Halo Lab

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a development platform that helps companies build social features, particularly chats and calls, into their own applications quickly and easily. We target startups and growing companies in North America that are developing online communities, healthcare apps, and online marketplaces. We also help their development teams speed up the process of building the chat features.

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We were trying to increase our conversion rate, and as part of that, we wanted to focus on youth acquisition. We had developed our current website in-house, and it had been up for over a year. Since we launched the website, we cleaned up our messaging and refined our value proposition. Thus, we wanted to redo our website to better communicate with our buyer personas, like CTOs, directors of product, and technical decision-makers. Thus, we hired Halo Lab to help us create a modern, expressive, and easy-to-understand site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab helped us redesign and redevelop our website. We worked closely together during the design process. Halo Lab showed us different versions of what our website would look like, and we picked one of those options. Then, we provided them with feedback to tweak some aspects of the design to meet our requirements. After that, they were in charge of the development process until completion.

What is the team composition?

We had two main points of contact from Halo Lab: an account manager and a product manager. Additionally, they had developers working behind the scenes, so we didn’t communicate with them.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

Halo Lab reached out to my co-founder via LinkedIn even before we decided to redo our website. Once we decided to start looking for a contractor for this project, we reached out to different companies, including those who had reached out to us in the past, and evaluated our different options.

Ultimately, we decided to go with Halo Lab because their team seemed to have high technical expertise, and it felt like they knew what they were doing. Additionally, during our call with the account manager, this person proved to be very friendly; we had a warm discussion. I also looked at their website, portfolio, and client reviews, and I was convinced that they were the perfect fit.

Still, given that they were from Ukraine and were dealing with the Russian Invasion, we hesitated a little bit because we didn’t know where the situation would go. However, they reassured us that their team was remote and had processes in place to handle any possible scenario.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $6,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We contacted Halo Lab in March 2022, started working together in early April 2022, and the project was completed within three weeks. Now, we’re ready to go live.

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

Our new website will help us project a more premium experience for our customers — a product manager friend even told us that our website looked like a million-dollar site. On this site, we were able to add our messaging and style to project this premium experience. We wanted a site that reflected who we were better, and Halo Lab successfully achieved that.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

The deadline by which Halo Lab delivered the site was exceptional, considering the situation they were going through. Throughout the development process, the product manager was very helpful and communicative. Although some things got a bit delayed during this process, we didn’t care about them because we wanted them to be done well.

Halo Lab’s overall communication was very good, too. They set expectations very well, and they were very transparent about everything. We added them to our Slack channel, and we collaborated on Figma for the design.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Halo Lab was very collaborative; it was great interacting with their team. They were a very warm group of people, and they were very involved in the process. They also had great creative ideas.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our site presented minor technical issues that I ultimately fixed because I’m the technical founder of my company, so it wasn’t a big deal. Those issues would’ve been avoided if I had had the opportunity to talk to Halo Lab’s developers. However, those were expected issues.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear with your requirements and provide specific details about your branding.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Dotcal, a scheduling platform similar to HubSpot.

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We’d worked with other designers in the past, but we weren’t happy with the templates for our booking pages. We reached out to Halo Lab for a small contract and kept extending that contract.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with template designs, but Halo Lab also helped us redesign the admin panel of our website and social media. If we asked them for a template design for a booking page, they’d rethink what a booking page could be. Then, they moved on to the UX wireframes and UI.

The booking page was a core part of our product, and we offered different UI templates to choose from.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four people from Halo Lab: two UX/UI designers, one project manager, and one business manager. We talked to the project manager every day, and we spoke to the business manager about contracts and other administrative issues.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

We knew the aesthetic we wanted as a company, so we reached out to many design firms. We came across Halo Lab on Dribbble and let their designs speak for themselves. The other design firm we considered was pretty good, but Halo Lab nailed the template designs. Since that’s the core differentiator of our company, we needed to nail it.

We gave Halo Lab a chance, and we immediately knew they were the ones we wanted to work with.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $6,000 per month with them, and we worked together for three months.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Halo Lab in mid-December 2021, and the engagement stopped in mid-March 2022. We’ve paused the work to implement everything. I fully expect us to continue working with them in the future, probably in the next couple of months. However, we’re overloaded with their designs right now.

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

We’ll launch in about a month, so we don’t have metrics to share yet. However, it was super refreshing to work with them. We’ve never had a design firm output such a high volume of high-quality work. Halo Lab made every single design in our app — they basically redesigned our whole application, except for the homepage. We thought our admin pages and dashboard were good until they redesigned them. Now, they’re just much better.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

They gave us designs and iterations every single day. It was amazing how fast they could work. We’d worked with designers that were honestly five times slower or even worse. We talked to them on Slack every day, and they gave us what they’d worked on the night before. We’re in San Francisco, and they’re in Ukraine, so they worked while we slept, and we’d wake up to new designs. We’d also go over everything in Figma.

