Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of a company that’s building a career-focused alumni engagement platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

They built us a clickable prototype.

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the challenges of an early business is being able to explain the vision of the company and product beyond PowerPoint decks. They helped us articulate our vision by creating a prototype environment for us to demo our product as a means of explaining what we do. We’ve been using their prototype with many potential partners and stakeholders. 

Their team also provided strategic feedback on user identities. However, the purpose of the engagement was the prototype build. They used InVision to create the product.  

What is the team composition?

We worked closely with a team of designers, an account executive, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

I had past experience working with their company and enjoyed those past engagements. I’ve found them to be professional and accountable. Because of those positive past experiences, I had a high degree of confidence that they could provide what we were looking for. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from November–December 2020.

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

They were upfront with their approach and allowed us to review their work throughout the engagement. We were very pleased with what they build and received positive feedback from others, validating our satisfaction.   

How did Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company perform from a project management standpoint?

We met with them regularly to provide feedback in this iterative process. They met our deadline and were extremely responsive throughout the engagement. Their communication was excellent, and they were highly accountable in sticking with our tight timeline.   

What did you find most impressive about them?

They produced what we asked for but were also willing to take a strategic approach to drive toward our outcome. Our project had a defined outcome, but they took a comprehensive approach that showed they care about our success. They’re a reliable team.   

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’d highly recommend them and know I’ll be working with them again. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more background information and content you can provide, the better they’ll be able to understand goals and accomplishing them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager for the IT department of a government agency in Massachusetts.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

We’ve been migrating our technology from a legacy client-server platform to a web-based solution for many, many years. We now needed assistance in optimizing the solution’s UX/UI to support our users’ decision-making processes.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fresh Tilled Soil took on two tasks. They first conducted in-depth UX/UI research for us, where they did user testing to identify the best UX/UI decisions we could make. We held discovery sessions, and they interviewed end-users. They then came up with design prototypes in an iterative process.

They were also responsible for designing the UX/UI for a small module within our enterprise-level solution. Our system has hundreds of screens, but they worked one of the specific, smaller functions within it.

What is the team composition?

We worked primarily with a project manager and two UX/UI designers. There were others working behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

I believe we found them through a web search and talking to colleagues. I’m sure we called them, along with other agencies, after being impressed by their online portfolio.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost around $90,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted between March – May 2020.

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

The designs aren’t live yet, since we’re responsible for developing and implementing them. So, we can’t assess the end-user impact at this time. However, we’ve gotten very favorable feedback based on internal reviews of their designs. Overall, we’ve extremely satisfied with the quality of their work. They did a great job of enhancing our existing materials and taking us to the next level of human-centric design.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company perform from a project management standpoint?

I thought they performed exceptionally. They used a variety of tools, like Base Camp. They were very diligent at tracking issues and following up on items. I was definitely impressed with their PM capabilities.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their design-thinking was excellent. They did a stellar job of hearing what the users had to say. They excelled at asking the right questions to get the underlying message behind the answers, which they would translate into actionable designs that still operate within our framework. It’s their ability to listen and to enhance — not replace — our work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If we had more time, it would have been good to get the designs back in front of the end-users again. We ran out of time and chose to prioritize other aspects of the project. Otherwise, I don’t have anything bad to say, nor do I have a direct basis for comparison.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know what your key goals and objectives are. Think about how resource-intensive you can be on your end because that will affect the scope of work you’re likely to go with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of Escher Group. We provide customer engagement platforms for our customers around the world. We have retail counter point of sales systems, self serve kiosks, and mobile handhelds that clerks might use in the store.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

Since customer experience is important to us, the UI/UX of our products are important to us. We hired Fresh Tilled Soil to help with that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We've actually used Fresh Tilled Soil twice. The first time was towards the end of 2018 for a bespoke product, where we allowed our customers to customize everything, including UX. The product didn’t even have a standard UX — every user workflow was built custom for each client.

From the ground up, with Fresh Tilled Soil, we designed the end to end UX for the clerk on the point of sale terminals, and we did the UX for the customers on the customer display units for the point of sale terminals. They interviewed members of our team as well as customers. 

We then migrated that onto the customer experience for mobile and most recently, we have done the customer experience for self-serve kiosks. They’VE designed the visual language and the customer experience for all the user interfaces for all of our channels.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Dan (Senior Strategist & New Business Director) who was more of the sales guy. We probably had a team of five people for about eight months over the last two years.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

One of my colleagues brought them on before I joined the company. I don’t know if he found them through a referral or internet search.

