Financial Services Company in the Fintech space. I am the Chief Executive Officer ("CEO").

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire dops.digital high-end visual partner?

We engaged DOPS to guide and provide our company with an overall digital marketing campaign inclusive of our web-site, corporate logo/brand identity and global marketing strategy.

SOLUTION

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

The management team of Quaestor which included our CEO, CTO, COO, Head of Online Customer Relations, etc. interviewed this vendor and several other providers before choosing DOPS. The deciding factors included but were not limited to:

• The DOPS Team. They were incredibly knowledgeable in the digital marketing space including their comprehensive competitor analysis
• Marketing Strategy. DOPS provided us with a well designed plan to go "go to market", complete with a time-line and they have not deviated from it.
• Cost Effective. DOPS worked within our budget constraints, while providing excellent service

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

Yes DOPS provided our Company with a well designed "go to market" strategy with a detailed timeline that included all milestones.

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

The Owner of the DOPS, one Senior Project Manager and one Junior Project Manager were our appointed "point people". Additionally, DOPS had numerous staff members that supported these individuals throughout our engagement

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of the efficiency of our relationship with DOPS, we have significantly reduced our cash burn as they fast tracked our go to market strategy.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very Effective. We had weekly strategy meetings and ad-hoc meetings when they were needed.

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

Their ability to provide us with their unique analysis/ knowledge of the digital marketing space as well as their leadership throughout our engagement.

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

Not in my opinion. Their team delivered on everything they agreed to. They've gone above and beyond throughout our engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the sole owner of a coaching, consulting, and development organization called Scinart. I focus on individuals right now and will expand to teams down the line. The coaching and development services can address both personal and professional fields.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital high-end visual partner?

The bottom-line answer is that I was in the beginning stages of my journey and needed to develop my brand identity. I’d developed an initial logo myself but wanted dops.digital to tell me if I was headed in the right direction and crafting the right story.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, we reviewed logo types, as they are the core of a business’ identity, and then dops.digital reviewed my competition. They also helped me design all the advertising I use, including on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Another deliverable was a custom feedback system that I can send out to my own clients. The system allows them to track and recognize achievement for both individuals and teams.

We didn’t get into web development for two reasons: my limited budget and my desire to put things into motion quickly. When I do get funding approval, I’ll return to dops.digital for a website.

What is the team composition?

There were three people in total. I don’t know their structure fully, but Andrew (CEO & Co-Founder), whom I worked with directly, was the lead developer and manager. He was with me all the way through the project. We also worked with a design liaison. There

How did you come to work with dops.digital high-end visual partner?

It’s a very interesting story. Obviously, we were trying to find creative people who understood my vision. I know how to think of ideas, but I struggle with actioning and designing them — how to make a real experience. My sister-in-law recommended a website where businesses can post their work, and I liked the projects that dops.digital had created.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $5,000–$15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off the first meeting in early summer 2021. The project ran 3–4 months total, ending around October 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m never sure if anyone sees what I’m seeing in my head, so the biggest gift dops.digital gave me was designing exactly what I envisioned. I’m not sure how they did it with their design process, but they did. Quality of work can be hard to measure, as it’s subjective, so I always rely more on deliverables produced. dops-digital was clear and itemized about what they were going to build, and they delivered every task. Their clarity made everything easy.

Aside from actual deliveries, what mattered most to me was that they were listening to me and would execute my vision, not what they wanted to see. Worked with what I wanted to see. Lots of open communication.

How did dops.digital high-end visual partner perform from a project management standpoint?

I praise them for being flexible in working with my preferred process. I’m a consultant, so process is important to me. Scheduling with them — through Google — was very easy. Shorter communication happened over email, or if we wanted a more personal touch. I appreciated not having to go through applications to talk to them. dops.digital also accommodated our different time zones well.

Their responsiveness was the biggest advantage. They were always there if I needed them, had an idea, or required a meeting. I know I’m guilty of making the project harder than it needed to be at times, but dops.digital worked well and fast. In fact, I was surprised at how fast they moved with my work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ll be repeating myself a bit here, but dops.digital’s ability to understand what I was saying and translate that information into a product blew me away. There were moments where I told them I wasn’t we were headed in the right direction, and they went away to completely change what they were doing. They pulled everything straight from their head.

