Five, an Endava company

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project lead for allergies inside the consumer healthcare business unit at Sanofi, a large pharmaceutical company. I’m currently the product owner of a digital product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five?

We hired Five for strategic consulting in the launch of our new app. We developed an app that provides real-time information about air pollution and different allergens. The user is able to record their symptoms and determine what triggers their allergies. Five provided expert advice on how to launch our app in different app stores.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the beginning of the project, we focused on growth hacking before extending the collaboration into other areas. We ran a pilot program in the US before launching, and Five analyzed the data. From there, Five audited our app and provided feedback on the design, helping us create the best strategy.  

What is the team composition?

There were around 10 people assigned to our project, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Five?

We defined a brief and we asked for quotes from multiple companies. We were mainly looking for growth hacking expertise, and Five was the best candidate.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between $150,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Five between June 2020–January 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They always provided what we were looking for and often exceeded our expectations. Not only did they check all the analytics we put in place, but they also found holes in the system and were able to address them. They provided the tools and expertise we needed to run the project successfully. As a result, they were able to fulfill what we wanted to achieve.

How did Five perform from a project management standpoint?

They always found the best people for our project and they integrated well with our development team. Five provided a dedicated project manager to ensure a fluid process. They divided the project into three different workstreams so the next steps were always clear.  

We followed an agile development strategy and held regular meetings. They delivered reports every two weeks, so we knew everything was on track and they were following our budget.

We were always in contact with everyone on the team via Slack. With teams in the US and Europe, it was very easy to interact with them across multiple time zones

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were responsive adapted well to our needs. We’re a big company, so it can take a bit of time to draw conclusions and progress. Five respected whatever we decided, but they helped us see all the possibilities. They proactively presented ideas without pushing additional services on us. They were clearly committed to delivering what we needed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Over the time we worked together, everything was perfect.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I would highly recommend them. Five can really help the client, and they have a lot of experience in the digital space.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Artis, a mobile app that assists high school students and their families navigate the college admissions process in the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five?

Initially, we engaged with Five to address our user acquisition strategy. They helped us set up the online advertising campaign and channels to drive traffic to our app on Google Play and App Store. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The main deliverable was to create a sales funnel or flow to get folks onto the app, and that could lead to app installs. We set a goal for the preliminary phase to get to 10,000 unique installs. We mainly used Google and Facebook. In the beginning, they spent a lot of time to understand who we were trying to target and their unique pain points. In creating the creatives, copies, and visuals, we had a collaborative process with their copywriters and designers. 

For 2021, we’ve partnered with them again with product optimization too. We haven’t begun that part of the process with them, but we’ve definitely expanded our engagement with them beyond the initial scope. 

What is the team composition?

We have a user acquisition specialist who drives the process and harnesses the power of analytics. She has been our day-to-day point of contact. We also work with other people who work more from a business development standpoint.  

How did you come to work with Five?

We found them through online research and we interviewed over a dozen different agencies. It was just abundantly clear that they were on a different level — their approach and the way they described things were just incredible. We knew that they were really the ‘real deal’.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent around $40,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration started in June 2020, and we’re still working with Five.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At this point, we feel that we have been successful in executing the main part of the funnel. The metrics we’ve used were our conversion rates. We’ve been exceeding all the benchmarks that we have including our installs and impressions. In fact, we have been successful in completing the 10,000 unique app installs, and we’ve been able to achieve that within the first few months of operating. Overall, they definitely took their time in the beginning to understand our market and product.

How did Five perform from a project management standpoint?

We have the ability to access a lot of our analytic studios and information portals. I believe my co-founder is the technical co-founder and he is much more in contact with them when it comes to implementations and integrations. Most of the things have been communicated through email. I know there are a lot of platforms out there, but we’re a very email centric team.

