HUSL Digital

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing for a SaaS startup. We help companies secure their data in the public cloud by providing tools to help them optimize their resources, save money, and grow their business.

What challenge were you trying to address with UpTrending?

We needed a long-term partner to handle all of our digital needs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

So far, UpTrending has provided a variety of services that focus on improving client outreach, attracting new prospects, and finding markets with an interest in cloud management. One of their main projects was a website redesign. Their team built a WordPress site that shares relevant information and content and helps our customers make informed purchasing decisions. They were involved in the design, development, and production of the site and its various modules and functionalities. One of our most complex features is a comprehensive library for information on cloud management. The functionality runs smoothly and has a very user-friendly operational flow.

Following the build phase, UpTrending implemented digital marketing and SEO strategies that target anyone looking for cloud management solutions. They optimized the frontend and backend in terms of search performance to rank above competitors. Additionally, they also designed the backend to accommodate for easy maintenance. As our company continues to evolve, we want our internal team to be able to handle updates and scaling processes.

Currently, our relationship with UpTrending includes an ongoing management program, security processes, continued feature development, and SEO maintenance. With their development efforts and support, we’re constantly rolling out new updates.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is a digital project manager, who works with a background team of resources.

How did you come to work with UpTrending?

I inherited the relationship from our company’s previous digital team. When I was brought on, we did a total review of our business relationships and I found UpTrending to be extremely beneficial. At that point, I not only decided to continue our engagement, but increased their role in our company.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $5,000 a month on a monthly retainer with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2017 and the partnership is ongoing.

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

We launched the website in tandem with the announcement of our first private equity investment. UpTrending delivered a professional website that reflected the importance of that flagship product. It really set a benchmark for our online identity. We’ve received compliments from all of our partners, specifically on the design and functionality of the content library feature.

How did UpTrending perform from a project management standpoint?

We schedule weekly meetings to discuss the project, completed work, and what our next steps should be. UpTrending comes to those meetings prepared with recommendations to improve both the process and our product. The project manager and the team are valuable resources for us.

Mainly, we track the engagement through Basecamp. They are extremely responsive, upbeat, and detail-oriented in their work and documentation processes. It feels like we’re working with a true partner, rather than an outsourced team. Despite the difference in time zones, there is never a delay or gap in communication. I also really appreciate their gentle encouragement when our end is lagging on a certain task.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really appreciate their ability to explain technical terms in an accessible way. They always communicate their processes using digestible and business-focused language. Overall, UpTrending acts as a virtual partner for our company. They guide our digital brand identity through effective design and communication strategies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In general, I advise that clients clearly define their purpose and end goal, without worrying about their competitors. Focus on creating a clear channel for communication with the targeted audience through a cohesive brand, not just a pretty website.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the co-founder and CEO of ShipHawk. We're a transportation management system.

What challenge were you trying to address with UpTrending?

We needed a company to help us revamp our website and build a CMS on the backend.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They completely redesigned our website and built a WordPress backend. They use mostly HTML and CSS, but they've also used PHP on the backend. They continue to provide ongoing maintenance and take on new projects related to our website and CMS.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a project manager and other members of their team.

How did you come to work with them?

Their presentation was the best and made them stand out among competitors.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between December 2015–May 2016.

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

They delivered everything on time and on budget. Also, they're clear and transparent in their communication. The quality of their work is excellent and we always get what we expect.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

They use Basecamp, so we can see all the contributions from their team and talk to designers or developers. We also use email when we need to reach them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're professional and consistently deliver a high-quality product. They know what they're doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear in your instructions. If they fully understand your needs, they can give you a better a product.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the content manager at a venture capital firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with UpTrending?

We contracted with UpTrending to build an email template and integrate it with MailChimp. Additionally, we asked them to build a landing page for our newsletter archive, along with other individual pages.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our first step was designing the email template and seeing how the newsletter would look in that form. UpTrending designed and built that out, implementing it with MailChimp at the end. The template stayed congruent with the style guidelines we have in place for our website. They never presented us with a design option that didn’t match our expectations.

Once we settled on the email template, they designed the landing page for our newsletter archives. Once a visitor reaches that page, they can click on any number of links to view previous newsletters, which is each housed on a different page we asked UpTrending to build. They developed the code for those pages and delivered a system that was clean and easy to integrate on our end.

UpTrending also orchestrated a round of user testing for us, which included determining the target audience, drafting questions, and finding a company to administer the test. Upon completion, UpTrending presented us with the results and with recommendations to consider based on the feedback.

What is the team composition?

I interfaced with a project manager, a designer and a developer. 

How did you come to work with UpTrending?