What is the status of this engagement?

We are started working with them in December 2018 and we're still working with them.

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

We measure in a couple of ways, one of which is the ability for us to get projects out quickly, and I think it has also helped us in our sales process that we have. Our customers also appreciate the speed and efficiency of workflows, absence of errors, and intuitiveness. If the client has 6,000 retail stores and probably 25,000 employees, training them on a new system would be quite expensive and with our solution, the training is actually pretty minimal.

Throughout the project, Fresh Tilled Soil has listened to the customer’s requirements and needs, they work with our team, come up with mock-ups, and present the mock-ups to the customers, and then get their feedback. So, for everything we did with them, they not only had our input but had our customer’s input. On all three of the projects, we did that.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very professional, and they are very engaged. They keep things on track and make sure that they have what they need and make sure that they show progress every week. It is very convenient for me because they just do what they are supposed to do. 

I think of Fresh Tilled Soil as an extended part of my team. They're very talented. I trust them to do a good job, and I don’t have to review ahead of time what they are going to show the customers. I know they listen to the customers and know what we are doing. 

The team also takes the time to really understand our business and understand what it is we are trying to accomplish. We are not a B2C site; we are mostly providing workflows for the operators and clerks. It is a very different user interface and user experience than a consumer mobile app.

We use InVision to keep track of all the prototypes which makes it very easy for the developers to actually implement what they have done. We use Zoom or Teams for conferencing. In the early days, they would come to the Boston office every now and then and we were getting to know each other, but of course, now we all do everything remotely.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think the most important thing Fresh Tilled Soil does is listen. They don’t come with a solution; they listen, they make sure that they understand the problem they are trying to solve and then they come to a solution for our problems. They don’t assume that they know the answer when they start.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I think they are pretty easy to do business with and pretty easy to contract with. They do a good job. These aren’t skills we have in-house and we rely on them heavily to do this. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a solution brief and make sure you are clear about the scope and context, and what problem you are trying to solve. Make sure that you have them talk to the end-users as well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Beeyonder, a virtual travel aggregator and provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

We’re in the very early stages of our startup, and before going any further with the idea, I felt that a professional market research company should come in to validate some of the ideas we had for the company. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fresh Tilled Soil conducted user interviews at the outset about various things that might be important to our customers, trying to validate certain assumptions we were making. We took that information to build a user interface design for several pages that we felt were most important for our company’s success in terms of our website. 

Then, they conducted additional interviews, with a new set of people, to test that design. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a strategist, a UI designer, and a developer.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company?

Fresh Tilled Soil was recommended to us by a friend of a friend.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent a little over $15,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–July 2020. It was a three week engagement, and we’re currently working together again to develop a scope of work and quote for the development of the MVP.

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

It’s only been a couple of weeks since our project ended, but the feedback from the users in the second test was great. The pages Fresh Tilled Soil created will definitely be used in the development of the MVP for our website. 

Their work has given me peace of mind that people are interested in what we have to offer. I feel comfortable moving forward with our company into the next phase.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil an ADK Group Company perform from a project management standpoint?

The process was really smooth. Fresh Tilled Soil had a schedule in place and really stuck to it. Throughout the process, there was a lot of feedback and discussion in place.

In terms of communication, our initial discussions were done via Zoom, due to COVID-19 concerns. Once materials were developed or drafted, they would be sent through email, and I would review them and give feedback.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to stay on schedule was really impressive. Aside from their work, which was fantastic, it really stood out. It can be very difficult to get vendors to stay on track and meet deadlines, but Fresh Tilled Soil was excellent. Their availability to tell me when things were going to be finished and meet every deadline was great, because it allowed me to plan properly. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything, and I’ve tried. I thought it went really well. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be engaged with the team and provide as much feedback as you can as quickly as you can. That will allow you to get the most out of your engagement, because Fresh Tilled Soil really takes what you have to say in consideration.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and VP of a company that runs three distinct construction, development, and property businesses. I run these businesses with three of my brothers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil?

Initially, we brought Fresh Tilled Soil to build our brand.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, they developed our website and optimized it with ad copy and digital marketing. We’ve updated that site a few times, but there was a major overhaul 2–3 years ago, where we added a fresh outlook.

In addition to that site, Fresh Till has helped us with several other sites. All of our development projects also had websites that they helped design and implement. It’s like they’re part of our team. Their design, web, and ad-copy teams work together to make sure our messages are properly being put out into the marketplace.

What is the team composition?

Dan (Senior Strategist & New Business Director) is our main point of contact and account manager. We also work with Alex (Senior Experience Designer & Strategist) and at least 4 other people from their team.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil?