They have a 'hand-in-hand' approach that makes us feel like partners. They solicit our feedback and we work seamlessly. Once they’ve understood our product, they started working a little more autonomously. We now have weekly check-ins to discuss results and recalibrate our strategy going forward. In addition, our main point of contact has just been so amazing to work with. He’s so thoughtful and invested. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re incredible listeners and also strategic thinkers. It doesn’t feel like we’re working with an agency and it feels like they’re working with a partner. Above all, they want us to succeed.  The team goes above and beyond to help us which is just so reassuring. We have a remarkable partnership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have negative feedback or areas of improvement for them. I stand by everything that I said and it’s been a very nice experience to work with Five.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I think they’re so amazing at user acquisition, but they also have a lot of strength with identifying the product to market. Make sure that your product fits the market and it's a super useful product offering or service offering that people could be open to exploring. Overall, they’re not just a growth agency. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of a company called Picnic Labs, and we have a product called Picniic which is a family home hub software. We provide direct to consumer offering, as well as work with large brands on the B2B side. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five?

I’ve worked with Five on a number of different projects. Our most recent project was to build out the web experience of our mobile-only platform. Most of our expertise was around iOS and Android, and cross-platform. However, we had a lot of customers on both the consumer side, but also on the B2B side looking to have a desktop web experience. That’s the reason why we asked helped from Five. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was around six months. The first phase was a little different than the other projects we worked on in the past where they were already able to see the experience. They basically had to look at the mobile offering and then built out a schedule, and plan to help deliver that on the website. 

We had different deliverables and we did the design page first. Then, we also had an alpha part that we could look at it, which was followed by the beta. We always had access to the code repositories so we could see what was going on. Moreover, we had broken up the engagement into a design and engineering development side. The whole project was built in React.

What is the team composition?

There was a team of around 6–8 people that worked on our project. A designer worked on the first third of the project and there was a team of five engineers. Our company also talked to a technical lead and discussed some of the technical details and how to integrate things into our existing ecosystem. We also had a project manager and product manager.

How did you come to work with Five?

I had a lot of experience in working with different agencies, developments, and organizations. I’ve known Five for quite a few years. I founded them over the last 10 years in three companies, and in almost every one of those companies, I’ve always worked on a project with Five. I had a lot of experience with them and trusted their capabilities.

As a result, when I started this company, I needed some help and I reached out to them. When I sold my company, they carried on a lot of that work with my previous company. Overall, we already knew each other for 10 years and I was just confident in what they do.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent $75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement ran from January–June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were very good. They have a good engineering team and they built a strong design team. Five’s project managers were also good. Overall, I think they hire very well. I originally knew them as an engineering team, but they’ve really grown in their design capabilities. Most importantly, they delivered well and delivered exactly what we had hoped. 

How did Five perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project managers were really good at communicating and were always on top of things. They communicated timelines well despite our tight deadlines and had a strong communication loop. I think they used a lot of tools and marry that with their existing team. The reason I continue to go back to them is that they always deliver on time and on budget, and that’s not always the case with other companies. When you find a company or team that sticks with your deadline and budget, or a company that could accommodate additional things, that’s phenomenal.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really care about what they were doing. I’m a product person, so I’ve worked with companies in the past that just took our requirements and just built out whatever we asked them to do. However, Five had a product mindset and always gave additional feedback and different points of view — I always appreciated that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When I first collaborated with them, they didn’t have different tools. However, in this project, I had full access to everything or any of the repositories. There’s always improvement in my communication, but I can’t think of any specific incident they could improve. Overall, the project went smoothly. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to be clear about what you want to do because they’re good at listening and giving feedback. Five can help with your initial product brainstorming. They’re the type of company that can deliver the scope and price that they set out. I’ve been let down in the past, but with Five, you will have a partner that you know can really deliver.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product at Coinme that oversees the product team and customer support. We’re a cryptocurrency company mostly focused on cash-on-ramp services, and we pride ourselves on being the most approachable company in terms of familiarizing customers with bitcoin and cryptocurrency. 

Our mission is to bring cryptocurrency to the masses. We’re a growing company, and we’ve got a big partnership with Coinstar, where people can deposit their cash and instantly get bitcoins. We’re expanding to include online buying and selling of cryptocurrencies directly within our UX, and we’ll be adding more cash network partners soon. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five?

