Fountain City, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the operations manager for Vital Leaf, a consumer goods company creating health and wellness products. We focus on both retail and wholesale.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City, Inc.?

Initially, we brought Fountain City to help us with web management for our e-commerce site because we weren’t having a good experience with our previous service provider.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fountain City’s role has changed over the years, and our intentions have also been dynamic. They originally took over the website management work done by our previous web development company. Since then, they’ve made a lot of improvements to our WooCommerce site related to its UI and cleaned some of the bad development work our initial web developer did.

One of the most significant projects that Fountain City has supported has been adding a B2B shop on our site separate from our B2C one. Additionally, they take care of our website’s maintenance, hosting, and basic cybersecurity updates. Throughout our engagement, we’ve also explored the possibility of doing more e-commerce work with Fountain City, although we haven’t moved forward with all the initiatives and opportunities we’ve found.

Users can primarily buy our products on our site, but it also has a consumer education component. We deliver this component in the form of a blog, and Fountain City has provided us with guidance on improving our SEO through our blog.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked directly with Sebastian (CEO) and his business partner, as well as with 2–3 web developers. One of these developers has worked with us in a very consistent way; he has been our main point of contact. Additionally, we’ve worked with 3–4 project managers who have come and gone from the project.

How did you come to work with Fountain City, Inc.?

They came as a word-of-mouth recommendation. We decided to work with them due to the quality of the recommendation; the person who recommended them was very affirming about the quality of their work and the ease of engagement. Still, we did a couple of informational interviews and were very impressed with the quality of Fountain City’s relationship-building skills.

We immediately felt comfortable with them and trusted them. Moreover, Sebastian’s desire to do due diligence on his end to better understand the needs of our business was very reassuring. During our initial meeting, he asked many in-depth and pointed questions to gather the right information and work with us effectively. That was very valuable for our team because it felt like an honest relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around mid-2019, and our engagement is ongoing. Unfortunately, our budget is very low right now, so we haven’t used Fountain City to the extent we would like to.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since working with Fountain City, we’ve noticed an increase in site traffic. Additionally, they’ve significantly improved our site’s UX by installing plug-ins, smoothing things out, and correcting glitches and bugs. They’ve fixed a lot of problems with our website and integrated new plug-ins that have been highly beneficial for our site.

How did Fountain City, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

Throughout our engagement, Fountain City has been very responsive, flexible, and collaborative in determining the best fit between our company and theirs. Their team is especially helpful in moments when our site doesn’t work properly because they’re great at prioritizing emergent needs.

One of Fountain City’s strengths is creating very clear proposals for scopes of work with defined outlines for budgets. The proposals they generate are very considerate of our business needs and our budgeting.

Moreover, I really appreciate all the people from Fountain City we’ve worked with. Their communication is very clear, and their troubleshooting process is always clear and creative. I’m not knowledgeable in web development, but everyone from their team has been very good at explaining things to me and helping me understand their work.

We communicate via Zoom meetings, text messages, and phone calls. We’ve also done very few in-person meetings because their team is located in different places. Fountain City also uses a project management app through which we communicate. This app has been really helpful for streamlining our communication and keeping our information in one place. It also allows us to watch the project’s progress and track things in a more efficient way.

As for time management, Fountain City has done their best to deliver things on time, but our site has provided some consistent challenges. Thus, they’ve faced some unforeseen issues that have required a longer time to troubleshoot than expected.

Another thing that has impacted their timeliness is that we’re a very small internal team. Sometimes, they require critical information from us that we haven’t provided in a timely manner due to our limitations.

Moreover, They’ve been responsible for some delays whenever we’ve needed to transition between project managers because we’ve needed to get new people up to speed on our business, website, and project progress. Still, we’ve been satisfied with the timeliness of Fountain City’s deliveries for the most part.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been very impressed with the clarity of Fountain City’s work and the foundation of their knowledge; customer focus is one of their strengths. Sebastian is very committed to finding the best possible solutions for everyone, which for him, represents a higher priority than telling us what we want to hear or providing us with easy solutions. They always have our best interests at heart and come to the table with suggestions based on their experience and understanding of our business.