Additionally, they were highly motivated and had a nice personal touch. Rather than going in blindly, they asked me questions and engaged with me to discover what they needed to know.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes we had connection difficulties with computers, and video call quality wasn’t great at times. We had to switch back and forth to different platforms a couple of times, which was annoying when I was trying to get in and out of a meeting quickly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very open with them, think about what you want, and then say it. This is the only way it’ll work. dops.digital works well when you tell them what you want; relationships with any vendor have the potential to go bad they have to develop ideas on their own. Therefore, be invested in your project with dops.digital.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of growth at Cliphire. We’re a personal employment branding website where job seekers can search for jobs. When looking for a job, they can post their resume, general information, and an introduction video to stand out to recruiters.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital laboratory?

We contacted dops.digital laboratory to provide the UX/UI design for our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our workflow was very straightforward. We would have a meeting with them each Monday to discuss our goals and needs. From there, they would discuss what could be accomplished and set up timelines. In the following meeting, they would present to us the progress they made during the week.

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with a gentleman named Anton (Project Manager) and a team of developers.

How did you come to work with dops.digital laboratory?

They were a referral, and our CEO set everything up with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $100,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–June 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have specific metrics yet since the backend part of our website hasn’t been launched. However, working with them was great. They were fluent in English, so communication was excellent. They understood and deployed everything we were looking for perfectly. On top of that, they were open to our recommendations and ideas, which further improved the collaboration.

How did dops.digital laboratory perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication was great. We didn’t use any specific tools on our end, but I know for a fact that they did. We’re not highly technical, but they always kept us informed on the timelines and how things were progressing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication and flexibility were most impressive. Adding on to that, their open-mindedness was something that helped us achieve our goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re extremely professional at what they do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend pushing for more frequent meetings. Instead of having a meeting each week, try to have one every other day. Lots of things change over the week, and having more meetings will benefit you greatly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of Elogic Commerce, as an e-commerce development agency we provide technical support for eshops on Magento, Shopware, BigCommerce, and Shopify.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire dops.digital laboratory?

For the creation of our own WP corporate website, style guides and layouts we decided to involve a design agency from Ukraine.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to bring a brand new visual look to our website, which will transmit our values to our clients: transparency, synergy, and mutual growth based on our ecommerce experience.

SOLUTION

How did you select dops.digital laboratory?

We conducted a survey with influencers and most of them recommended us as a rising star who specializes in creativity and branding.

Describe the project in detail.

We started from a few calls with our marketing team, Dops checked our Google Analytics and marked the pain and growth points. Then they prepared a project plan with 5 iterations:

• discovery phase
• main concept
• all layouts
• mobile designs, branding stages
• integration.

What was the team composition?

From our side were 2 product owners and a marketing team. Dops involved their lead designer (art director probably) and project manager who coordinates everything.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The first impression of the concept was: Wow! So we understand that we're on the right way. In the end, our corporate website and company, in general, brings to the new level by everyone's opinion.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As a service provider, I know what are the challenges when you're working with non-fixed scope. But we definitely found a connection and as I remember we got the result on time (except one week when the designer was sick).

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Dops Digital is really good at custom animations, absolutely the highest level.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing concrete.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

AgilePoint is a 15-year-old technology company. Our business product is a platform as a service for low-code and no-code application development. It’s basically a Lego of applications for business.

I’m the chief business development officer at AgilePoint, responsible for marketing, outside messaging, and coordinating the sales aspects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital laboratory?

I joined the company in March 2020, and the mission was to take the 15-year-old company and revitalize it—to change its branding and outside image to something more modern, because it looked outdated. We came up with a plan, and we needed to partner with a company that had that outside-of-the-box thinking for rebranding and creating a website presence.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Part of the scope was to keep the logo as is. Another designer had come up with a new logo prior to this project, and it got approved by the leadership of our company.

dops.digital needed to create a new style guide and a new company mascot. A lot of companies use little creatures to add something special to their appearance. dops.digital came up with a mascot, and they hit it off the bat. They looked at our company history, competitive landscape, and all the research information we provided. They went away for a few weeks and came back with a concept that absolutely blew us away.

