Ekreative

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of software development at Triumph Research Intelligence.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

We were trying to rearchitect and rebuild our existing software application so it could handle more data. We brought on Ekreative to build out the frontend of the application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The new app has the same functionality as the old app but has additional features that support administrative work. It now has UI that helps users set up and manage everything on the app. The original app was built in ASP, but they used React to develop the frontend from scratch. They were involved with just about everything.

What is the team composition?

We started with one developer, but then we expanded the project to three developers. After that, we added a tester. Once we started wrapping everything up, we scaled back down to one developer.

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

Our CFO knows one of the founders of Ekreative, so he recommended that I consider them. I took a look at their previous work and their CEO flew from Ukraine to meet us in our offices. We got along really well and they gave us a good deal. It was really easy to assess their work because they had everything we needed well-documented.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $175,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2020 and it wrapped up in November 2020.

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

They submitted all of their code to me, I would review it, and then our test team would go over it. Overall, we were really happy with their performance and the quality of their code. For the most part, it was bug-free. There were a few instances when our requirements changed, so they went back and updated it.

The internal team has responded very well to the final product. Our CEO is demoing it in webinars and it’s getting great feedback. Our sales team also loves showing it. The app looks good and works really well.

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very organized. They provided accurate estimates of how long the project would take. Throughout the engagement, they kept me updated as well. We were regularly in communication over Slack and email. The project was well-documented and they included screenshots in our emails. Overall, they were very professional.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In addition to being technically strong, they were responsive and easy to communicate with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had one minor issue with one developer whose English wasn’t as strong as the others. It was resolved rather quickly, though. We just named one of their developers as the team lead and she oversaw the project to make sure that everything matched what we were looking for.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They respond well to detailed requirements. We provided them with acceptance criteria and visual designs so it was very easy for them to understand what we were looking for.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’ve got two organizations. The first is an advertising agency, and the second, the project on which Ekreative worked on, is a virtual global agency that we’re building.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

We brought on Ekreative to work on the MVP or proof of concept (POC) so that we could test it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ekreative did project management and development. We gave them the design, and they executed it, building our MVP for our new application. There’s a frontend where people can sign up and log-in, and there’s also a backend CMS where we can do project management and handle communication between members.

They added functionality such as member sign-on, member management, email capabilities, and the ability for project managers to contact some of our creators. They built it in a way that would make it easy for us to add incremental capabilities. It’s a mobile-responsive website, and the team used Angular. 

What is the team composition?

I interacted with Kiril (COO) and Yaroslava (Project Manager).

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

They were recommended to me by someone who knew Kiril. I was looking for someone to execute this project and looked locally, but then I started talking to Ekreative. A friend of mine, who’s a developer and has built enterprise-level applications, looked at Ekreative’s coding and recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $50,000 on this first phase.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September–December 2020. 

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

It was a simple project, but Ekreative executed it well. The team was easy to work with in terms of making adjustments. Our internal product manager walked me through the backend of the MVP and there were a few minor things that needed to be fixed, but Ekreative jumped on it and fixed them quickly.

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t want to use email, so I asked them if we could use Slack instead, and the team was very amenable. They adapted our way of working, which was really nice and made it a lot easier for me. Yaroslava was also very precise, polite, and insistent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Ekreative was on time and on budget. They delivered the product when they said they would, and they kept the deadline in mind the entire time. If anything popped up that they thought would change the scope, they told us our options and how that would affect our time or money. 

We were able to make decisions together because they were upfront about everything. They were also very transparent in terms of their hours, which made everything easy. Another thing that made me feel good about them is their business model. 

They take all of their profits after salary and expenses, and they put it into outreach. They have proof of it on their website. I’d never seen that before and it made me feel good because I felt like I was a part of their outreach by giving them my business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing jumps to mind right away. They were 10 hours ahead of us, but they were always clear about their office times and their holidays. I’ve worked with other companies across the world, and in terms of making the time difference a non-issue, this team did it the best. The time difference wasn’t a problem at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend them because they were upfront about everything. Their rate wasn’t the cheapest, but they delivered the value.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the project manager for the custom web development side of a website development and marketing company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

When we originally brought them on, we were trying to update a website and build a mobile app to go along with it. We didn’t have a mobile developer on staff, so we brought their team on as a partner for the project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They started out focused on the mobile development, which we completed successfully. Then, this year, we had two in-house developers who moved to other jobs, so they stepped in and helped us finish up that redesign and are now helping to support that product.