Coinme currently doesn’t have a mobile app presence. We hired Five to work on our mobile application and use their marketing team for our customer communication efforts. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The scope of work for Five consists of three areas. First, they’re working on the development of our mobile application. They’re basically working on our version 1 experience for mobile on both iOS and Android, and they’ve been great.  

We’re also implementing a new CRM system via Iterable, and they’ve been pivotal in helping to get that configured and set up. 

We’re also using their marketing team to help create our customer communications within Iterable, which involves planning the setup of our campaigns and lifecycle messaging and getting all of those customer communication elements in place. 

Those are the three areas they’ve been really helpful with.

What is the team composition?

We work with Luka (Business Development Partner) and a team of about eight people in total that are working on the development and the QA of the mobile applications. Then, we have around four backend developers working on various projects, such as Salesforce integration. 

How did you come to work with Five?

We did a pretty exhaustive evaluation of different resourcing agencies. We started with 3–4 developers and then grew to around 30–50 people, including developers, designers, and QAs. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $150,000 on mobile app development. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around July 2020, and the partnership is ongoing. We had a set SOW with them that just finished, but we’re continuing on a monthly open contract. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were impressed with the quality of Five’s work. They’ve been phenomenal. We’re only getting things into full QA mode, but we have very high-quality work and good feedback. There’s been a lot of back and forth with new APIs that our server team over here has been developing. Five has very good attention to detail, calling out issues and thinking ahead. 

The quality of work is great, and the mobile app is starting to look really good. We’re excited about it, and we have full trust in their team to deliver. 

For the mobile app, we have the design over here, but they’ve provided great insights and feedback on platform nuances between iOS and Android, taking the ball and running with it if there is ambiguity with some of the designs or specs. 

They’re also great when things aren’t totally clear or a little bit fuzzy. Their team sees the bigger picture and makes sure the overall UX is solid. They do a great job in knowledge-sharing among the team to raise the overall tide with what they develop and design. 

How did Five perform from a project management standpoint?

I know that there’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes that they’re coordinating within their team, but they’re very solid. When we have our regular standups with them, I don’t have to worry that they’re not staying on top and coordinating things. When they give estimates, they’re accurate. You don’t have to worry that they’re way off. 

We do bi-weekly or twice-a-week standups with their team. They have great communication, and they’ve been very thorough. There’s also never any language barrier, and some of them speak better English than I do. 

On the development side, we can really consider them part of our core team. It’s not an arm’s-length-over-the-fence relationship, but they’re definitely a key part of our team.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s hard to pick one best thing about them. They’re great people. I consider a whole bunch of them as friends because they’re very personable. You know that you can trust them, and trust is one of the main things we like about them. They’re going to take the ball and run with things. 

Luka and the team have always been reasonable and flexible. If I have to make some changes to the specs or features, they don’t say that it isn’t on the contract. They adjust to what we need as a company. They’ve been a good partner and are very trustworthy at the individual level. 

Five works well within our budget and can ramp up on a fairly quick scale to help us grow when we have new features or new dates to hit. They are responsible, and we have a very high level of trust with everybody. I’ve been incredibly happy to work with Luka and the whole team. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wouldn’t say that this is constructive feedback since this is common. Luka and the team have done a fantastic job getting people onboarded as quickly as possible while ensuring that the bar is high. However, it can take a little time to add more resources. 

I wouldn’t even say that this is a negative thing. It’s just one of those things that you always want to be able to tell the CEO. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t think twice. Five has very reasonable rates, and their quality of work is phenomenal. They can look at things holistically. They’re good at development and QA, and they’ve also got a strong UX design shop.  

They share a fairly big shop now, and it’s great to see them grow. They’re very good all-around in terms of design, development, QA, and customer messaging. I would say they can be a great partner for anybody looking for those kinds of services. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the publisher of Princeton University Press. We publish books across many disciplines.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five?

We wanted to create at least one 3D field guide for North America as a mobile app both for Android and iOS platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Five is developing an app that features 3D model rotations of about 650 species of birds. It has a very sophisticated filtering color profile, distribution, and a number of other features. This is a very ambitious project which may or may not end up being split into multiple apps.