We also needed dops.digital to work on our LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. They basically created a whole new concept for us, including all new banner and post images. We provided them the texts for the posts, and they did the rest. The team also worked on our website.

What is the team composition?

I worked out the contract details with Andrew (Co-Founder & CEO), who then formed a team. I’m dealing with Anton (Project Manager) on a daily basis. He will pull in his designers or creative director from time to time, if I have certain questions. Overall, I’m talking to three people from dops.digital at most, but I know that there are a lot more involved behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with dops.digital laboratory?

We did an RFI and RFP, and we got down to three finalists. We selected dops.digital because they came up with an idea that no one else had, regarding creating new branding and then a new website.

We found them through a reference. I was posting online, in places like Upwork and on forums, and I think that we also did a search through our company’s customer references. One provider responded back saying that they were busy, but that they knew a wonderful company in Ukraine that could do it for us. I had a lot of respect for the person that provided the reference, so I decided to give dops.digital a try.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is $20,500.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in June 2020, and we’re currently done with phase one. We’re starting phase two in two weeks. As of now, the site is up, the mascot is ready, and our social media presence is completely changed, all thanks to dops.digital.

The site launched on December 3rd, 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The mascot, social media, and website were separate work streams, and each had its own metrics.

With the mascot, the idea was to test it on the market and see how customers, partners, and our internal team would react to it. We wanted to see if people liked it, and if it provided a fresh look on our company. We did a survey, and the results were overall positive. People found the mascot to be adorable, trendy, and unique. Looking at the creature, it speaks to who we are.

I was expecting a long creative process that would go back and forth over and over. In this case, they just hit it. It was right there when we needed it. We approved it, and they went with this new style and mascot, essentially creating a new visual presence for our company.

The social media work had classic KPIs attached to it. We wanted more engagement, and to test whether the new imagery resonated with our partners and customers. That metric was global. We looked at what traffic we were generating in Asia, EMEA, and the US, and compared pre- and post-launch figures. The difference was day and night. We were picking up new traffic that had never occurred before. I’m very pleased with that.

The website was similar but more complicated, because there were a lot more things we were tracking for it. One of the key things was to reduce our bounce rate with potential customers as much as possible. We went into the collaboration with dops.digital with really low figures, based on our old design, so I had my expectations set very low.

We’ve been tracking the site for a month, and the trend is really good. dops.digital also suggested improvements in terms of how web servers should be set up, and how the tracking between Google and the site should be done. We rewired the entire marketing engine behind the scenes, to make sure that the new website was optimized, and the results have been great so far. I want to see traffic double by the end of Q1 of 2021, and that’s why we’ve started the phase-two project with dops.digital.

How did dops.digital laboratory perform from a project management standpoint?

Asana is our main vehicle for managing this project. We have multiple projects set up there, including for social media and the website. Our company, dops.digital, and other third-party consultants are all integrated through Asana. We also have a Slack setup, where we can instant-message each other.

In terms of how the project went, we had a slow start because of our company. dops.digital was ready. They asked us for research material and content for the web pages, for them to get started, and we took some time with that. We could’ve been done in October 2020, but I was slow with the content, so we only launched the site in December of that year.

dops.digital is very responsive. If we throw a task at them, they’re on it the same day. What I also appreciated about them was that they gave me realistic estimates. They told me when a task required more work and had to be split in two, and they took the time to explain things to me. If they give us an estimate, they stand by it. If something happened midway that threw a curve ball at us—like one of their designers getting sick—they’d be quick to raise the issue with me.

Their manager was always available. dops.digital is in Ukraine, so the time difference between us is 7–8 hours, but I was able to get a hold of him really late at night and early in the morning without a problem. I’m very pleased with how transparent it was and with the dynamic of the collaboration. dops.digital knows what they’re doing.