I found them via online search. I interviewed seven companies, and UpTrending was the most responsive during the proposal process. They asked insightful questions to learn more about us. They offered a reasonable price, and I felt confident in their ability.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $60,000-$75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement started in October 2017. The bulk of the design and development work was completed by February 2018. At that point, we conducted the user testing, which prompted further changes. Our website launched mid-June 2018.

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

We’ve heard nothing but positive feedback about how the email newsletter looks and how easy it is to navigate. We experienced constant growth of our subscriber base since the launch of the newsletter, and we’re seeing a very low attrition rate.

How did UpTrending perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager was completely organized and kept us on track. After every meeting, he’d summarize the next steps and follow up with the appropriate members of his team. He made our lives much easier. The designer would challenge our ideas and collaborate with us to find the right fit for what we wanted.

Overall, they were tremendous communicators. We operated out of Basecamp, Slack, and emails. Our team made a lot of last-minute changes, and they were flexible to accommodate them. Everything on their end stayed on time, even if I can’t say the same for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They treated our priorities like their priorities. They delivered like they were members of our own team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They performed really well overall, but there were still a few bugs that made it to me through their QC testing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Grappos, a private technology company headquartered in Spartanburg, SC. We provide product locator and demand-tracking services to alcohol producers and distributors.

What challenge were you trying to address with UpTrending?

To keep pace with rapid growth, we needed to tap into outside help to overhaul the site. We needed to make enhancements to become more relevant to our broader customer base, modernize the design, and improve our mobile experience.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

UpTrending redesigned our brand identity and website, and they overhauled the backend to ensure that all existing systems were compatible with the new site and services. They created a site that was easy for our team to manage and maintain post-launch. They had a robust team working on the project, including writers, designers, developers, and a project manager. 

For the brand identity change, we wrote up where we had been and what we were hoping to do. We gave them some general thoughts and just let them go for it. They came back with half a dozen or more options, which we refined over time.

When our new website was complete, UpTrending had rebuilt everything so it was mobile-friendly, looked great, placed more of a focus on new business and gave us a framework that we are still building on.

How did you come to work with UpTrending?

At the time we began our first project with UpTrending, the company was based in San Jose, CA. We were looking for a digital agency with a local office and bid the project out to several firms. UpTrending was immediately impressive and out-classed the competition

How much have you invested with UpTrending?

We’ve done three projects with them so far, totaling just over $70,000. We have just briefed them on another project, on which we expect to spend between $35,000 and $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve just begun the most recent project, which should take about 10 weeks to complete.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

The feedback from clients and users has been fantastic. Sales, unique page views, organic search, and session duration have all increased as a result of the improved design.

Our previous site was not mobile-friendly, so we lost out on a lot of search traffic. Since UpTrending rebuilt all of our services to be responsive, our mobile usage has more than tripled.

How did UpTrending perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, UpTrending is terriffc. They are responsive, and it’s always clear where things stand.

What did you find most impressive about UpTrending?

The most impressive part about working with UpTrending is their willingness to thoroughly understand our business and help us plan for the future.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a company in the growing space of self-service data preparation and big data analytics. My position in the company is as head of product marketing, entailing website design, development, strategy, and branding.

What challenge were you trying to address with UpTrending?

As a small startup in the B2B space, we don’t have the ability to hire an in-house web designer and developer; it’s just not a good use of our headcount. UpTrending is a good fit for us because they give us the ability to scale up resources as needed in a very flexible manner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The main point of our website is about awareness: our ability to provide content, tell the story of our company, the problem we’re trying to solve, the background of the company, and how we create value for customers. This is really critical in order to establish our brand in the analytics industry. In addition to that, providing content, collateral, and free downloads of our software is a big way of creating lead generation. The website is on WordPress.

UpTrending’s resources have fluctuated over the time I’ve been at the company. Generally, we have a project manager that handles the relationship with the design and development resources. The project manager estimates hours and deals with any issues. We also get a developer physically assigned that works on coding up all the things on the website that we need to be done, and a designer who helps with laying out wireframes and digital design work on different graphics and elements that we use on the website. Depending on the time of the engagement, we’ve also had digital advertising strategists working with us, and an account manager who manages the business relationship we have with them.

Digital marketing and advertising strategy are definitely areas they’re trying to move into. They have helped us with our digital advertising strategy and in managing the budget of that. Additionally, they have helped us add more fine-grained tools on the website which can give us an understanding of how it is performing.

Everyone has Google Analytics and things like that, but they have guided us to go a little deeper with tools like Hotjar, which allows us to see where people are browsing on specific pages, where they’re clicking, and where we might need to look at redesigning or rethinking certain content.

How did you come to work with UpTrending?

UpTrending was the company that was already in place for website development and design when I joined. It wasn’t my decision to choose them.