They came as a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $50,000 on that last major overhaul. My hunch is that we’ve spent at least $100,000 over the last 11 years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2009, and we’ve been with them ever since.

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

Having a strong web presence is crucial since that’s the first place people will look. They’ve been able to guide us over the years in what we’ve needed to stay relevant and look professional. For example, they’ve let us know that having our site display on mobile has become just as important as on a desktop since a lot of people look us up on their phones.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been excellent. All but one of their project managers have set a budget and have been very professional to work with. As far as organizational skills, and coordinating all of the groups that have to provide data and content, Fresh Till does a great job. We communicate mostly via email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The websites that they put together are very user friendly in a way that just makes sense. There are some sites I’ve been to where it’s a hassle to find information, and I don’t experience that on Fresh Till’s site. The sites they create are intuitive and easy to use.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think I have any suggestions off-hand.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to get your messaging correct about what you want to say about your business, and what brand you’re trying to project, as well as what actions you want from the marketplace. Organize yourself clearly so Fresh Till can help you achieve those goals.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO and founder of Thropic, which is a fundraising company based out of Boston. We work with a variety of nonprofits in the New England area to help them with digital and event marketing.

For what projects/services did your company hire Fresh Tilled Soil?

Our company is looking to develop a crowdfunding mobile app that serves as a rewards system. We hired Fresh Tilled Soil to help design the entire mobile app and help flesh out the user flow.

What were your goals for this project?

• Construct an information architecture and sitemap to support the user journey.
• Construct low-fidelity (black and white) wireframes that represent the required UI elements and general screen layouts.
• Assemble prototypes through InVision to demonstrate flows through key screens
• Define a visual design system and apply these constructs to key UI elements and general screen layouts.

How did you select this vendor?

I was referred to this vendor through a mutual connection at a networking event. FTS has worked with multiple credible brands and they have a strong track record. It was an easy decision!

Describe the project in detail.

Once we established an informational architecture, we set forth on fleshing out a variety of features. Namely, Fresh Tilled Soil helped establish the most realistic user flow for fundraising campaigns. They also helped figure out the most efficient rewards system. All in all, FTS went above and beyond our expectations.

What was the team composition?

The team started at three people on the vendor side but transitioned over to two once one member had a child. There was one (1) project manager and one UX designer. They were consummate professionals throughout the process.

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

While we have not yet started the development process, we have received rave reviews about the look of this design. FTS made the transition to a development team very seamless as all of the elements are easily transferrable code wise.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Workflow could not have been easier. The project manager always stayed on top of the weekly tasks and follow up notes from our meetings. They understood all of our suggestions and comments throughout the process.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their attention to detail blew me away. They were incredibly responsive and communicative throughout the process. They brought everything I envisioned to life.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No everything was excellent.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of operations at an enterprise SaaS organization. We sell an AI platform that helps other organizations inform their human capital and talent decisions.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil?

We hired Fresh Tilled Soil to look at ways to drive more focus on the AI and NLP components of our recommendation engine, rather than the analytics and dashboard capabilities. We were hoping that, through better UX design, we would be able to encourage the adoption of some of the more advanced features of our platform.

Our product is very complex. It’s a pretty sophisticated matrix of different modules that we’re trying to manage. The recommendation engine, for example, is intercepting thousands of decisions a day. Given this level of complexity, we felt that the UX could be more streamlined and intuitive for our end users.

What was the scope of their involvement?

This project was focused entirely on UX. The team from Fresh Tilled Soil helped us understand what better site navigation would look like, as well as which pieces of information should live on each page. They spent time talking with everyone on our team — and some external users — to figure out what exactly was working and why some users were running into challenge areas.

What is the team composition?

We had a team of three designers who were focused on our project.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil?

We found out about Fresh Tilled Soil through a referral from one of our Techstar peers. We didn’t do a formal RFP process, but we did compare bids from four or five similar shops.

Because we’re a young, high-growth organization, we were looking for a partner that would be willing to start small with us and become our go-to UX partner as we scale. This led us to focus on smaller teams that were going to have more flexibility.

We were looking at firms that concentrated on UX because we already have in-house graphic design resources. Fresh Tilled Soil won the work because of their depth and their exclusive focus on UX.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $15,000 for this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from March–April 2019. We anticipate doing more work with Fresh Tilled Soil, and have an ongoing, ad hoc relationship with them.