Their English skills are also strong — I was expecting their CEO and project manager to be fluent, but their designers also were, and I was able to talk to them directly. It was really nice, and it eliminated the middleman.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They stand out in terms of creativity. I know that it’s a super-generic term and that everyone is creative, but dops.digital listens to us, they research, and they come up with solutions that blow us away completely. It’s not just because of the beautiful pictures and the beautifully-designed 3D graphics, but because they actually understand us as a customer, and what we need.

We looked at a lot of other companies during the RFP process, which created nice imagery and everything, just to provide their submissions, but those looked like ten thousand other websites, and didn’t reflect our company at all.

In the case of dops.digital, they actually took the time to understand us, and what they created was top-notch from a professional perspective. The quality of the drawings and 3D graphics was amazing, but their understanding of the customer was key.

The transparency was something else that I really appreciated. Managing projects like these isn’t a small task. There are multiple people involved, and a lot of passionate discussions. dops.digital was crystal-clear on the money side of things, timelines, and requirements. They’re a solid company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m really happy with them at the moment. If they decide to venture into video production, I think they’ll be really successful with it. It’s not their main offering right now, and I don’t think they’re advertising it as much as they should. This includes not just animation but also creating motion for advertising.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Uvik Software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital laboratory?

We were starting the procedure of redesigning our corporate website. Together with dops.digital we did the analysis of the market, the new concept, and new designs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our project has been in several stages. The first one was business analysis. From there, dops.digital came up with concepts and gave a presentation on them to us. 

Next, we started working together on the process of designing each page, of about 30. The first page we worked on was the home page, and we had about five iterations of the design before moving onto the other pages. After that, we started the motion design phase, where dops.digital created the animations. 

The site is built on an internal platform built in Django.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a business analyst, a designer, a motion designer, and our project manager, Anton.

How did you come to work with dops.digital laboratory?

We found them through word-of-mouth. They were recommended to us by our friends in the design sphere.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $50,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2019–April 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our key metric is web traffic, which has been growing month by month since partnering with dops.digital.

How did dops.digital laboratory perform from a project management standpoint?

They were exceptional. The team was very responsive. With design, we’re constantly looking for the ideal look and feel, which is what dops.digital was always working toward. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their design skills are excellent. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They just need to keep up the great work. There’s nothing particular dops.digital needs to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend a lot of time on the discovery phase, and build a project plan. With that, dops.digital will create something remarkable for you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Prophets of AI. We’re a speaker’s agency, dedicated to hosting speakers in the AI robotics and consciousness field.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital laboratory?

We hired them to help us design a website. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The entire site was custom built by dops.digital. The team took my vision and made it into something complete with animations, transitions, and other features. They also created a custom font for the site.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two people: a lead developer and a business development manager, Andrew (CEO & Co-Founder).

How did you come to work with dops.digital laboratory?

We found dops.digital on Clutch, and we chose them based on the quality of their reviews.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $12,000 on the project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in November 2019, and we launched the site about three weeks ago in September 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As far as dops.digital’s work goes, we’re very pleased. They delivered my exact vision for the website. I would give them five stars.

How did dops.digital laboratory perform from a project management standpoint?

We’d originally established a timeline of how long the project would take, and it went over that. I think that was likely due to a combination of things: their team is small, but our project was so specialized and customized, it took a bit longer than expected. Once we set up Trello to track deliverables, things got a lot better and more efficient.

In terms of communication, they were pretty strong. Andrew, Anton (Project Manager), and I all kept in touch via Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very good at digital animation. The dops.digital team can create custom work and make it look really sleek.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re a small team, so my critique is in that area. Sometimes I would give an instruction or make a request, and it would take two or three days to get a response back, which caused delays sometimes. If they had a bigger team, they would be more able to implement changes or work on requests right away.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Agree upon all the deliverables very precisely ahead of time, and get sign-off on both parties. Nailing down exactly what your goals and deadlines are is important, because if you need really quick turnaround times, they might be too small.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of production for Proximity.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital?

We needed some web design and development for a client promotions website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided them with all requirements for functionality and pages.
They developed the front- and backend of the promo website, also helping with design layouts for desktop and mobile. To create the product, they used JavaScript and React.

What is the team composition?