Additionally, we had calls with them two days a week, on Monday and Friday, and shared looms back and forth if we needed. Overall, the quality of their work paired with how much they gave us. Halo Lab set a new bar for us, and we were very happy with them. They never missed a deadline, but most importantly, they gave us a higher quality product than what we expected to get. They went above and beyond, delivering more than expected.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The combination of quality and speed of work was unparalleled. We’d never seen anything like it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing off the top of my head.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be prepared to provide feedback quickly because Halo Lab works fast. Also, not talking to them every day would probably waste time. They work on a contract basis, so the minimum someone can book them for is one month. Therefore, it’s best to give them feedback and communicate in real-time. We dedicated someone on our team to talk to them, and I think we got the most out of the engagement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive of a community communications company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We needed help designing our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab did the UI/UX design for our web and mobile interfaces. We provided them with wireframes and extra documentation so they could jump-start the project.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two members of their team, including a project manager and a designer.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

I found them via Google, and we gave them the project based on their portfolio.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around $50,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January 2015–January 2020.

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

The work they did for me had my approval.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was good, and we used ClickUp as the main tool. In addition to that, we communicated via Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their design skills were outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their English communication and understanding.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of Baamboozle, a game-based learning platform. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We wanted to redesign our marketing website. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab provided two primary services over two months. During the first month, their team used our original site design and conducted market research to develop several new site concepts. Before settling on a new design, we went through several research stages — they repurposed our old site for the new design. Once the design was finalized, they spent the second month of our engagement developing the site in React. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with a designer, and a team of developers worked in the background. 

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

I posted an ad on Dribble and had over 100 applicants. I decided to hire Halo Lab because they were trending as a top design agency on Dribble and had past experience. 

How much have you invested with them?

I invested $16,000 with Halo Lab. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership with Halo Lab was from November 2021–January 2022. 

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

We’ve received Halo Lab’s deliverables, but we haven’t released them to the public yet. I have very high standards, but their deliverables completely exceeded my expectations. 

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Halo Lab had fantastic project management and was easily contactable via Slack. They provided me with daily project updates, and I was allowed as many revisions as needed. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Halo Lab delivered a unique and original design that makes my company stand out from the competition — they didn’t provide a template-based design or something trendy. Their development is world-class and perfection itself. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m very satisfied with Halo Lab, so I have nothing for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise customers to provide Halo Lab with as much constructive feedback as possible during the design process — their team listens to customers and will make drastic changes to deliver what the customer wants. It feels like they’d do anything to make customers happy. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-founder at Vondy, a software startup. Our main product is a website builder, and I largely spend my time on software development and running the company. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We hired Halo to augment our engineering efforts.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we bought Halo in to come up with more professional designs that we could incorporate by ourselves. Our team then realized how beneficial it was to keep everything within the Halo ecosystem. 

At present, their designer comes up with designs while interfacing with the project manager. That way, we don’t have to worry about the details and the communication between the designer and developer. Once the designs are good to go, their developer implements them. 

The design work is all in Figma, and we go back and forth on iterating the Figma designs. Once the designs are good, they flesh them out in the form of clickable prototypes also within Figma. On the development side, the code is on GitHub. We then collaborate on the same GitHub repository, where we can make comments and changes as we see fit.

What is the team composition?

In total, we work with four people from their team. We’ve been working with a project manager and decided to bring on an in-house Halo developer to accelerate the engineering process. We also interface with a business development representative. She’s helped us sort out the terms of our engagement in relation to the number of resources we use and how much they cost. She’s also been our point of contact for payments and administrative tasks.

To elaborate, the project manager’s role is to ensure that everything gets done. We communicate with her about timelines and project updates. Meanwhile, the designer comes up with the UI/UX designs of the app we’re building. Then, the developer implements whatever the designer comes up with; this is for frontend development — the developer mainly works on the app’s UI. 

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

Our team found Halo on Upwork. We saw their portfolio online and were impressed by their past work. Their designs caught our eyes because they were beautiful. From there, we reached out to the team. At that time, we were still in the early days of our startup, so we couldn’t afford their services. After we raised money, we got back in touch with them and sorted out an agreement. That was the start of our engagement. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $20,000–$25,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

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

Quantitative metrics are difficult to find because our app isn’t in production yet; we’re still essentially in the MVP prototyping phase. However, in the relatively short time that we’ve worked with Halo, the team has already come up with many good designs for our app. They’ve come up with 10–20 templates, and the developer has completed our entire onboarding flow within a week or less.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is a differentiating factor for Halo. For context, with our previous development agency, we had to interface with the designer and developer individually. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. As a result, when Halo told us that they’d assign a project manager to us, we were skeptical at first. We thought that things would get lost in translation. 