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

I don’t have any metrics to share because their work isn’t available to customers yet, but we’ve already seen some beneficial outcomes. We’ve started using their screens during presentations to investors, and they’ve directly helped our sales process in terms of pushing enterprise deals along. Having this improved UX has made a huge difference in our efforts to secure additional capital.

We’re in the process of rethinking the backend architecture to match the new UX. The design should be live in about a month.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil perform from a project management standpoint?

As a former management consultant, I’m well versed regarding project management styles, and Fresh Tilled Soil excelled in this area. They never once missed a call or email and had everything scheduled. We always knew exactly what the team was working on. The team exceeded our expectations in terms of what they were able to get done in the timeframe.

Part of why they performed so strongly was that they were extremely flexible in their communication. We used a combination of Slack, email, calls, and Skype, and they tailored their outreach to our preferences.

To augment some of this more rapid communication, they also used a formal project management tool. We had access to their project plan, and our team was able to comment on and interact with it. This multi-faceted communication approach made the project run very smoothly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The seniority of Fresh Tilled Soil’s team makes them stand out, especially in terms of their flexibility. Having experienced designers allowed them to be more dynamic and match our demanding timelines.

For example, two members of our leadership team are constantly traveling, and Fresh Tilled Soil was able to adjust quickly and stay in communication. A more junior group of designers may not have been able to do that as effectively. Fresh Tilled Soil shines with organizations that need that extra level of sophistication in their UX team.

I also really valued their holistic approach. They did an excellent job of gathering and considering multiple opinions. We had our own hypotheses going into the project, and they leveraged their expertise to elevate the conversation past our initial thoughts. What we ended up doing, based on their recommendation, was much more of a drastic, foundational change than we were anticipating, which I appreciated.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any improvements to suggest, and I don’t say that lightly. Fresh Tilled Soil is one of the few vendors I’ve been willing to jump and the phone and give a five-star referral for, and it’s because they are very good at what they do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Because their team is very experienced and effective, you should make sure to have a precise idea of what you want them to focus on. That’s how you’re going to get the most out of them. Even a small amount of prep work can go a long way in terms of saving time on the discovery phase. They will be most useful once they get to the core challenges of the project and start solving the thornier issues.

My other piece of advice for potential customers is to make sure that you’re ready for their level of expertise. This is a powerful group of UX designers who will deliver. If you’re looking to keep your budget small, there are other options for that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive VP of a computer software firm, handling a Java web app built for model-driven analytics. The app builds multi-dimensional forecasts using a full set of financial statements.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil?

Our software was developed in-house over the course of many years. We wanted a fresh set of eyes to assist with making improvements to our UI/UX.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve been working on the app for about 20 years, so it has several in-depth functionalities. When Fresh Tilled Soil came onto the project, they were challenged with familiarizing themselves with the complex, fully-developed piece of software.

Once they were up to speed, they studied the current interface and interviewed customers to find out which parts of the software needed the most improvement. In their feedback from consumers, Fresh Tilled Soil found that users didn’t want the site to be entirely redone, so the team recommended incremental design updates instead. Though that feedback was unexpected, they redesigned the site from there.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Geordie (Director of UX Strategy, Fresh Tilled Soil), Dan (New Business Strategist, Fresh Tilled Soil), a project coordinator, and another UI/UX designer.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil?

I did a web search, looking at customer reviews and talking to some of the folks who have worked with Fresh Tilled Soil. During that process, we got a good feeling about their abilities, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $100,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from March–June 2019.

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

We can’t track metrics yet, because we are in the process of implementing Fresh Tilled Soil’s recommendations. But, we are internally satisfied with their work. This was a much more difficult project than anyone expected it to be, and they were able to pull it off.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil perform from a project management standpoint?

They kept us on track and managed the project well. We primarily used Slack and Basecamp to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were always open and straightforward, owning up to any issues they ran into. We got off to a bit of a slow start, and they came to us to discuss it before we went to them­­, which was very impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would have been great if they picked up on the scope of the work more quickly, but I’m not sure there’s anything they could’ve done about that due to the complexity of the app.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and honest with them, so they understand exactly what is needed.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a product manager at a software company that deals specifically in employee communication solutions. Our primary product is digital signage.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil?

We had legacy technology that hadn’t been updated in quite a while, and we needed an external team to redo our CMS software. We wanted a partner who could look at our current system and user personas and determine how to redesign the UX/UI to make it more efficient and easier to use.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a kickoff meeting to help Fresh Tilled Soil understand our project expectations at a high level. They reviewed our workflows and conducted customer interviews, and then they began the dev from scratch. Our user base is fairly non-technical, so we wanted Fresh Tilled Soil to keep the design relatively similar while also delivering more functionalities. They did user testing and also delivered final mockups that our developers could then use to build the new CMS.