Moreover, their whole team values working relationships greatly, which is wonderful for us as clients. For the most part, they’ve been extraordinarily easy to work with, and they’ve been very patient with me. Overall, working with them has been a very positive experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

An area that Fountain City could improve is the number of project managers who have come and gone. It feels as if our business has passed through many people's hands, creating a slowdown in the project and a lack of clarity. Still, Sebastian has tried his best in those moments to step in and provide direct support to our business.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your available budget for the project and communicate that upfront. Additionally, have realistic expectations about how much progress can be made given your available budget; it is important to set the right expectations. Moreover, be clear about your business’ high priorities and be open to suggestions and feedback regarding the best approach to reach your goals.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was a Group Account Director at CMD, a marketing and advertising agency in the PNW, and was responsible for our B2B tech portfolio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Fountain City, Inc., and what were your goals?

We contracted Fountain City for their development and project management services. We were scaling a new relationship within one of our Fortune 50 tech accounts within a new incubation group that was bringing new technologies to market quickly and launching new start ups that required a scalable digital marketing and web presence that we did not have the tech resources in house to scale to the opportunity and speed at which the work would come.

SOLUTION

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

We interviewed multiple partners and contractors but eventually landed on going with Fountain City because of their flexibility and scalability. They also had a well tuned project management team and methodology that help navigate client requests and changes. I found them to be timely, professional, and got the work done.

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

The scope of the work was I/A, Development and QA in developing new websites for the start ups coming out of this incubator program. This included direct to consumer ecommerce sites which was new for this B2B client

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

Account manager, Project manager and the principal owner.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Speed to market was the key in this engagement along with agility to last minute client changes. Fountain City responded quickly and put in late nights to achieve the end clients goals.

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

They were professional, organized, and had great communication throughout.

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

Expertise and hungry to grow and do great work.

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

We threw a lot at them and they always responded quickly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Hello Again, a cannabis company. We make vaginal suppositories for the relief of different physical symptoms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City, Inc.?

We had an existing website full of glitches, so we wanted to upgrade it with a tight budget.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fountain City, Inc. did web design for us; they revamped the site by making several changes to it — we’ve had three different iterations with them so far. They’ve helped us cleanly implement a store finder map and our branding to the platform. We rely on them for creative input, incorporation of widgets, and SKUs and relicensing revisions.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with Sebastian (CEO), Carlos (Full-Stack Engineer), and a couple of project managers,

How did you come to work with Fountain City, Inc.?

They were referred to us.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

We’ve spent about $45,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, they did a great job. Our SEO has increased, and we get great feedback on the website’s informative, dynamic, and inviting look and feel. We also have a significant retention time from our website visitors.

How did Fountain City, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve been using a ticketing system; they always have easy-to-use tools in place for us. Also, they’ve been very responsive throughout the engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their level of care and concern is outstanding; whenever we come up with ideas, they let us know if they’re going to work or if they might cause us trouble as we scale up, which is something I appreciate. Also, Sebastian is great at helping us with our budget to avoid spending too much on something that might be a problem in the future.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the outreach and education legal liaison for SHALVA, a domestic violence counseling agency located in Chicago. I’m in charge of our communications, including our website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City, Inc.?

I was tasked with working on a grant to build out a new interactive tool. Before coming up with this idea, we were trying to find a new and innovative way of helping people who were worried about a friend or family member who might be in an abusive relationship. Thus, we came up with the idea of creating an interactive set of videos and questions. We wanted this tool to be hosted on our website, but it required us to update it, so we hired Fountain City to help us out.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fountain City has helped us rebuild our website on WordPress, as well as the interactive tool we required. They were in charge of migrating a lot of our content and information from our former site to the new site, too. Since then, we’ve had an ongoing relationship with them for website maintenance and other related projects.

Fountain City recently helped us update the interactive tool after collecting two years' worth of data. Additionally, they’re currently helping us with some Google Ads and Analytics, and we’re moving towards SEO.

What is the team composition?

I work with Sebastian (CEO), Carlos (Full Stack Engineer), who has been our main developer throughout the entire engagement, and Marcel (Account Strategist). Besides Marcel, we’ve worked with a couple of other account managers.