Luckily, they’ve assigned a solid project manager to us. She always understands the assignment and is great at communication. She ensures that everything is done well. The fact that we don’t worry about how the work gets broken up means she’s doing a great job. We simply give her a high-level view of what we want, and then we see results. She’s also extremely responsive. 

Overall, we’re paying per performer, but the price has a unique project management component built into it. In other words, we’re getting more than just simply a developer and a designer. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Halo stands out through their designs, which are beautiful. Incorporating them in our app elevates the perception of our product. In other words, bringing in the professional design team of Halo has been a worthy investment for us. Their work has resulted in a more professional-looking product. 

Moreover, their resources are creative. My co-founder and I don’t necessarily have the most concrete idea of how the product should work or what it should look like. We simply give the team our best rough idea, and they run with it. They’ve pleasantly surprised us in ways we never imagine. Overall, creative design is where they shine the most. 

Meanwhile, we’ve only started working with their developer, so we haven’t had the chance to truly understand the quality of his work. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

At least for a startup like us, Halo is on the expensive side. To be fair, the payment is worth the quality of their work; they bring in value. However, they can bring in more clients if they drop their prices a little. That way, they can appeal to a wider variety of startups.

Moreover, the whole payment process can still be streamlined. They insist on prepayment on a biweekly basis. While they’ve been flexible with us in terms of payments, we’ve still had issues with the whole fee structure. That said, this might be a problem that’s unique to a startup of our size. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re a startup that’s looking to do design and development work, it’s imperative that you leverage the whole project management component of Halo. You can gain a lot of value by keeping everything within their ecosystem. The communication between their designer and developer is seamless, and the project manager ensures that everyone’s on the same page.

More generally, it’s helpful if you can get into the weeds with them. You can mess around with the Figma design or look through the code that’s been produced. Simply put, you can get more out of their designer and developer when you speak their language. Getting into the nitty-gritty of the product is better than just verifying whether or not the app works. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a digital health startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We were developing the initial version of our product, and we needed graphic and UI design support.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab has helped us design the prototype of our product. We started the project by providing them with a product requirements document, which described all the different features and details of what we wanted to build.

Throughout the project, we would typically meet with them every day to go over the requirements, and they would get back to us with design mock-ups. After we give them feedback, they would give us the updated versions of the designs. 

The final deliverables included high-fidelity mock-ups of our feature requests.

What is the team composition?

Halo Lab assigned two project managers to our team, and they’re our main point of contact. They’re in charge of understanding the requirement documents and passing them over to their primary designer, with whom we’ve only interacted once. They also have a senior design lead, who’s in charge of making sure that their work is up to their quality standards before they pass it back to us.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

We found Halo Lab on a freelance designer portfolio website. We reached out to them via email and scheduled some initial conversations before we started working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay them $6,000 per month, so I’d say we’ve spent around $15,000 in total so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We don’t have any metrics yet, but Halo Lab has been really consistent in providing us with high-quality deliverables. Their support has been very crucial in helping us quickly get our prototype into a logical state — without their help, we’d probably be two months behind in terms of getting our product out to a bigger audience.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint

Halo Lab has performed really well in terms of project management — they deliver on time and communicate well. We have daily meetings with them, wherein we go over the requirements, features, and revisions. So far, they’ve been excellent in establishing and meeting deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The fact that Halo Lab assigned a team to us instead of a freelancer is a big differentiating factor for them. One of the advantages of working with their team is that they have a senior design lead who enforces their quality standards to make sure that the deliverables are of high quality. 

Aside from that, having their project managers analyze the requirements documents and ask clarifying questions ensures that their designer has everything they need to deliver designs that reflect our vision and makes communication between teams as smooth as it can be.

I also appreciate their effort in adding their own creative spin on the deliverables.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the beginning of the project, we had trouble getting the raw source files for the design because they wanted to stick to the payment cadence before giving us the mock-ups. This delayed our engineering efforts in the first month or two, which caused some frustration on our side. We’ve since decided to prepay them so that we could get the source files more easily.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When working with an international vendor, it’s always helpful to make sure that you’re as specific as possible with the product requirements document and your content strategy to ensure that you get what you expect.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of an emerging technologies development company that makes software suites for different companies. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We hired Halo Lab to design a website for us. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab designs the UX/UI for web pages and applications for my company. After we provide a basic design framework, they create landing page designs and UI mockups for web applications we develop. Usually, the designs are made in Figma. Halo Lab also help us improve our color palette and branding materials, including our logos and iconography. Once the designs are complete, my team goes in and develops them. 

What is the team composition?

We usually work with three teammates from Halo Lab, including a project manager and 2–3 designers. 

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

I found Halo Lab on Clutch.co. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $22,000 with Halo Lab. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Halo Lab in April 2021 and our engagement is ongoing. 

