Gorazdo Studio

Please describe your company and your position there.

 We are a company that makes fitness affordable and motivating through rewards and gaming.

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

With Gorazdo Studio, we created a website. We needed to create a website that fits our futuristic/metaverse theme. Our main goal was to create an interactive website that drew people in.

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

We selected this vendor through a platform known as Dribbble. When we posted our project,we received several offers. However, the main deciding factor was Gorazdo's homepage and portfolio, along with their quick response rate and willingness to make this project the best it could be.

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

During our first kick-off meeting,we wanted to create multiple pages that went into a single website. First, we proceeded with rough wireframe sketches which the team quickly created into a Figma file mockup. Then, based on the mockups, we requested edits and held check-up meetings to ensure both parties were on the same page. Once a Figma file was set, the Gorazdo team would move it on to Vercel and move the website to production.

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

We mainly worked with two people (Anna and Pavel) on a day-to-day basis, along with several other team members who are responsible for a lot of the design work.

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

After launching our website, we saw an increase in traffic along with a decent retention rate. We have about 500+ clicks per website and everyone who visits loved the website.

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

We had bi-weekly meetings (for the most part) and mainly communicated through Google Chat and Google Meet. Each meeting was held promptly usually within 24 hours of the meeting request.

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

What was really impressive with Gorazdo was their flexibility and willingness to try a brand new feature and UI/UX design.

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

Right before and after the launch, there were some bugs, which were quickly fixed once we requested the issue through Github.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a cofounder of an agricultural service company in the Regenerative Agriculture / Agroforestry space: voedselboskabouters.nl. Because of my background I'm in the one that usually gets to struggle with everything related to computers, together with another techie.

Voedselboskabouters.nl aims to create symbiosis between humanity, nature and food. We do so by helping people design and implement food forests and related agroforestry systems. It's pretty cool, and utterly relevant in the context of biodiversity loss and climate change. Check the website, it looks great now.

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

Complete makeover of our website. We had made our own website, first in Google Sites. This was great for SEO, workable for content people, and mediocre in terms of design.

To fix that the marketeers suggested to move to wordpress, and because we didn't want to spend a lot of money, we ended up with a site that was still mediocre in terms of design, but much slower, and SEO suffered. We hired Gorazdo through Squads.com and asked them to redo the design and CMS of our website to make it fast, easy to use for content people, and pleasant to look at.

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

I knew the founders of Gorazdo for several years through working with them on Squads.com (another company I'm co-founder at). They always made great points about how we could improve the website of Squads, and Dmitry (CTO of Squads) was mentioning them regularly in the context of high quality websites.

Basically I already trusted them and knew they would do a great job. It was only a matter of being able to afford them, and when they gave us a great offer, we took it eagerly.

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

The existing (wp) website contained valuable content that we needed to migrate. This would be done by non-technical people, or through a script if it was too much.

The new design would be built up of reusable elements extracted from our existing content. Some generic, some customized to our specific needs. Gorazdo recommended contentful and Jamstack to produce a fast site that we could manage the content of more easily than we could with Divi.

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

We worked with at least 4 people. Gorazdo followed the Squads model, so we talked in a chat room with the team, but we didn't have to worry about internal team roles. There was naturally design leadership and technical leadership as needed.

Other team members collaborated well, spoke up when useful, and contributed to the code. So apart from setting the agreed budget and goals, we didn't have to worry about staffing and worked with a self-organising team the whole time.

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

Now the website is at least 5x faster, and content production is half as involved. Design quality is hard to quantify, but I feel it's an order of magnitude better than the previous version.

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

Whenever we had concerns or questions, we got guidance quickly and usually the solution was better than simply doing what we asked.

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

All deliverables were coming faster than promised, and were exceeding expected quality. We never had any hint that the budget would be exceeded, and of course it never was. One time I asked for an hourly rate, out of curiosity. I got an astronomical number back (more expensive than my lawyer). They delivered extreme value for money, so I never had to care about internal costs.

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

Nothing is perfect, but I can't think of anything I would change in their approach.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Founder and Editor of Creating Freely Magazine, which is a fashion and art publication and platform that showcases emerging creatives and inspiring fashion photography.

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

I hired Gorazdo to build and design my ecommerce website. I wanted to have a gallery of photos that were linked to individual artist biography and portfolio pages, a bookstore, a blog section, and a compelling home page. I also hired Gorazdo to finalize the PDF for my print magazine. They prepared it for print and did an excellent job.

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

I selected them through the platform Dribble, and I chose them due to their updated, clean looking website design, and their top tier services and affordable prices

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

We started off with a "Zoom" video chat meeting to discuss the details of the project, and then finalized them with a simple contract. I had also given the team an organized list of how many web pages I needed, and all of the content that I wanted to put on those pages. I was then given a document with the breakdown of the project trajectory, which showed weekly and monthly tasks. The end of the document had the price summary clearly stated.