So we’ve worked with them across a few different projects, using languages ranging across both web and mobile, including angular, and doing both design and front- and backend development on the products.

What is the team composition?

We were given a project manager who we worked with a little, as well as three developers, one senior lead and two more junior teammates who worked with him as well.

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

I met their CEO through an acquaintance, and we were just talking about business when the need came up. He offered to take on the project for a much lower rate than anyone else we had talked with was offering, so we decided to take him up on it.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of the project has been around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them back in May 2015, and have continued the partnership on and off ever since.

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

We have had this partnership with our client for almost 12 years now, so when our main developers working on the account suddenly left, they were understandably extremely nervous about all the knowledge that was leaving with them.

But after the first few deliverables that we were able to produce for them through our Ukrainian partners at Ekreative, they were completely on board again. They told us how impressed they were and that they had no hesitation continuing the partnership from that point.

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is a huge strength of Ekreative’s. They are incredibly on top of updates, and we would have meetings every morning at 9am just to keep me up to date on what they had completed the day before and what they were going to do next.

On top of their consistent updates, they were also able to deliver results exactly when they said they would, so there is never any doubt in my mind about whether or not something that they promise is going to arrive on time and in perfect condition.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The whole team is also extremely proactive, always looking ahead to see if anything they’re doing now might cause problems down the line and asking questions if they ever have any hesitations.

They’re also extremely willing to jump in and fix any issues that they run into and are thinking critically about how everything they do will affect the whole project. Working with them feels like working with one of my developers because of their investment in our success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

On this project, I haven’t found anything that I would change about the collaboration. We had one project a few years ago where they had more difficulty and the final product didn’t quite pan out, but the quality of the code they were trying to fix really was unusually terrible, so it’s not something I blame them for.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

There’s really nothing you need to do to be successful with them. They are so proactive and helpful that you’re sure to have a successful collaboration with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company has two applications. One is a photo-sharing app, and the other is what we’re building right now with Ekreative. It’s an app that can transform photos of people into print products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

We were starting this whole new project and needed developers to help us get the app live. We had two internal developers, but we needed more power. We started looking for external resources to help us get the project done faster.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ekreative worked on every aspect of the React Native app.

The app allows users to select and upload photos from their phones, but also from our other app. After loading it into the configurator inside the app, users can configure their print products and order them. The whole e-commerce framework and the uploading aspects were all built with the help of Ekreative.

What is the team composition?

We integrated their developers within our team. For the administrative part, I worked with two other points of contact.

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

It was a personal recommendation.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent in the range of $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Ekreative at the beginning of this year.

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

I appreciate their work. I’m not a technical developer myself, but from what I hear from our internal developers, the team is doing a great job. They’re creating high-quality code. They’re going beyond what we hired them for.

I really like that they’re part of our team. I’ve personally had a couple of discussions with them and saw how they get things done quickly. I’ve also heard good things about how they structure their work. They’re quite reliable.

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

We all work remotely. The developers participated in all of our standups and meetings. They communicate well. As for collaboration tools, they’re fully integrated into our JIRA, Slack, and other internal tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Ekreative gets things done. That’s what we hired them for.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of. We all work well together. I’m extremely satisfied.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Fully integrate them into your team. That worked well for us. Just have a quick email or call with their management. They’re easy to work with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was a co-founder and COO of WhatCharity. It’s a marketplace for charities to find resources, volunteers, and funding.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

We had no in-house technical resources, so we needed an external team to help build and implement a platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did the initial documentation and fact-finding. They did a scope review and handled all things related to technology, including wireframes and feature lists. They developed frontend and backend of the platform and implemented it.

They did testing prior to launch, and provided support for a year post-launch, ensuring there were no performance problems.

What is the team composition?

The core team was four people, but we worked with 10 people in total, depending on the phase of the project.

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

An investor we were talking to had worked with them previously, and committed to investing in our company if we worked with them on the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent just over €50,000 (approximately $60,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2017 – January 2019.

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

They provided solutions that didn’t exist prior, requiring data extraction from a variety of different sources, mainly the charity commission in the UK. They created the script, resulting in a software product that automatically provides that to us monthly. 