We have developmental milestones in our agreement with Five based on various stages of development from the appearance of the app through to functionality. The initial stages are the most time consuming because it’s really setting up how the app will look including the UI. We’ve been doing market testing as well as developing different features within the app. It’s quite a lengthy process.

What is the team composition?

We work with John (VP of Sales) is our business contact who set up the agreement and Brian (Senior Product Manager) is in charge of the project.

There are a variety of programmers in Croatia, probably 3–5 different people at different times, and managed by one person, Gordana (Project Manager) who is sort of overarching contact. Five is not a huge team of people, but they're a very dedicated team which is nice.

How did you come to work with Five?

We were looking for a company that is willing to take on a quite difficult project. They had to be flexible and willing to do a lot of marketing and marketing analytics. Our team did a lot of groundwork seeing 5–10 different developers. They got it down to five companies in the end and we selected Five because of their good feedback and interaction.

Five is very attentive and very clear. I met with them two or three times and they were completely upfront and very businesslike, but also affable and pleasant to deal with. We all felt that Five is the company to go with.
 
How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested close to $200,000, but the cost of the entire project is way more than that.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Five started in February 2020 and is still ongoing. That’s when we actually started the whole design process. I had to get separate agreements with different entities, but we already have our quote and everything from Five.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s a little hard to say right now because we haven’t launched yet. But we’re pretty confident it’s going to go well. We’re investing quite a lot in the marketing and analytical side which is one of the particular strengths of Five.

We are sure the final product will be fantastic. It’s a question of how we get traction within a very large market and pay for apps is a difficult thing to sell. This is a longer-term project because the asset development of these 3D models takes quite a lot of time.

We're hoping to release the app next year since we have to generate all of the assets and it also involves buying in assets from other organizations. Five moved it ahead as fast as they could without jeopardizing quality or collaboration.

We will be extremely happy with the end product because everyone has poured all of their efforts and expertise into the project. I think it’s going to be remarkable.

How did Five perform from a project management standpoint?

Our weekly meetings with Five involve looking at new designs and addressing major issues with the app. We’re looking at what can be native and what has to be non-native. Communicating with them is fantastic. We’ve been working with a lot of their designers and programmers in Croatia often on a weekly meeting basis.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The people at Five have been really wonderful. They’ve been receptive to all of our ideas and they’ve often come up with their own. It’s actually been a tremendously good collaborative experience. I couldn’t envisage it being any better, it’s wonderful. It’s been sort of thrilling in a way and it’s amazing to see all come together and they’ve been extraordinarily diligent.

Most people are not into birds necessarily and you have to take that into account when making a bird app. The skill and level of understanding of the programmers have been amazing. They know what we're trying to do and are often able to come up with 5-6 suggestions.

They’ve been totally engaged and super smart. The team comes up with very creative solutions for difficult problems and has never at any point pushed back against ideas that we have. One of the best things is the creativity of the people involved and their willingness to listen and actually learn in some ways.

Five has been very upfront when there are issues about what can and can’t be done and they spelled those out very clearly and provided feedback in a very organized fashion. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not so far. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be clear about what your goals are and trust them to know what they’re doing. Tell them what you want and they’ll tell you if it’s possible or not. Five is very experienced and one of the things that are attractive for us is the range of clients that they have.

If you have a project that is ambitious, then you should be happy to place it in Five's hands. They seem to excel at the more complicated projects that require outside the box thinking.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

VP of Product at a tech-based learning company from 2018 through most of 2020

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five?

We hired Five for ongoing work on our iOS and Android mobile apps.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to drive revenue of our Rosetta Stone language products through our mobile applications.

SOLUTION

How did you select Five?

Five was first brought in a few years ago to help stand up a mobile site, mostly for marketing purposes. Five brought so much value in such a short time, and they worked so well with our back-end services folks, that we kept renewing SOWs with them, and then ultimately have kept them on an ongoing retainer basis as our mobile development partners.