How did you come to work with Fountain City, Inc.?

We hired a consultant to help us out with the grant we received for the project, and they were the ones who brought Fountain City into the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2019, and the new site with the interactive tool was launched in 2020. We’re still working together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website has vastly improved thanks to Fountain City’s work, according to people in our community. We’ve definitely seen more traffic coming into our new website, especially when we’ve launched social media campaigns to promote the tool.

How did Fountain City, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

Fountain City is very responsive and great to work with. Whenever there is an emergency, they’re easily reachable and solve the problem immediately. They also keep us on track and continuously ensure that we’re setting goals and meeting them.

Throughout the project, Fountain City has provided a lot of great feedback, which helped us during the building process and continues to help us for improving the site. We currently use ClickUp to manage the project. Before, we were using a different ticketing system, but we decided to make the change. Additionally, we communicate via Zoom, Google Meet, and email, as well as via phone calls whenever there is an emergency.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Fountain City offers an excellent personal touch and is very approachable while being very professional still. They’re very mindful and appreciative of our work, and they truly feel like a part of our team. We’ve developed a nice team-effort environment. For example, we had our virtual luncheon recently, and a couple of their team members attended and made donations. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. Whenever we’ve had issues, they handle them right away, so we haven’t had any negative experiences. If anything, I can say that we’ve had various account manager changes, but they haven’t been an issue because, whenever it happens, Sebastian quickly jumps into that role.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Working with Fountain City, you’ll be in good hands. Try to find out if the project manager they assign to your project has some time working with them because they seem to have some issues retaining them. However, if they happen to change project managers during your engagement, be sure that it won’t affect their work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Wiseman Group is a talent development and research organization headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. For people striving to build a high-contribution culture, The Wiseman Group creates insights that ignite multiplying behavior, because developing and using talent is the ultimate advantage.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Fountain City, Inc., and what were your goals?

We hired Sebastian and Fountain City to manage our website development and help with our marketing strategy and execution. Our website goals were to improve our website design and optimization, add ecommerce functionality, and integrate with our marketing stack.

Our marketing goals were to increase website traffic and engage our audience.

SOLUTION

How did you select Fountain City, Inc., and what were the deciding factors?

We received a reference for them and made our decision based on their full agency capabilities and results.

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

For our website, we first did an audit of our website design and speed to decide what needed to change. We then optimized our front end code and made hosting decisions that could handle our needs best.

We also did a website refresh to add our latest product offering. The tools we used were Wordpress and the Divi theme builder. For our marketing projects, we decided the best cadence of emails based on the content we were developing and needs of our audience.

We also decided to change the voice and format of our emails to be more personable, which resulted in good email engagement and an increase in our website traffic. We used Mailchimp, Hubspot, Zapier, and Wordpress.

How many resources from the Fountain City, Inc. team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We've worked with project managers, email marketing specialists, website developers, a website designer, and an SEO specialist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I've been impressed by the teams strategic thinking skills and that they're focused on achieving the end goal (not just doing marketing activities for the sake of doing them).

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

There were times at first that the workflow was more difficult because I wanted to work directly with our website developer instead of through our PM. This was primarily because we wanted more DIY development than handing everything over to save cost.

This was quickly resolved and we found a workflow between me and the developer directly that has been very effective. We've even added a PM back into the flow which hasn't interrupted anything and has helped organize our efforts.

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

They're able to help with anything I throw at them and focus on hitting our goals. This isn't always the case since many agencies are willing to have time pass without doing any sanity checks for results and trajectory.

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

There have been hiccups along the way, but no patterns that I can discern and provide feedback on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a computer support shop. We support businesses that run Linux systems and we provide maintenance, monitoring, backup, security, and related services for Linux servers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City, Inc.?

We were developing a monitoring platform, and though a lot of the frameworks are done, we’re not frontend designers. We reached out to Fountain City to help us design a nice, user-friendly interface for our platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I provided Fountain City with the existing interface that we had developed and a structure for what kind of design we were looking for. They asked more questions to guide the process and discover what our users need to see. The backend of our platform was written in Perl and was originally a catalyst-based framework that didn’t have any templates to build upon. We then converted it to have a Mojo backend so that Fountain City could build the frontend with React.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with about five people from their team, which included Josh (Project Manager), Carlos (Full Stack Engineer), and Sebastian (CEO) who helped us figure out the design during the initial stages. 

