dops.digital laboratory

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Uvik Software.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

We hired them to help us design a website. 

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. 

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.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of production for Proximity.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and executive video producer at RocketWheel Videos. We make videos for corporate clients that want to explain a topic.

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

We weren’t satisfied with our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

dops.digital provided a full range of services that relate to website development. Their team created the designs and executed them through the full site development. They also made revisions to the platform. While their team did the majority of the creative thinking, it was a collaborative process because we gave feedback on the assets that their team created. They figured out our brand identity and created assets such as business cards, brand guidebook, and brochures.

What is the team composition?

I spoke to five different team members from dops.digital including a project manager.

How did you come to work with dops.digital?

I searched the terms ‘best web design company’ and found dops.digital on Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $16,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We reached out to dops.digital in September 2019 but started the project in October 2019. We completed our engagement in March 2020.

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

dops.digital created a much better website than our original platform. We haven’t launched yet and our next stage is to advertise like crazy on Clutch.

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

Mostly, we communicated through Skype group chat. Their team was excellent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team’s creative and has a great eye for design. In this day and age, it’s impressive that I received a product for my investment that was also good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, but I communicated a critique during the project that their team handled.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Establish frequent communication and set criteria to follow all of the time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Virils, a men’s grooming products and supplies company.

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

We needed to find an agency to build an e-commerce site for us. We wanted it to be very easy for users to navigate.

What was the scope of their involvement?

dops.digital developed a Magento site in French and English. They created different web pages, including one for our brand and another for recent reviews.

What is the team composition?

I work closely with Andrew (CEO & Co-Founder, dops.digital). The team works together on frontend and backend development, design, and marketing the client.

How did you come to work with dops.digital?

We initially looked for agencies in Canada and the U.S., and then we read some good reviews about Ukrainian agencies being very good and creative.

When I searched for Ukrainian agencies on Google, I found dops.digital. My team was amazed by their work. We looked at their reviews on Clutch and their work on Vimeo and Behance. I really liked their designs.

How much have you invested with them?

My company has spent $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2019, and the work is ongoing.

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

Their design is out of this world. The rest of the work is still underway.

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

Project management is perfect. dops.digital is very understanding, and they deliver on time. I’ve been surprised by the high level of their work.

My team’s first language is French and theirs is Ukrainian, and communication is great. We’ve had no misunderstandings. The first time I spoke with Andrew, we meshed well. The other people on the team are very kind to work with.

They give us timelines and set appointments via Skype. We’re able to communicate with them any time we want to. They accommodate our eight-hour time difference.

What did you find most impressive about them?

dops.digital welcomes every opinion and idea that we have. At one point, I wasn’t able to communicate exactly what I wanted, and they had a very honest conversation with me. They encouraged my idea and provided suggestions; they never said it wouldn’t work.

We entrusted them with everything and were confident that the design would be amazing.  They know what they’re doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I only have positive feedback for them; I couldn’t ask for a better agency. We work well together. I would definitely engage them for another project. They also work within my budget.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Hire them. You’ll be impressed by their communication skills and customer-oriented nature. They’re very welcoming, talented people. If you speak English, you’ll definitely be able to communicate with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a digital marketing manager at Petainer, a sustainability packaging company.

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

We needed someone to design and develop our new website and start rebranding our company. We were trying to completely refresh the style of the website and add all the new products we didn’t have when we launched the old site. We work across 3 or 4 different industries and it was really important for us to have a versatile, effective website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and developed our new website after we provided them with the brief and documents. We used their suggested documentation type and built a few tools together since they understood the direction we were heading.

They also worked on the strategic part and structure of the website. They just finished the frontend development and now they’re working on the backend development.

What is the team composition?

I work directly with the designers and developers. There are four or five people on their team.

How did you come to work with dops.digital?

I did a Google search and found them on Clutch. They had really good reviews.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $10,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2019, and the work is ongoing.

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

In a month, we will see the results of their work. I believe it will be very positive. It’s been a great pleasure to work with them, and they really understand the structure and challenge of the business and our industries. They really adapted the website to all of these metrics.

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

They’re very professional and we’re in constant communication. They’re very responsive whenever I have a question. They created a few really good working tools and collaboration tools, so it’s really easy to work with them. We use Skype and Google Drive (to share files), but we also use email and have had a few calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?            

They’re very creative, and I really like the ideas that they’ve brought to the business. They work across multiple industries and know the best practices you can find online. They also know the best way to structure your website.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve been really good. They were constantly asking for my feedback as well to trying to understand how they could improve. I’ve been really happy with them. They’re amazing.