We decided on using Vercel and Shopify. We continued communicating through the platforms "Slack" and "Zoom", and stayed up to date with each other throughout the project. The beginning stages included working together on exactly what I wanted the web design to look like (identifying which styles I liked and which I did not like). We then moved on to the functions/features that I wanted to have for the launch.

I was given access to a platform called "Contentful", where I was able to begin uploading my blogs, narrations, and the content for the website biographies. I sent the team all of the website copy, photos, and credits, and they uploaded all of it.

We had frequent check ins to make sure we both liked the direction that the website was going in. After working on this together for 4 months, we completed it just in time for my December New years launch.

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

I worked with a group of creatives, and mainly communicated with 2 people: Pavel and Anna. They were the CTO and the Project Manager

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

My community loved the website and the way in which it looks and was designed. They were all excited for their website features and what my company will be able to achieve for them in the coming year. I absolutely love the design and received great feedback from my family and friends. It is exactly what I wanted, and this team was able to deliver.

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

We used Slack to keep weekly group chat conversations between all of us and were able to set up meeting when we needed to.

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

They were extremely kind, understanding, and knowledgeable. They are wonderful at explaining the process of what they are doing on the backend of the website. I also appreciate the patience I was shown with this team. The project was last minute, and I am a very particular person when it comes to details- yet Gorazdo was still able to do an amazing job and worked very well with me.

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

I would like to see a way that I can update the website copy myself, because I frequently like to improve my brand message.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a cofounder at Aequus.

For what projects/services did your company hire Gorazdo Studio?

We decided it was time for a website overhaul with a focus on a redesign which we will follow up with new copy and messaging. We hired Gorazdo to handle the redesign.

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

We are an existing partner and client of Squads (www.squads.com) and hired this team via their platform.

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

It was a very straightforward redesign. We already had an existing corp website and subsequent color scheme. We provided a related website design we liked and asked Gorazdo to use it as a guide and give us their take on a similar design.

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

Unsure. Their team lead Anna Tomova was excellent and our main point of contact.

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

It was a super smooth project. The team explained their process and schedule in advance and met all the objectives on time.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Excellent.

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

The team was excellent and the entire project very efficient and successful. They used Google Spaces to communicate and deliver updates which made things much easier than emailing back and forth. Great process. Everything was presented in Figma for quick review and easy demo of the end designs.

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

Nothing to note.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a digital recipe platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gorazdo Studio?

We needed initial app designs to sell our product to suppliers and for investment purposes.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially talked Gorazdo Studio through a scoping document detailing the 10–12 screens we wanted. These screens included a discovery section with video and images, a recipe page, and a step-by-step cooking page. They went away and came back with a quote that we greenlighted. 

From there, the Gorazdo Studio team created initial wireframes for us and we gave them some feedback to tweak them. After that, they padded up the wireframes with a bit more style and design to look like a finished app.

They did the entire design in Figma, and they built it to work on both Android and iOS. At the end of two weeks, they handed in their final delivery.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Pavel (Co-Founder & CTO) and Anna (Co-Founder & CCO). 

How did you come to work with Gorazdo Studio?

I put up a pitch on Dribbble. Gorazdo Studio was one of the providers that responded, and we liked what they said. 

We had an initial call with Pavel and Anna and walked them through what we were trying to do on a high level. Then, we went into a bit more detail on a follow-up call. 

In the end, we chose Gorazdo Studio because their interests aligned with ours. We could tell from speaking to them that they had a genuine interest in the product, in cooking, and recipes generally, and we quite liked that. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about €3,000 (approximately $3,400 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November–December 2021.

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

We’re very happy with the designs Gorazdo Studio created for us. Although we don’t have any hard metrics, we appreciated that working with them was a collaborative process that resulted in a very good product. 

How did Gorazdo Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well from a project management perspective. Gorazdo Studio stuck to the timeline; they delivered within the two weeks they initially quoted. 

We used Figma to collaborate. In terms of communication, we used Google Spaces to chat and Google Meets for calls. They were very available and had quick responses on Google Spaces, where we had an ongoing conversation throughout the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed by the speed at which Gorazdo Studio worked. Additionally, I appreciated that they were clearly passionate about food; though that’s very specific to us, it’s part of why we ended up choosing them.

We valued their strong opinions, and though we didn’t necessarily agree with all of them, they took feedback well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive feedback for them; they were very good and collaborative.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s helpful to have a scoping document that you can run through with Gorazdo Studio. We were relatively prescriptive, giving them a good foundation to work with, which they expanded with other ideas. Having examples of designs that you like from other apps or websites also helps speed things up. 

Moreover, I recommend communicating with the Gorazdo Studio team; they’re very responsive, which is an advantage of working with them.