How much have you invested with UpTrending?

We do around 75 hours a month with them on a retainer basis. They charge based on the volume of hours you need; some months we’ll ramp up, and some we’ll ramp down. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I joined the company in May 2014. When I got here, they were working on ongoing edits and maintenance to the site. We did a redesign with them in October 2015, and that was a big effort. We were working on such a tight timeline that I wanted to bring an outside designer into the project to make sure we hit the deadline. It was an impossible project, and we all were worn out at the end of it, but they worked really diligently to help hit the deadline and get to where we needed to get to. Since then, the work has been ongoing as we’ve constantly been adding to the site, refining it, and doing a lot of work.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We get a lot of compliments on our site nowadays. The industry that we’re in doesn’t have a lot of well-designed sites. UpTrending has found a niche in the data analytics industry, helping companies level up the visual and brand appearance of their company online. They’ve had a lot of success doing that for companies in the B2B space. It’s a good trait for them to have.

When I started here, our site was interesting but it didn’t really serve any business purposes. We’ve gone through a big transformation, keeping the design aesthetic and initial look and feel of the brand, and making our website, content, and branding more business oriented in order to help us move from an interesting, early stage startup to more of a well-defined business that’s presenting themselves in a very professional manner.

UpTrending’s ability to manage design, development, and hosting is incredibly nice to have, and I think it’s actually critical for companies. If you hire a one-person design or development shop, they won’t be able to scale up to what you need them to do and they also have other clients, so it becomes a pain. UpTrending’s model works really well for us, especially as we scaled up.

If we need to get a project done, they can bring in other designers and developers. That flexibility is really critical for where we’re at as a business, and a lot of other growing technology companies would benefit from that model as well.

How did UpTrending perform from a project management standpoint?

We set a six-week redesign phase. Redesigns, especially with the timeline and resources we had, are always very difficult processes. It was an impossible deadline, but we were able to get this thing live without a lot of errors. It was a pretty incredible task. I appreciate that they took the project head-on. It was not easy for both sides, but they got through it with a lot of late nights and early mornings. You can appreciate a consultant who is willing to put in the extra time to make something successful, even if it’s a nearly impossible project. In the startup industry in Silicon Valley, it’s always like that, and UpTrending knows it and is willing to put in the extra effort to make things happen.

When working with consultancies, you always have delays and things of that nature, but we’re fairly happy with their ability to finish projects in a timely manner and within the budgeted number of hours that we agreed upon ahead of time.

What did you find most impressive about UpTrending?

At UpTrending, you’re not going to find the absolute best design & development resources but the team they do have is very good and efficient. However, for where we are as a business and where we need to be, they are the right fit for us. The work is high quality, it has the style that we need, and the brand is visually what we need to present. The development work is great as well; everything is not breaking and nor do we have to do a tremendous amount of QA to it. I think that’s important.

Are there any areas UpTrending could improve?

We will sometimes ask, “What do you think we should do with our website?” or “From a strategy perspective, what should our long-term roadmap be?” They struggle a little bit with the strategy angle in terms of giving us an idea of where we should be. I think it’s something that they recognize and that they’re working on, but that would be one area of improvement I would point out for them.

A lot of businesses don’t really need that when working with them, and I don’t think we really need it either, but their ability to provide that would definitely be an added benefit to clients and another revenue opportunity for them as well, which I think is important.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m president and CEO of Veriflow, which is a private, venture-backed technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. We focus on helping enterprises and service providers reduce or eliminate outages and vulnerabilities in their networks.

What challenge were you trying to address with UpTrending?

We didn’t have a website or any web presence. We didn’t even have a logo or anything, basically. We were in stealth mode at the time.

What was the scope of their involvement?

UpTrending did the design and development for our informational website. They also designed our logo, letterhead, business cards, and a PowerPoint template—all the things to give us a corporate look and feel. We had a full team from UpTrending working on our project, including a salesperson, a project manager, a couple developers, and an analytics person. The site is built on WordPress. After the first project, they worked with us again to make updates to the site.

How did you come to work with UpTrending?

I got a referral. I looked at a couple different agencies at the time.

How much have you invested with UpTrending?

I think it we spent around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February of 2016, and the second project was completed in November of 2016.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I don’t have analytical data, but I can say that many people have commented on the site. They think it’s very sophisticated, well thought through, and easy to use. It projects the image and the messaging that we’re trying to get across. We had some initial bugs, but they worked through that.

How did UpTrending perform from a project management standpoint?

They did great. They met all requirements.

What did you find most impressive about UpTrending?

The design they came up with is very clean and contemporary. It demonstrates cutting-edge visuals. Everything was really good.

Are there any areas UpTrending could improve?

I can’t think of anything.