How did you come to work with Fountain City, Inc.?

They were referred to me. I simply reached out to Sebastian, and we kickstarted the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around December 2018. Our partnership is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Fountain City team has built a spreadsheet of everything that needs to happen in the system as well as details about the project’s progress. There is a really good management of the project in that we’re able to see what work has been completed and what remains to be done. I also appreciate how they ask questions in order to guide the project and the design in the right direction.

How did Fountain City, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

Every month or every few weeks, I receive a report about their progress and where they are in terms of the project estimate. If they’re going over budget, we look into the cause and pay attention to any issues that may be present on both sides. It’s been very effective. 

We typically communicate through email and occasionally over the phone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Fountain City has a really good process for frontend and UI design. I’ve worked with a lot of developers over the years who are either really good at building the frontend or making it look nice. It’s rare to see both in the same agency, but this team has the resources for both. They have resources who do great backend integration work as well as those who know how to do frontend design. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no complaints about Fountain City. The reason the project has taken so long is mostly due to issues and personnel changes on our end. Onboarding a new member and getting them up to speed tends to affect the project timeline. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Really go through the process of figuring out who your user is and what the most common use cases are for your application. You will want to streamline the things that are going to be used often, keeping them simple and easy to use while still having advanced features. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Rdg-One — my own independent digital agency that does design and development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City, Inc.?  

They’ve helped me with everything from improving business processes and scaling of digital services to the assignment of digital services, project management, and CTO consultation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their services fall under two categories: technical and consulting.

Regarding technical work, Fountain City has delivered custom software development tasks including custom API integration and WordPress development, front- and backend development, and database work.

Beyond the pure programming, they’ve also helped extensively with documentation. Fountain City’s team has assisted me in scoping our large projects, like web applications, so we build them in an effective manner. They’ve also done the same for smaller components that are later integrated into larger products. Finally, their expertise has helped us in hosting and maintaining our solutions with efficiency.

On the consulting side, Fountain City has helped us grow our services by understanding and developing workflow processes, effectively helping us scale the number and frequency of projects we can handle. For example, they help us go from taking on one project in six months to juggling four projects in three months. We’ve also used them in the capacity of project managing on our behalf as well.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with about six team members. Sebastian (CEO) and Anwar (Chief Strategy Officer) are my main points of contact.

How did you come to work with Fountain City, Inc.?  

They were referred to me and then did an excellent job of documenting and scoping out their proposals before initiating work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent more than $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since March 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From an advising and consulting standpoint, our lead developers have been very happy with all the suggestions and process improvements Fountain City, Inc. has made. As a result of this engagement, we’ve seen year-over-year growth.

How did Fountain City, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent. We have a 25-hour-per-week Fountain City consultant for project management; they’re actively auditing our work now. We communicate over Discord, Slack, Basecamp, Monday.com, email, and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Fountain City's honesty and attention to detail stand out. They’re very realistic as well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. We’re big fans of their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you ask for documentation and proposals upfront, then you’ll have a very good idea of what your project will be comprised of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO for a company that works with high-profile clients to digitize and monetize their estates.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City, Inc.?

We were trying to solve some graphic design and UX challenges for our database system but didn’t have the right resources on hand. We needed a company to create a new UX design based on our existing 2014 versions and, if the project worked out, continue working with us as our go-to design firm for frontend work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Fountain City, Inc. provided project management and graphic design services for our Drupal-based database system. They showed us wireframes for what the new UI elements would look like, which they then turned into design compositions for us to review. After we clicked through their work on InVision, they assigned resources to implement those designs in Drupal.

What is the team composition? 

I primarily worked with their CEO who also served as our project manager for most of the project. We interacted with their lead designer as needed. They’d arrange calls with him so that we could share our requirements, and he’d reach out to us for additional information. When we transitioned into the development phase, we started working with their lead Drupal developer who oversaw at least two other junior developers. 

