IMADO

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm launching a freelance consulting business for digital marketing serving Toronto.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I hired IMADO for help designing a custom WordPress theme based on my wireframes, as well as guidance with managing my site through WordPress post-launch (security/privacy, technical maintenance, etc.) My goals were to build a strong website foundation that's scalable with where I'd like to take my consulting business and do it within a month while keeping total cost underneath $1,000USD

SOLUTION

How did you select IMADO and what were the deciding factors?

I selected IMADO after finding them on Google and comparing their offer against the other web design/development agencies. As a marketer, I often evaluate the companies I want to work with based on their portfolio and professional presentation is.

In IMADO's case their own website has a very sleek, modern, and rich design, as well as an impressive portfolio that very much aligned with my own personal design tastes and preferences. This, along with the lower than anticipated quote (only $740USD), made it easy to decide that they would be best suited to bring my project to life.

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

First was the initial discovery phase where I sent over my wireframes, outlined my goals, and was provided a quote. Then we moved through to agreeing on terms, I granted IMADO the relevant credentials they'd need to stat (WP access, server access, etc.), and I shared my brand guidelines and site inspirations.

I also paid the initial 40% of our agreed scope through Paypal to initiate the project. Then IMADO provided me with their initial design proposal for the pages I needed (shared with Invision), I gave feedback, and they adjusted accordingly. After a final review, I approved the designs and we moved on to coding.

The coding period was the most time-intensive and took 12 days from design approval to sharing the dev site with me. I outlined my final items of feedback in a Google Docs sheet, and IMADO actioned everything within a day. I then paid the remaining 60% of our scope. IMADO migrated the site back over to my server and sent me my invoices, site speed tests, and some tips for installing tracking.

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

Only one, who I believe was the project manager for my account.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This was a website build for a brand new site that has yet to go live, so my main measurable outcomes for this project were to come in under my $1,000USD budget and under timelines (less than a month).

IMADO achieved both with ease. Each deliverable I received was polished, well designed, and up to a high professional standard. I was very satisfied with the quality of each delivery, and would only need to give minor style feedback rather than important structural changes.

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

It was very pleasant and easy communicating with my representative from IMADO. She was always very clear and concise whenever I asked about next steps or had a technical development question. We communicated through the same email thread, and timelines were always clear.

Every deliverable was on time, and turnaround times on any feedback I provided were always very quick, usually within 1 business day.

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

Not only were they were able to craft a beautiful, modern site that really exceeded my design and technical expectations, but they were transparent about the whole process and pleasant to deal with - all while still coming in well under my budget for this project. As a marketer, that value proposition was unbeatable.

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

The only issue I noticed (and I flagged to IMADO) was that my staging/dev site was indexed on Google. It's not a big deal as my site hasn't officially launched yet, but I'd still prefer not to have an unfinished version of my site appear on the SERP.