Flying Saucer by iytro

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flying Saucer Studio?

Branding

SOLUTION

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

Online search - good balance of design portfolio and price

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

We decided to work with Flyingsaucer as we were looking for an agency to rebrand our software company and thought based on their own website and brand that it would be a good choice. It started well, the Art Director assigned to the project had good ideas and we trusted his opinion - however it’s been a one-way street since day one as we didn’t have direct communication with him (seems he is outside freelance) in our Slack channel and everything went through a 3rd party coordinator which made communication very difficult.

We had a timeline that we agreed on with the agency but because of French holidays in summer the project got held back and although started in June - we only finished in October which delayed other projects on our end. I would say that although art direction was good at beginning, it’s really when we started working on marketing collaterals that quality went down, it seemed rushed and each piece (banner, marketing documents, etc) seemed like it was outsourced to someone for $10 to do it, it didn’t meet the brand standards and although we paid for tens of hours of work on marketing, seems we didn’t get value out of it.

We also paid for help with writing and editorial guidelines, this ended up being a 30 minute call with a contractor that didn’t have a clue about our business and sent us a 2 page document that had grammatical mistakes (!). We asked for some changes throughout process and gave feedback, but it never met our requirements and for marketing material had to revise it 4-5 times which took at least one week each time.

I could continue but I think that if communication was more open and we had weekly meetings or even an efficient way to collaborate, it could have been a better project as it was promising at beginning. It would have saved us also time. But at the end it cost us a lot of efforts to get our messaging/brand guidelines wishes across and we are not happy with the agency - although we had big plans to work together at beginning.

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

We worked with 3-4 people, including CEO, Project Manager and Art Director

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Some good ideas

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Not very effective, lack of communication

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

They had a creative process at the beginning. (although no mood boards)

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

Better communication and listening to client's feedback

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the VP of marketing for Critizr.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Flying Saucer Studio?

They are helping us manage our website, as well as some parts of our CRM, and the management of our LinkedIn profile.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us migrate our website from a bespoke web platform to our current website. That was the first project that they helped us with, and now they are helping us create new additional pages, new navigation structures, and other similar features. We use HubSpot and they’ve helped us create email templates. They’ve also been running ads for our business.

What is the team composition?

On a regular basis, I have worked with Anaïs (COO & CTO), and she is our main point of contact. I have also worked with Julia (Ads Manager) who is managing the ads. We are sometimes in contact with Adrien (CEO).

How did you come to work with Flying Saucer Studio?

We had the project in mind when I came across them and saw they had a good reputation. We decided to work with them on our initial branding. Through the project, we got a very good impression of the company, and we knew they also did some web and marketing projects.

We needed to really revamp our inbound marketing, so we’ve been working with them and I have not been disappointed — I can see ourselves working with them long-term.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with them since October 2020, so it has been around six months at this point.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They are technically part of our team, so we measure their success through how many leads we are generating — we’re happy with the results.

How did Flying Saucer Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We work with them on a daily basis and we share a Slack channel. They always meet our deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They work as part of our team — they’re a dynamic company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No — so far, everything has been pretty good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They work better when they are part of the team as opposed to being kept at an arm’s length.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Clevy is a french company Clevy develops and markets business conversational software, language comprehension algorithms and business-oriented chatbots. Editor of CSML, an Open Source programming language dedicated to the creation of rich, contextualised and integrated Human to Machine experiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flying Saucer Studio, and what were your goals?

Clevy is in the same time a software company, and an open source company. As such, we had difficulties designing and engineering our brand, and thus our website. Our goal was to work with FS on our brand strategy + brand architecture in order to present Clevy to the world through a dedicated corporate website

SOLUTION

How did you select Flying Saucer Studio and what were the deciding factors?

the deciding factors were definitely their reactivity / price + ability to understand our challenges in pre sales discussions

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Brand platform Market research web design web development illustration + animation design + creation Content + copyrighting in english and french Key deliverables : Brand platform + Website Technologies used : mostly wordpress + hubspot

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

4 people directly (maybe 7 or 8 in total on the project) Project manager / Project leader / Brand Strategist / Copyrighter. / designer / developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

All the deliverable in line or above our expectations The brand platform and insights on our brand strategy were highly useful to work on our internal + business dev approach The website is still on and unchanged now, showing how relevant it was back then. We were awarded the best website animation by Teads in 2019, winning over coca cola, Uber... and major websites

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Super smooth and efficient, everything remote. Great ability to streamline processes and hide project complexity through a multiskills project manager being the main spokesperson for the project

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

We were impressed with their ability to identify the best skills and personnel for the challenges we faced ==> a true and effective/working 360 approach for a great price

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

Some minor bugs quickly fixed on the french version of the website

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a france-based fintech specialized in lending automation. Our company has about 20 collaborators. I oversee vendor relationships and roadmap execution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flying Saucer Studio?