We received the UK government's R&D tax credit for innovation. Overall, they provided high-quality products. Their product management was great.

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is an area of strength for them. They were available and responsive, even on weekends. Communication was clear. Their project manager ensured our instructions were clearly conveyed to the developers, resulting in satisfactory results. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re friendly and approachable. They’re one of the easiest and best vendors I’ve worked with remotely. This is the best price-quality ratio I’ve experienced.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. There are always issues in these types of projects, but they fixed them quickly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Visit them in person, and have a workshop to ensure all requirements are documented and clearly understood on both sides for the smoothest project possible.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a web design agency.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

We were looking to add development capacity to our team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work with Ekreative on an ongoing basis. We embedded several of their developers in our teams to support various projects. They’ve helped us with numerous custom software development projects, WordPress sites, and mobile applications. 

They primarily work with us remotely, but we meet with them in person once or twice per year. 

What is the team composition?

Over the course of the engagement, we’ve worked with a total of 15 people. Typically, we have a team of five developers working on any given project. 

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

I was referred to them by a mutual friend. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $500,000-$999,999. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We first worked with them eight years ago. However, we didn’t begin our ongoing relationship with them until about five years ago.

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

They’re very responsive and take ownership of their work. They help us complete projects on time and on budget. We first brought them on when we were developing a mobile application for a client. We were 75% of the way through the budget, but had only completed 33% of the work. With Ekreative’s help, we completed the work on time and stayed within the client’s budget. 

We get good feedback from clients on our projects in general. None of our projects that they’ve helped with have gotten into the “red zone.” 

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been excellent. The team does a great job putting together project timelines and deliverables Since adjusting our QA process, the projects run very smoothly. 

We use Slack and Jira to manage the project in addition to email and video calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their commitment to making sure the work is done correctly is impressive. They consistently deliver and can work with limited direction from us. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

We’d like to bring them to the US to work with us more in person, however, it’s difficult because of immigration laws and logistics. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

It’s helpful to have one project manager that oversees all the work and makes sure that processes are standardized across different projects.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an early stage tech investment company, I am one of the founders.

For what projects/services did your company hire Ekreative?

We have used eKreative for a number of projects over the last 10 years. The one I am reviewing here, The Accelerometer, was a database and website ranking start up Accelerator programmes, in the UK.

What were your goals for this project?

We want to create a source of information for start ups, to help them make the best decisions about how to grow.

How did you select this vendor?

We were pre-existing clients of eKreative, having worked with the team since 2010. Originally we were connected to eKreative through a business contact. We have visited eKreative in Cherkassy a number of times (it's worth a visit!)

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The output was a website displaying the results of a series of user surveys. eKreative carried out the surveys by making English languages phone calls to startups in the UK.

What was the team composition?

There was a project manager, two developers, and an English language business analyst, all based in Ukraine.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

This was a good project for us, it generated some publicity and helped us source more investment deals, which was our ultimate goal.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was good, we liased with our project manager on a week by week basis, and she managed the developers and took our feedback as we went along.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

It's a professional outfit, and it's here for the long term. There really wasn't a sense that we were working with people who were very far away or disconnected from us. We could email, chat or call our project manager whenever we wanted to.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are happy with eKreative and continue to use them for new projects.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the General Manager of FarmGate Auctions, an online platform to buy and sell livestock.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

We realized there was a gap in the market when it comes to selling livestock online. Australia’s national herd is about 26.6 million, but only 5% of that herd is sold online. There also was only one major player operating in this market space in Australia. We knew there was room for a business to buy and sell livestock online, and we needed a partner like Ekreative to help make that happen.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were involved from the very beginning. It was a huge undertaking—from day one we needed our platform to be able to match our competitor, who has been selling livestock online for thirty years. We needed to build something unique to the market.

They helped us build an iOS app, a web app, and our CRM. They developed all those from wireframe and design mockups to completion. The project was a pretty big one—they wrote around 8 million lines of code. The apps were built in React Native, and the codebase was JavaScript.

There were a bunch of features they developed that made us unique. They built into the apps the ability to assess livestock offline. Some of our users are in remote areas with no internet. Despite this, they still need the app to work to assess their livestock and put them up for sale. The app is able to work entirely offline, then upload the information when the user gets internet access.