Describe the project in detail.

Originally FIVE worked with our back-end services to give access to our language curriculum through mobile; only existing customer who'd purchased a Rosetta Stone product via web could login on mobile for access. Then, over time with the massive mobile adoption, the apps integrated purchases within the mobile apps and have become our flagship products.

FIVE has been with us all along they way b/c they have proven to be more innovative and nimble in the mobile space. They have implemented projects such as object recognition using Apple's ARKit, and implementation of our voice recognition for users practicing their foreign language pronunciation.

What was the team composition?

FIVE's team composition included about 8 mobile software developers, several mobile designers, and a server-side engineer to help integrate with our backend services.

They also includes a Product Manager to interface with our internal teams and present weekly metrics on how our mobile apps are performing. They also work directly with some of our mobile software resources we have hired or promoted internally. They are basically an extension of our internal teams.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The proof is in the webby awards we have won several years in a row that have FIVE as our agency of record. For example: https://winners.webbyawards.com/2017/apps-mobile-and-voice/apps-mobile-…

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I can't say enough about the workflow between our teams. They ARE part of our team. They were essentially our team in Europe and allowed us to be developing software around the clock and the globe.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Most impressive is their flexibility and the fact that they push US to innovate more. They are not just fulfilling the work, but helping drive the mobile roadmap.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing leaps to mind. Even around annual negotiations, the leadership there has always been about the long term relationship.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Marketing at GigSmart - we have two apps (Get Workers and Get Gigs) that connect businesses to skilled, temporary labor. Since launching in Nov of 2018, we've already surpassed 300,000 downloads. I am in charge of building complex programs to generate demand, acquire, and retain loyal users for both of GigSmart's staffing apps.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five?

We needed an intelligent, strategic, and responsive partner to help us improve our digital advertising strategies for app installs for our two apps (Get Gigs and Get Workers). Five was hired for their experience in the mobile app industry, their creative capabilities (they help ideate and produce our digital ads), and their analytical mindset. Currently, we engage with them on user acquisition campaigns and app store optimization initiatives.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to continue to reduce our CPIs while driving more qualified users to our apps. We have seen a reduction in across both of our apps for CPI and are currently working with Five to develop a strategy to test and measure CPA campaigns. In addition, we recently launched ASO updates to improve our overall conversion rate from app store to install.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We went through a detailed evaluation with several vendors, ultimately inviting two to our offices for onsite presentations. Five's previous client roster, vision for our engagement, and pricing structure were most in alignment with what we were looking for in a GigSmart partner.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Our teams collaborate very well together. Five is a natural extension of our team. We use Basecamp as our project management tool. We also have weekly meetings to discuss the progress of our initiatives, review data, and discuss next steps.

They are responsible for helping us understand in app metrics to determine shifts in our ad strategy, creative, and messaging. We work very fluidly and they are very responsive to incoming requests. Ultimately all of the scope of our engagement is focused on helping us find higher quality app installs at lower costs.

What was the team composition?

We have a strategic account manager and a team comprising of various roles/specialties. There are several people we interact with many times throughout the week, and there are others that are brought in to engage with us as it makes sense. As previously stated, they were quick to onboard and know our business very well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Prior to working with Five we managed our install campaigns through a different vendor. Five has been able to deliver CPIs for both apps at significantly lower costs than our other vendor. In addition, their deep expertise in mobile apps has proved valuable as they have used engagement data from our apps to help us define where to prioritize our efforts and what to do next.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As described earlier, Five is very responsive. We use Basecamp and Slack to communicate and collaborate in real-time. We are good at working with each other to prioritize and complete deliverables. Five has also been very responsive, helping us shift strategy, creative, or ad campaigns as a direct result of user behavior.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

As a mobile app development and product UI/UX focused agency, we find their knowledge of engagement trends and their familiarity with data sources (like MixPanel) very valuable. Their team is always available and willing to help. They are helping us not only deliver results but also coming up with new ideas and strategies to help us continue to grow our business.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are still in our infancy, so at this time, l do not have any negative feedback. So far we are very happy with the relationship, communication, and results produced.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the CTO and head of product for Rhapsody International for 15 years. I was in charge of everything the company designed, developed, and operated.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five?