We created our company in 2019, since then we bootstrapped most of the marketing related works. Flying Saucer has been working with us since our Seed fundraising on our overall visual identity and evolving brand platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to see our inbound leads triple at the end of the first 2021 semester. We also needed to create brand awareness as a key step to promote our new solutions and distinguish us from our competitors.

SOLUTION

How did you select Flying Saucer Studio?

We searched online for world-class designer and compiled a short-list of 5 vendors based on their references and overall aspect of their websites. We contacted each company and narrowed it down to 2 after receiving their initial pitches. We eventually selected this vendor based on the relevance of their offering, their understanding of our market and their price-point which was fair.

Describe the project in detail.

They started with an overall strategy, then building the brand and once this was done we rolled out this branding across all our supports, product and digital assets including the website.

What was the team composition?

I was assigned a project manager to handle all the things we had to do. The project manager was our bridge to the team and having a single point of contact was very helpful. Their team was composed by a creative director, web designers, product designers, brand designers and developpers. They also worked on marketing support and strategy.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within 3 months after the project was achieved, we saw a 79% increase of inquiries and leads and we continue to hear positive feedback from our partners.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Super efficient!

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were blown away by the knowledge that this vendor had about UX, website design, optimization. We have learned much more about the project than we thought we would!

Are there any areas for improvement?

None

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I do several things. I’m an importer of wine, I’m a consultant, and I’m also a writer. I’ve been writing a small encyclopedia of non-French wines because there’s very little information on this subject in France.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Flying Saucer Studio?

I’ve been compiling information over the last five years, and I wanted to put it online. I didn’t want to spend a huge amount of money on a website, but I wanted to present some good information.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Flying Saucer is designing and developing a WordPress site with interactive maps. I gave them a list of basic requirements, and they’re doing everything from scratch.

What is the team composition?

They have a small core team, and they delegate parts of the work externally, which is what I think allows them to be competitive with pricing. For example, the coding was probably outsourced. 

How did you come to work with Flying Saucer Studio?

I looked for about two and a half months, and I thought I’d found someone else, but they backed out because they couldn’t integrate the interactive maps with the site. It was a bit outside their skillset.

I put out another post on a site, asking for help creating a webzine, and Flying Saucer responded. They gave me a quote within 24 hours, which I thought was amazing. We started working together quickly after that.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost is around €18,000 (approximately $21,754 USD). I paid them one-third up front, one-third after the design was done, and the rest will be paid when they hand over the site to me.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Flying Saucer in late-November or early-December 2020, and our relationship is ongoing. The design part is done, and they’re doing the coding now. We’re about halfway through the project, and we estimate finishing in late-March 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I can only speak on their reactivity and the presentation of the design. The coding seems to be going quite well. Flying Saucer sent me a link so I could see how the project is progressing.

I can’t give feedback on the overall project because it’s not complete.

How did Flying Saucer Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been easy working with them. They’re very responsive, and they deliver on time or early. I’m very satisfied overall. They’re a young and growing company, and I’d be happy to refer other businesses to them.

They constantly communicate through multiple communication channels, but I prefer email. We’ve used Zoom and the Google suite, and they’ve shared designs through specialized tools where I could post comments. I found that to be very efficient. They certainly seem to have all the tools in place to communicate professionally.

Every time I commented on their work, I would get an answer the same day.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were the only provider prepared to give me a quote for the project. That was critically important for me, especially since I’m not building a commercial site where I could recoup some of the money from sales. They gave me a quote in 24 hours, detailing the payment plan, the tools they were going to use, and so on.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that they haven’t been able to provide me so far. Proactiveness is a key factor, and they’re certainly doing that well. I’ll make a proper assessment of their services once the project is complete. So far, I have no concerns.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Someone looking to get involved in this sort of work should get a proper quotation.