The platform manages digital signage in our end clients’ workplaces. People buy our products, which they put in their common spaces, and then they access the CMS to manage the screen’s content. Users can log in and create a piece of content that goes right onto the screen.

What is the team composition? 

They had a business developer, project manager, strategist, and two UX/UI designers.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil?

They were a referral from a previous vendor.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership lasted from November 2018–February 2019. 

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

Engaging with them saved us quite a bit of time. It would’ve taken a year or more for our internal UX/UI designer to do what they did. The design is much better than our previous platform.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil perform from a project management standpoint?

They were easy to work with and incredibly organized and detail oriented. We had an aggressive timeline, which they met, but they probably needed a bit more time to schedule their work properly. The entire team was communicative, and we used Basecamp to track project progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They didn’t just do what we asked, but they challenged us when they knew it would make for a better product. They worked to understand our business and answered all of our questions, including those about best practices and industry trends. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their documentation wasn’t as clearly organized on Basecamp as it could’ve been. They should have a single source that, at the end of the day, I can click onto to see the most recent product. The updates weren’t all consolidated in one spot.
 
Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

If possible, try to meet them in person to get to know their team. Push for good and consistent communication and share all the data you have about your product and customer base.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior business development manager for the architecture group at E Ink, which is a company that produces e-paper. In my department, we take e-paper technology and implement architectural and design installations with color changing film.

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Tilled Soil?

We do a lot of animation with the films. The film hooks up to a controller. We program the controller to do different animations and color changing sequences. It can also show parts of the film at different times.

We wanted to develop software to assist our customers with design implementations for film, limiting our involvement in the design process. We needed to create a solid and intuitive UI for our software to enhance UX.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We went over our statement of work before putting together a contract. We walked them through the setup for an architectural installation. We presented them with film, controllers, and animation files. We discussed various aspects of these components. Our target customers include designers, architects, artists, manufacturers, and glass fabricators. After discussing all of our project requirements and an acceptable end result for the software, they started work and designed the program’s interface.

The design software is a desktop application. They delivered everything at the end of December, but we had a couple phone calls afterward to add some finishing touches. Our film laminates nicely into glass and acrylics; we are seeking channel partners in fabricators who have expertise laminating materials into glass. We’re bringing them on board to help them understand our controllers and software.

What is the team composition?

A person from their team handled business development and put the contract in place during the initial phases of our collaboration. We worked with four people on the project, including a program manager, a business analyst, and two designers. One of the designers was a PC and desktop expert.

How did you come to work with Fresh Tilled Soil?

I did an internet search for companies specializing in UX and UI. We ended up interviewing four different companies. I reached out to Fresh Tilled Soil because they’re UX experts, and I had heard about them from others.

We ended up hiring them because of the way they present themselves and the results of our meeting during the interview process. They were at ease during the interview. They understood exactly what we wanted and what we were looking to accomplish. Their proposal and manner of presentation made them stand out from the other companies we interviewed.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent approximately $90,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2017 and finished collaborating in January 2018.

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

We’re still developing the software platform, so it’s hard to measure its impact. There has been a lot of feedback from potential channel partners and customers on the interface they designed; they have commented on its usability and potential.

We’re far ahead of where we would have been if we had designed the interface ourselves. Before this collaboration, our interface was not user-friendly and it did not encourage people to use the program. Now, it enables people to execute designs easily.

How did Fresh Tilled Soil perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything was excellent. During our first week collaborating, we met almost every day. Once the specifications and requirements were discussed and laid out, we had about two phone calls a week. They would update us frequently.

We worked through questions together and discussed any unexpected challenges. They would post project details on a daily blog, so we could see their activity and efficiently answer any questions. They went above and beyond my expectations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their expertise and professionalism stand out to me. They hire people with diverse skill sets. They assign a good mix of people with varied capabilities to a project, so they are able to capture every design angle and complete work efficiently.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I’m a skeptical person, and I’m typically hard to satisfy during these kinds of collaborations. However, throughout this project, I never had a moment of doubt. Whenever I had a question, they had the answer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them all your requirements upfront. Package project specifications and requirements into a statement of work, giving it as much detail as possible. They’ll be able to approach a project better and quote accurate price estimates when you give them more details.

Our statement of work was quite complete when the project started. We met with them and answered any questions they had about it. It enabled them to aggressively price the project and give us top-notch results.