We were initially looking for an organization to provide capacity expansion for our development team, as we had new projects coming in. We had a Seattle-based team, but we needed to do more and go faster. We wanted a group in a European time zone because our business in Europe was expanding rapidly. That was our initial look at it, but we ended up dramatically expanding the Five’s role within our organization over the years.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the start, we were looking for capacity expansion around client development, which included Android, iOS, and web applications — the frontends of the Rhapsody services that consumers would use. Five built native apps in each case. For iOS, it was a partial Objective-C codebase, talking through a fairly rich RESTful API layer that we were using for all of our services.

The API layer provided all of the functionality needed for the remote development team, such as retrieving an artist’s discography and library, starting playback at a certain point in a track, pausing playback, and so on. It allowed us to break the work into client items, to be done separately from server ones.

We were so impressed with Five that we ended up adding some other functional areas as well, including app design. They had a real skillset, talent, and history there. We were originally going to continue doing all of the application design and UI work at our home office, but after seeing the Five team, the focus shifted completely to them. What started as just pure development on the client-side expanded to development and design, and some of the Five team expanded to server-side development and other functional areas.

What is the team composition?

When we started the engagement, it was primarily staff augmentation. We asked Five to find a solid technical and management lead in each area — iOS, Android, and web — as well as a local scrum master. Those technical leads reported directly to the technical leads in our home office in Seattle, and the scrum masters worked with our team and scrum masters in Seattle to coordinate all the efforts happening locally at Five. We knew we wanted to start small and watch how it went, but we felt strongly about hiring good leads so that we could expand those teams. The engagement started with 5–6 people and grew to over 30, with each of those three teams expanding their groups.

How did you come to work with Five?

We went through an extensive RFP process and requested proposals, statements of abilities, and rates from multiple companies. I’d known Five indirectly, in that people I knew had worked with them in a QA capacity, so I asked them to participate in the RFP. We had 50–100 responses, and, after a multi-round process, we ended up selecting Five as our partner.

How much have you invested with them?

The overall cost has been $1 million–$5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Five around March 2011, and it’s ongoing. In fact, many of the original leads that Five brought onboard in 2011 remain with the company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We set out a number of goals for application development in terms of delivery, quality, and timeliness. They always met individual milestones for scrums and stories, extending their work time if necessary. As we shifted more of the app responsibility to them, we set goals for app ratings on the app stores for a minimum of 4, ideally 4.2–4.3. That’s never easy with products like ours because some users expect it to be free rather than having to pay a subscription. It is a fairly high bar. We hold them to app store ratings and total bug counts, including releases that require production fixes. Five is continually able to meet both time-based and quality-based goals.

How did Five perform from a project management standpoint?

When we started with them, the bulk of the coordination was done by our team. Five was more of a staff augmentation team, coordinating just their local work. Now, there are scrum masters for every app based out of Five, and they coordinate stories. The API team is still based on the company side, so there are still challenges of them coordinating with people outside of their location, but that’s gone as well as could be expected in this sort of remote engagement.

The key people are just fantastic, and the level of dedication we feel from them is great. They feel like a part of the Rhapsody team, and not like a remote team. I’ve run 100% remote teams in India and China, but they truly like a part of our team. Something I’ve seen, especially with remote teams in India, is a very high turnover. We’ve seen super low turnover with the Five team. It’s been fantastic. Everyone’s available on Slack, and that’s the primary communication mechanism. We use Jira to keep track of what’s going to happen in each iteration, and of open bugs and items. We’ve used a handful of other scrum tools, but we’ve settled into Jira as the core controller.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Technically, they are fantastic. I feel like they are part of the team. They are some of the best engineers I’ve worked with and are able to solve some complicated problems. They have a real sense of ownership, which is what jumped out to me and separated them from other remote teams I’ve worked with.