My advice to people looking to work with Flying Saucer is to trust them. Even though their setup is a bit unconventional, in that they have their expertise spread out all over the place, they’re a young team and have the flexibility to work all over the place. A worldwide operation is to the client’s advantage because they’ll get a better price because of it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Wilive is a company working in the field of sports and health. It offers a complete sports process integrating support, choice, flexibility and freedom. Two essential elements constitute its work: physical activities and medical checks-up.

• Physical activities: Wilive creates partnerships with local sports structures and acts as a link between them and the player. In practice, the sports structures broadcast sessions on the Wilive website and the players can book them. This makes it possible to offer Wilive users a multitude of activities in various slot.
• Medical check-up: Wilive offers online and face-to-face medical check-ups to take stock of the physical capacities of its players. These reports are carried out and analyzed by sports-health professionals. To articulate these two components, Wilive relies on a web platform.

On this web platform the user can consult and book the physical activities sessions broadcast by the sports structures. He can also book medical checks-up to be carried out online and / or in person in our room.

Two consumption formats are available: monthly subscriptions or à la carte.

We are two to create this company: Jean-Xavier Rigaut, president, with training as an osteopathic physiotherapist and Magalie Rigaut, general manager, with training as an agri-food engineer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flying Saucer Studio, and what were your goals?

We had a startup idea and the web platform was an important point in our business plan and guaranteed the success of our project. Therefore we hired Flying saucer studio to design our entire website.

Flying saucer studio started by creating a showcase site with Webflow, then took on the UI / UX design and web development of the compatible application. With this new tool we hope that our young company will be a success.

SOLUTION

How did you select Flying Saucer Studio and what were the deciding factors?

Two web developers had been advised to us by our entourage. After meeting them and discussing our project, each of them gave us a quote. Then we chose the one we preferred based on the cost and its past achievements.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Initially, we had a first contact by phone to quickly describe the project, our expectations, the working methods, and to set up a physical meeting.

At the first meeting, we explained our expectations more precisely with detailed specifications. Flying saucer studio showed us what they could develop and asked us many specific questions about the project.

A week later we had a complete and detailed quotation with a time line. After agreement, the development of the project began.

A video meeting to validate each important step was planned: development of the showcase site with webflow and design of the UI / UX. Regular exchanges by email took place in case of questions.

The site is hosted by AWS and uses Stripe as a payment module.

Payments to Flying Saucer studio were made regularly at each validated stage by transfer with the Veem platform.

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

During the first meetings, we were in contact with the CEO funder of Flying Saucer Studio, Adrien.

Afterwards, the project monitoring was done with the COO, account director, Anaïs. She was the one in charge of making the connection with us and a team of full stack developers and a graphic designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The official launch of the website has not been done yet because of delays on our side and on the side of the developers due to the health crisis of covid19.

However, for the moment, the non-final version of the application is very popular for its clean design, and its simple and intuitive use. These requirements were essential for our target audience.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Our only interlocutor was the COO account director, which simplified communication.

Project management was mainly done by email (a few per week to several per day, depending on the period). Video calls were made via teams for the important stages. However, additional calls were made while solicitation from us.

Then, the COO communicated the information to the rest of his team. She regularly sent us a development update with specific emails on the progress and on the next steps, using the timeline written during the first meeting.

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

First, regarding the showcase site on Webflow, we were happy to be able to adjust the information and content ourselves.

Concerning design and development, the Flying Saucer Studio team quickly understood our expectations and we were generally satisfied with the initial proposals that were made to us at every step.

Regarding communication, the project manager was very responsive and replied quickly to our questions or requests.

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

We were beginner to the computer science and we gradually discovered concepts that were unknown to us. We often felt lost and sometimes made mistakes that delayed the project or led to the wrong path.

Therefore we would liked more support in light of our beginner status.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at Charity Miles

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

App that enables people to earn money for charity when they walk, run or bike.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Flying Saucer Studio to accomplish?

• Blog content about our members and partners.

SOLUTION

How did you find Flying Saucer Studio?

Other

Why did you select Flying Saucer Studio over others?

Other

What was the size of Flying Saucer Studio’s team?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

They wrote monthly blog articles spotlighting our members and partners.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Quality of content

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

We worked primarily with the content writer. We connected her with members and partners to write about. She did a great job.

What was your primary form of communication with Flying Saucer Studio?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email
• Messaging App

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

Once they got the hang of our style and what we were looking for, they were able to produce the content with very little hand-holding on our part.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Flying Saucer Studio could have done differently?

Not that I can think of