We worked with the manager, who oversaw the team. I’m not sure how many were on that team.

How did you come to work with dops.digital?

They were recommended by some of my colleagues.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–March 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They met all of our requirements. We received positive feedback, and there was a lot of traffic to the site. We're happy with everything.

How did dops.digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They managed the project appropriately. We had a tight timeline, and they were able to meet all delivery dates. They were available and responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They worked quickly and produced quality work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Use their design and frontend skills from the start.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of comwrap Switzerland. We’re a full-service digital agency developing websites and online shops for clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital?

We have a couple of designers employed for standards procedures. However, we were running a project where we needed to have a more advanced UI/UX design, so we went to an outsourcing company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

dops.digital is providing ongoing UI/UX design support. They’ve also done performance marketing videos for us.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with five people from dops.digital, including their CEO, 2–3 project managers, and 2–3 designers.

How did you come to work with dops.digital?

I had a team of people looking for companies on sites like Behance, and dops.digital was one of those.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, I’ve invested about $350,000–$400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial project started in March 2019, and the collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The projects they deliver are always outstanding. They have their own style, but also they have a good understanding of our acceptance criteria. When we present a design for the first time, they make an animated video, not only a bunch of screenshots or mockups. The videos will show us the faults behind each element and how they’re planning to build it. We use the videos with our end clients as well, and they’re always mind-blowing.

How did dops.digital perform from a project management standpoint?

We set timelines with dops.digital. The higher the urge from the client, the greater the speed needs to be, and dops.digital never let us down.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The results and ideas dops.digital gives us are more than outstanding. There aren’t too many vendors out there able to deliver this kind of quality, but dops.digital is definitely one of them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

From the services I’ve used, I haven’t seen any areas of improvement. However, we haven’t done any development work with them. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Let dops.digital do their stuff, relax, and you’ll be surprised about what they’ll deliver.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing manager at an events management company in Saudi Arabia that does conferences, exhibitions, and festivals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dops.digital?

When I came to the company six months ago, the website was a bit outdated. We actually have web developers inside the company who create pages about the events we organize and their guest speakers, but they had difficulties leaving their comfort zone and doing something creative. They mainly built basic websites. I wanted to come up with something new by bringing in a company that didn’t know the culture of Saudi Arabia.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, they sent me two surveys, one for employees and one for clients, to get their opinions about our industry and challenges. It was tougher to get clients surveyed, but we relied on the internal survey from employees. dops.digital made an analysis based on that, and we went from there.

The team then built a new website for us. I created the sitemap and told them how each service should be, in terms of content and look, but I left the design and development to them. They developed the website in stages with designated teammates for each stage including QA. Additionally, they helped us transfer the data to our server, a task our IT department wouldn’t have been able to do.

What is the team composition?

There were seven people assigned to my project, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with dops.digital?

I found out about them through Clutch. After looking at multiple companies, I decided to work with dops.digital.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about $11,000. We had some additional fees for the changes we requested.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with dops.digital in November 2019, and the project is just about completed. They received all their fees a couple of weeks ago, but they’re still doing a couple of fixes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re still making some changes to the site, and we haven’t gone live yet. Nevertheless, our CEO is happy with the website — it’s different and authentic. We expect to get a lot of engagement from it.

How did dops.digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They communicate well and they don’t argue with us if we want to change anything. I was in contact with their COO about financial matters, and we discussed the scope of work with the project manager. 

There were no issues. In fact, they even communicated with me outside of working hours. We had Skype meetings during the first stages to develop the wireframes of the site where they shared their screen with me to explain the website layout. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is very easy to talk to and I’d definitely recommend them to anyone looking for an overseas company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no suggestions. They've exceeded my expectations.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I was clear about what I wanted and about how we wanted the pages and content to be, so I recommend that clients be clear about what they want and try not to make a lot of changes. The main reason this project is going well is that I didn’t get anyone in my company involved in the communication with them. It was just me.

I communicated with the CEO about the final design, and that was it. This way, there were no issues or misunderstandings. If there were 2–3 other people involved on my side, we would've had disastrous communication with the developers.