How did you come to work with Fountain City, Inc.?

My company found them through a referral back in 2017 before I joined. Back then, our tech team was even smaller than it is now, so we really didn’t have anyone on staff. Our management team was looking for a partner that could help support our Drupal-based initiatives.

Things didn’t end up clicking at that time as far as the scope of the project and services. Once we started this new version of our database system, they were one of the names on our shortlist to consider, so we went with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from February–October 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were fairly dissatisfied with the work. They were able to deliver on our expectations from the design perspective since we really only wanted a refreshed aesthetic. However, the UX was very quirky and didn’t flow well.

What we didn’t realize until we started implementation was that certain sections of the app had a very different feel to them — and it wasn’t an intentional choice. For example, the same information would have a different layout depending on the screen. It was the type of issue that we didn’t notice looking at each screen in isolation but started to see when we were going through the screens. It just didn’t seem like the design team considered the app as a whole and took a piece-wise approach. 

The implementation ended up being the same, too. The team would focus on implementing one screen at a time. But if we needed a new screen, it felt like they tried to reinvent the wheel again even though we already knew how the components should behave. With each new section, we had to keep reminding them not to make the same mistakes again.

How did Fountain City, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management was very ticket-driven through Jira. Each ticket would have conditions of acceptance, which functioned as a checklist to indicate when we’d consider the ticket to be complete. At each planning meeting, we’d go over the tickets to confirm that they understood and were comfortable with the requirements, and they’d say, “Yes.” 

I’d then ask them how many they thought they could get done in a two-week sprint, and they’d ask for as many as we could give them. I didn’t really understand how that could work. I’d never been on a project before where the developers wanted to overcommit and still delivered a good result. Fountain City, Inc. said that they preferred to have more work than less because it would ensure they weren’t idle, so we went forward with it.

Instead of getting a continuous stream of work to review, their team would send us huge chunks of work at the end of each iteration. That meant that we didn’t have any time to react to whether the product was good or not before integrating it. When we did get the chance to react, they were usually already on to the next sprint even though a lot of what they turned over was incomplete. They’d only meet three out of the six conditions of acceptance on average.

How did Fountain City, Inc. address the challenges that arose?

When it came to the Jira tickets, we thought that it might have been a miscommunication on our end and asked them if there was a different way we could write the ticket. That was when they’d tell us that they actually had questions about the conditions, which was why they only did three out of the six requirements. I asked them why they didn’t consult us as they were going along, and they responded that they didn’t want to slow down the process by asking questions. Instead, they just wanted to turn over the work as quickly as they could.

It just seemed like there were lots of opportunities to seek clarity, and they didn’t take them. Every time we’d bring up that concern, they’d say that they’d do better but still have the exact same pitfalls at the next planning meeting — it was like the movie Groundhog Day. Our internal QA resource didn’t even have to try to find issues with Fountain City, Inc.’s work because it never satisfied the ticket. We’d have to reopen tickets with them between 3–5 times before they would finally get completed. 

To make matters worse, their CEO said that all of the rework would cost us more money because it’d take two additional sprints. However, they submitted a fixed-budget bid for the project. They fell back to the argument that we added to the scope, but those were last-minute changes at the end of the project. They wanted more money to clean up the existing scope that they just weren’t completing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The overall design process isn’t bad. They started with abstract information and then moved into mind maps, flow diagrams, wireframes, designs, and finally implementation. However, they spent too much time on certain parts of the process. I think we spent about six weeks on mind maps and flow diagrams. It just seemed like it took a very long time to get a result, and they didn’t want to commit to deadlines unless it was six months out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would’ve liked to have seen someone on their side who was staying on top of the details. There were a lot of times when it seemed like they’d processed our feedback, but it would really only apply to that specific instance. Once they started working on the same task but on a different page, we’d have to repeat ourselves again, which was really frustrating. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear with your expectations upfront so that their team knows what they’re committing to. If you run into any challenges or miscommunications, address them immediately with the CEO until it’s resolved.

