Envative

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

Without any hard data, I’d say that they’ve consistently held true to the project, and the estimates from a cost perspective. We haven’t had any real surprises from cost overruns or issues on the scope of work. Timeframes have been generally met. We tend to throw a lot of curveballs because we’re constantly in an iterative process. They’ve been very good to work with in that sense.

One of the reasons that we work very closely with them is because its relationship based. We know that when we have those challenges, issues, or changes come up midstream, which is inevitable in any larger engagement, it comes down to how well you work with your partner through those changes. They’ve been a great partner to us. That makes the difference in why we partner with them.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

We’ve done some very large projects with very large firms, and the advantages that we see with Envative from a technical perspective is that they bring creativity and thoughts to what we’re trying to build. It’s been very easy to ramp up with them with our projects. Some of our other engagements seem to take forever to get to the point where we’re moving forward and progressing because of the amount of pre-engagement time that it takes. We’re able to ramp them up very quickly, and engage them on new initiatives quickly.

Another point is the relationship piece. When questions arise, they are very responsive. If there are any questions, we’re able to confer quickly and change direction is needed.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

They do a very good job. I can’t identify anything specific. In every project, communication is key. They generally do a good job of keeping everybody up to speed on where the project is. In some cases, depending on the nature of the project, it would be more helpful to have a formalized status and review meeting, depending on what you’re working on. We tend to let it go a bit, and periodically, we’ll hear feedback from them. Periodically, we’ll reach and ask them where we are on an issue. Depending on the nature of the project, maybe a formalized status review would help.

I haven’t seen that impact any of our projects. It’s been fine. Whenever we’re curious about where we stand, it’s as simple as sending them an email, and we get a response right back. I think if you were going to engage them in a significant project, you may want to put a little more formality around the cadence of status updates and reviews.