Something else that stands out is the design work. Once we shifted design to them, they were fantastic, going through design proposals, executing user tests against those proposals, and running small A/B tests. They understand the world of user-testing and persona modeling. They really understand what we’re building and what the user reactions to features are going to be before we dig into them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had normal time-zone challenges. We’re primarily based in Seattle, and Five is primarily in Zagreb. Being nine hours off is a bit difficult. The team there has been good in terms of hourly shifting and being available either early or late in their days for us. The fact that the team is always available on Slack helps mitigate that. We also do some work in Asia, and Five does as well, so they have a three-hour time zone split. Everyone is roughly eight hours off, so it’s really difficult. The Five team does a great job of being available, though.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They should have as much face-to-face time as possible, especially early on. We had the team out to Seattle multiple times, and some people from Rhapsody went out to Zagreb once monthly, at least. Informal, in-person communication is invaluable in building strong relationships.

It was sometimes hard to scale up. We shifted to a more project-based focus as we brought in more projects. There could be multi-week lead times to add new staff, and we had to understand and work around that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of global associate wellbeing for Marriott International.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Five?

We were looking to create a holistic wellbeing challenge for more than 500,000 Marriott associates across the globe. After doing a similar campaign in past years in an analog style, we decided to take the challenge online.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Five developed and designed a mobile app for us to host our wellbeing campaign on. Their team built both an iOS and Android version of the platform. Since we had created the campaign internally, we had a simplified PDF version which their team digitized. They created a live leader board so that associates could compete to collect points and compare their standing to others. We have started a second contract with them to update the app and make changes for next year’s version.

What is the team composition?

I had one main point of contact at Five who I worked with on a day to day basis.

How did you come to work with Five?

Five was an approved vendor in our system, which entails a pretty significant review process. They had already done some projects for our team, who referred me to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested about $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Five began in December 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have recieved a lot of positive feedback on the campaign, especially in comparison to our paper-based campaign. People found it really easy to use and the user interface is really simple. Five really hit the mark in bringing in the leaderboard; people love the competition aspect of the app.

It was really easy for us to ideate with their team. Five was really great at taking our concept and bringing it to life. We already had a vision for what this would look like, so it was a relatively easy process. Our teams worked well together because we were subject matter experts on our employees and they brought in a mobile perspective. The Five team understands how people interact with technology.

How did Five perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a great time in New York and a great team overseas. We have weekly meetings during implementation and also had a two-day design sprint. Five has a really productive method of going through feedback, making sure they get all of the necessary information. Their team kept us up to date throughout the process, going through timelines and wireframes with us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really have a knack for thinking through how a person would interact with the app. Five provided a level of insight that was invaluable. Their team understands how people use technology, especially given our global audience. They were thoughtful and super user-focused. Five really does their homework.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we first started working with them, they had less of a presence in the US but that changed this year. Early on we had to deal with a time difference but now we get more support throughout the workday which is helpful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re a company where timelines and deadlines are changing, get together in the very beginning and set up a project plan with specific deliverables and deadlines. That is really helpful when things inevitably change.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Discuss TheGame is a sports platform based on user-generated content. We enable dedicated fans to express opinions, have discussions, and have their voices heard on a platform built specifically around sports. I'm the CFO, currently in charge of the financial management of the project.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Five?

We engage with Five to validate future product concepts with our target audience and build a strong understanding of key features and values to deliver in the next product phase.

What were your goals for this project?

Be sure that we are on the right track in terms of the functionalities we wanted to build, as well as to implement a good design and UX in the app.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

From three different agencies in New York, we opted for the one that offered the best balance between quality and cost. We also based on different reviews that we found in Clutch.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We made a week-long design sprint, whose purpose was to fully understand the product, assume certain things, and once assumed, validate them with potential and current users through a prototype.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a product manager and a design director.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our numbers of engagement and retention increased, as well as the number of positive reviews of our product.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Once the face-to-face design sprint was done, they proceeded to realize the deliverables of said activity. The project lasted approximately one month, and every week we had calls with Five to review the progress. The delivery of the work was on time and of quality.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The passion with which they worked on our project made it seem like it was their own. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

No.