In our case, we made an agreement with them where we said that we’d give them a 10% bonus on the project if they improved on the ticket completion rate. That meant improving on their ability to communicate when something was holding them up and bettering the quality so that we didn’t have to reopen tickets as often.

Even with that in place, they still weren’t able to hit our marks. It ended up being a frustrating situation because we’d raise concerns with the project manager, but the CEO didn’t feel like he was up to speed on the situation. When they didn’t qualify for the bonus, he told us that we should’ve brought the issues with him sooner.

Company Responses

The vendor responded on March 1, 2021.

We view all problems as opportunities, even a bad review. Our goal is to build long lasting relationships based on trust, empathy, excellence and mutual success. We strive to be a partner that stands with you. However even with the best of intentions, relationships can still fail.

In this case we were constantly contending with unrealistic demands and expectations. A clear example of this was refusing to allocate or approve any budget for QA testers, but then demanding that work be completed anyway.

Mismanagement of our resources plus aggressive cost / timeline decisions were a common pattern. Their decisions compromised our recommended processes which are designed to prevent these types of problems.

Our agreement was structured on a time and materials basis, not fixed cost. The client elected to directly manage our developers which meant they took responsibility for their project's outcome. Against our recommendation they insisted on repeatedly making substantial last minute changes to the scope, which impacted their costs and timeline. Their review mentions a “10% bonus pay” but this was not a bonus, it was funds they owed us. In the end we lost over 150 unpaid hours. It is unfortunate we're just not the right fit for them. 

We strive for the opportunity to improve ourselves with teachable moments. We were happy to look past all the issues and do our best to help our client. This included working countless unpaid hours evenings and weekends to help them make their deadline. We wish them well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was a solutions architect for OPI Products, Inc., a cosmetics company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City, Inc.?

We needed a web-based platform that could be centrally maintained by our US headquarters and easily accessed by our different marketing departments. Each department managed a specific market, and they needed to access a version of the website geared toward that audience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fountain City, Inc. created a proof of concept for a customized web platform. Features included translating, product approvals, and routing. The system adjusted based on location, market, and browser preference. The team’s proof of concept was approved, but their involvement ended when the project was canceled following a corporate merger.

What is the team composition?

I worked with five teammates.

How did you come to work with Fountain City, Inc.?

We hired the team because their professional image aligned with our needs, and they had experience in our market. They also knew how to communicate with a non-technical audience.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in January 2015 and ended in December 2015 due to a corporate merger.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The intuitive platform received excellent feedback from international stakeholders. The first test phases would configure automatically, rarely requiring manual adjustments.

How did Fountain City, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

We collaborated via email, the phone, and video calls. They were highly communicative and effectively explained technical concepts. The team offered realistic information about feature feasibility, enabling us to make informed decisions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were transparent and always notified us of concerns early on. Their technical expertise allowed them to ideate a platform that anyone could use.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I couldn’t say. If we would have hired Fountain City, Inc. earlier, we would have had more time to plan for the internal changes that disrupted the project process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Future clients should provide a large pool of information during the planning stages, even if it’s just a wish list and doesn’t relate to the product. They will take the information and adjust the project path for future updates.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of two companies that provide online marketing and web development services. One company is geared toward the wine industry and the other helps small businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Fountain City, Inc.?

We hired Fountain City to serve as an extended part of our team on several projects. We occasionally don’t have enough resources to deliver the high-quality work we aim for, so we needed their support.

What were your goals for this project?

We hired Fountain City to address our needs across several projects. We wanted to produce work on time and in our budget that surpasses expectations.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Fountain City came highly recommended to me from a colleague in the web development industry.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The work they’ve done for us has included IT support, Drupal development, security, and backup services.

What was the team composition?

The team they provide fluctuates depending on our workflow and client demands.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Working with Fountain City ensures we serve our clients to the best of our ability. They allow us to handle an increased workflow and everything is executed perfectly.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Fountain City manages the work professionally and efficiently. I was repeatedly impressed with their organizational skills, management tools and the prompt delivery of their work.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I’m never worried when we work with Fountain City—I can always rely on them. The work they produce is spot-on every time. I’m proud to use them as an extension of my team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There’s nothing I can think of for them to improve—they're worth every penny.