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

I really like the work Halo Lab has done so far, and we’ve gotten positive feedback about the web pages they’ve designed. Halo Lab does high-quality work, and I’m 100% satisfied with their deliverables. 

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Halo Lab always hits schedules and stays within budget; we’ve never had any concerns about their project management. We use Slack to communicate regularly and then use email for billing. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate that Halo Lab doesn’t need a lot of creative direction when starting a project. They can take a basic concept and turn it into what a client wants without much client oversight. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing for Halo Lab to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise customers to have their concepts written down so there is documented information for Halo Lab to follow. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of an internet software company. We provide media and commerce tools to fashion brands, creators, and media publishers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We engaged with them for frontend development for our web applications. We were short-staffed, and we needed a quick turnaround time on this.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab builds on top of what we already had, so we’ve provided a lot of documentation.

What is the team composition?

Initially, we had one developer and one project manager. Now, we have two developers and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

We reached out to them and a couple of other agencies and individuals with good experience and a frontend work portfolio compatible with our technology stack. Halo Lab seemed highly skilled based on their previous work, and their cost was within our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent $50,000–$60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

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

I don’t know if there’s anything relevant.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been pretty satisfactory. We usually communicate via Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their cost makes them stand out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The developers can improve their experience level. Also, there are some improvement areas in their project management. I think they can perform better or provide a much cleaner process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Provide the acceptance criteria of every task and as much documentation as you can.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of a social media platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We needed their team to rebuild our UI/UX.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab has initially launched a brainstorming phase to propose mood boards to our team and examine our platform’s current design. Upon accomplishing this, they’ve fully redesigned our UI/UX by building enterprise-grade solutions. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve mainly worked with their product manager.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

We found their team via Dribbble. Halo Lab had an extensive portfolio and knowledge base that motivated us to choose them among their competitors.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $36,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Halo Lab started in June 2021.

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

Halo Lab has successfully devised and deployed the exact design features we’ve had in mind. We can’t thank them enough for making our website professional and engaging at the same time.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Slack and conduct regular check-in meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with Halo Lab’s ability to scale their team up and down to accommodate our design needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are times when they don’t deliver each solution precisely on the first try, but that’s understandable.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give clear instructions — this is an important step to lead a smooth and successful process.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a lead product manager at an e-commerce software company. We offer a rapid check-out solution for the internet. Shoppers can go to any online retailer that uses our checkout technology and their purchase will be one-click. The best comparison is to Amazon’s “Buy-Now” Button. This purchases the item for you without having to fill out long forms with your name, address, and billing information.

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We needed to quickly produce a lot of new designs for our web pages. Our web pages had been built early on, and we wanted to do an extensive overhaul regarding design and content. The necessary resources weren’t present internally, so we reached out to Halo Lab.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab ended up designing over 20+ pages for our site.

I created a project brief that gave the background of what we wanted to accomplish. Inside the project brief were different smaller design briefs for various sections. We broke the work into 10 different phases, and each phase included the personas we were speaking to with our content, what problems we were trying to solve, and any business constraints on the content.

What is the team composition?

Our initial contact was Anastasia (Sales Manager), who handled contacting and billing. Once we were underway, we worked with a dedicated project manager and a designer.  

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

Our head of design found them online and liked their portfolio.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $1,200.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October–November 2021.

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

As we were working through the designs, we realized we had to produce a few new web pages that weren’t originally in the scope. This came about in a short time frame because we were launching a special functionality in our product.

We gave Halo Lab these additional requirements and received the deliverables in less than a week. Without Halo Lab, this would have taken us a lot longer to create.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

We were always kept in the loop with the latest updates; I always knew what was going on. Halo Labs’ team worked within our preferred design system, which allowed us to collaborate and track progress. Some design agencies don’t want you to see how they do their work, but Halo Lab was perfectly fine giving us more control over the process, ensuring all components were easy to implement down the road.

There were daily check-ins over slack, as well as periodic Zoom meetings. These meetings would take place during the morning for me and the evening for them, as they’re in Ukraine and I’m on the east coast of the United States. In terms of personnel, their project manager would receive our feedback and translate it for the designer.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The flexibility they delivered to our unique situation stood out. Additionally, they were very quick to respond to feedback.

Finally, they leveraged their design experience to create better solution options for us to choose from than what we initially intended.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They weren’t used to working in another company’s design system, so it took time to get them familiarized with ours. Most companies design from scratch, but we have a set of templates and patterns that we use. After a bit of back and forth, Halo Lab performed well in our established environment.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you have very specific objectives in mind and an idea of what problems you want to solve, and what, generally, you want to speak to, then you’re in good shape. If there’s not enough content in the brief, then it’s going to be hard for Halo Lab to design a product that solves your issue. Define what success looks like upfront.

Additionally, if you need a designer to sit with your team and create in real-time, then the time difference might be an issue.