They also built a digital signature function, where users could sign online instead of printing paper forms. They can upload videos without having to host them on YouTube, and just give us their content. They have the weigh-scales able to export the weight and fat score straight to the system.

The CRM was uniquely designed to handle all of our weekly auctions. There’s a whole variety of weekly auctions that go up and need to be managed differently. The backend needed to recognize whether a user stopped bidding because of connectivity issues in their rural locale so that it could get them on the phone so they can bid without the internet. There were a whole host of complicated issues on the backend that they sorted out for us.

What is the team composition?

The core team was five people, including our project manager Yaroslav (Java Software Engineer, Ekreative). Yaroslav is incredible. They’ve been working on our project full-time for a couple of years now, and it feels like they’re an extension of us.

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

They were recommended to us by the head of engineering at a major Australian bank.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re about at the million-dollar mark invested.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since January 2016, and the work is still ongoing.

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

Our business is up-and-running, which is a really good success metric. Everything had to be perfect at launch, as the first auction had to run smoothly. Our app is B2B. If something went wrong during that live auction, we’d lose that user forever. Ekreative was amazing at making sure that the first auction was problem-free.

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

I can’t rave about them enough. We talked across multiple platforms: email, Slack, and Google Docs. We had so many comments. They responded quickly to them all, making sure I was up to speed. There was initially a language and time-zone barrier with us being from Australia, but that quickly dissipated. It’s been an absolutely great experience working with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The way they integrated into the project continually impressed us. They felt like a part of the team, and I felt that they really cared. They were just as excited about the launch as we were. I loved how they were always asking for photos of livestock and of our booths. They continually went above and beyond.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. Everything we threw at them they handled well, dove straight into, and set a high standard for. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just go for it! If you have an idea, they’re the people you want in your corner.
 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of LifeBank.

What challenge were you trying to address with eKreative?

We hired eKreative to build our software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave eKreative the specifications and they developed the software. They continue to maintain and upgrade it or anything else we need them to do. 

What is the team composition?

I have mainly worked with three people.

How did you come to work with eKreative?

Our manager put it out to tender and we ended up with eKreative.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2013 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

Their work is well-received by our internal team.        

How did eKreative perform from a project management standpoint?

They have been great; I have no complaints. They worked really well with us. There was a minor language barrier, but very small.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I haven’t worked with anyone else, so it is hard to say but they are very responsive. Whenever we want something done, they do it. They’ve served us well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There isn’t really anything they could improve on. We did have to chase them down a few times, but that could happen with anybody.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communicate well with them. I would recommend them to anybody.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager for a digital marketing company that works with organizations worldwide for our holdings company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ekreative?

Ekreative was brought on to support our existing online marketing sites.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged them initially to work on one of our smaller sites. Their team did well and has come to support all of our marketing websites worldwide. Ekreative provides a dedicated set of developers, support staff, and a project manager to run the daily services of our website. On a weekly basis, their project manager interacts with our marketing teams to determine our websites’ challenges. They design a sprint for that week and then manage the development as well as the release of any enhancements or changes to the website.

What is the team composition?

We’re engaged with four individuals as dedicated team members who have full access to our internal teams. In the case that we have other projects, we bring in additional staff from Ekreative.

How did you come to work with Ekreative?

Ekreative was recommended to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $250,000–$300,000 a year on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together for 4–5 years.

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

Results are driven by the response from our marketing organization, which has been happy with the work Ekreative has performed so far. Ekreative started as our support organization. Now, they’re working on more projects with our marketing organization. Their engagement has increased over the past couple of years and that demonstrates our satisfaction with their work.

How did Ekreative perform from a project management standpoint?

We follow a scrum process and Ekreative manages everything involved. They conduct all the backlog meetings with our customers and plan sprints with our development team. Their team oversees all the sprint management activities for our projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Ekreative immerses themselves to become a good part of the team. They’re not trying to sell a product or pitch themselves. Their team works with us to resolve challenges and errors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m happy in their growth and direction because that will be advantageous to us. They’re still a small organization and have done well but having them increase their resource pull would help us in many areas.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Sit down with them to explain your needs and how your team functions. It’s important to have Ekreative understand the way that your business operations because they’ll conform to your needs and be part of the team unlike some agencies that have processes in place and that’s the only way they operate.