Impekable

Please describe your company and your position there.

Mythic Markets is a marketplace that allows anybody to invest in fractional shares of their favorite pop culture assets. I am the co-founder & CEO of the company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Impekable?

We needed to build a demo of an upcoming product for testing in the market. All existing engineering resources were assigned to other projects and we needed outside help on this new prototype.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a mobile web app built quickly to demonstrate a new product to our stakeholders.

How did you select this vendor?

Referral from one of their existing clients. We considered using internal resources to build this, but didn't have the capacity at the time.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project is a prototype of a trading product we're developing. Our design team provided the front end UX design, visual assets, and specs, and Impekable's engineering team implemented them (front end only).

What was the team composition?

Our product team primarily liaised with a project manager and engineering lead. I believe these resources interacted with additional resources internally at their studio. Although I'm not sure how many resources were involved in total, the size of the team we interacted with did not change.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We needed to create a working prototype to demonstrate a future product for our stakeholders. We'll be demoing in the coming weeks, but it's likely have a major impact on the future of the business.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We kicked off with an intro call, set weekly check-ins, approved timelines and set the order for which pieces to build. The team was extremely responsive to any and all requests, especially during Q/A. We used Zoom, ClickUp, Github, and Google sheets.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team was very responsive and worked quickly. Time was of the essence in our interaction with Impekable and they turned our project around quickly, and within budget.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We noticed that our company's name was misspelled in the URL and title of the product. An easy mistake and an easy fix, but the devil is in the details.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Base10 Genetics, a precision medicine company that provides a genomic-driven health program for large insurance payers and their patients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We were looking to develop a web application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In addition to conducting research to pinpoint our market and end-customer, Impekable assisted us in some of our business decisions. They then created multiple frameworks and concepts for us to choose from. 

Using programming languages such as HTML and Java, the team did concept, coding, backend, frontend, and design work to arrive at the finished product. They integrated Stripe and Salesforce into the overall web app as well.

What is the team composition?

Besides Pek (CEO) and the project manager, there were about five people working on the project, including UX and other designers, and programmers.

How did you come to work with Impekable?

Unlike other companies we interviewed, they really wanted to understand our situation and evaluate if their services were even needed before walking us through a very complex process in a satisfactory way.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2017—April 2018.

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

We had roughly 500 users within the first few months after we launched the website, and we received a lot of good feedback. The users loved the design and flow, finding the app to be intuitive. 

There were very few crashes. My backend team reported on average only 3–4 crash tickets per month in the first few months the website was live, and those were minor fixes. Impekable has a multi-talented development team that seems to understand a lot of different platforms. 

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

With a 24–48-hour turnaround most of the time, they’re very responsive. Communication was clear and frequent, and they were organized. When they missed deadlines, they were proactive in updating me and took financial ownership. Additionally, they completed 90% of tasks on time and within budget, which is rare.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team was professional and worked fast — an advantage in the startup world. It felt like working with an internal team rather than a vendor. After the project was completed, they even followed up with us to see how things were going.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no suggestions. I’m a satisfied customer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know your customer. They will help you target your market well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a mobile marketplace that empowers schools to be able to fundraise more efficiently and effectively, and I’m the CEO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We were looking to build a platform that would allow transactions to occur for product discovery and provide an environment with everything that you would need for standard marketplace offerings.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The platform itself is supposed to be custom but is currently built on Magento. The unique features that we offer include the media division of our company where brands are buying and placing advertisements, as well as a locker delivery and parts delivery system. We needed those to be totally custom for each consumer and provide strong visibility into the data and analytics of their content.

What eventually happened was that we realized they significantly underbid the project in order to get our business. In the initial meetings, we thought they might just have had a really efficient process, but as soon as we sent our first deposit over things started to change pretty rapidly.

Their team immediately pushed us toward off-the-shelf projects instead of custom-built ones. That would have been fine if those had delivered the functionality we needed, but they ended up being incredibly limiting to what we were able to offer our customers.

What is the team composition?

When we first started there was one project engineer in the US and a team of five offshore, and we’ve increased or decreased that number depending on how much work we had to do.

How did you come to work with Impekable?

We did some research online and found their company on Clutch, which convinced us that they would be a good fit for our project.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, the cost of the project was projected to be $176,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in July 2018, and things are not going very well so we have not officially wrapped up the project as of yet.

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

Ultimately, we ended up with barely 5% of the operational capacity that we were planning to offer and are looking at shutting down the business for the moment. For example, they gave up on enabling Bluetooth capability pretty early on, and the backed where customers should be able to log in and see the data of where they are spending money with us looks absolutely nothing like the wireframes that we gave them.

Their platform doesn’t have the capabilities we need and barely provides the functions it does have. We ended up with a marketplace app that doesn’t even have a tracking function, and because of that, we are going to have to spend a lot more money completely redeveloping a whole new platform.

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

We had meetings and were constantly being updated on what was going on, but the number of missed deadlines was unbelievable. The whole process was supposed to take 6 months, and we ended up launching after a year. Even then, the scope had been scaled down tremendously just to be able to launch the app at all.

At one point they even admitted to us that they were underwater on the project and didn’t even want to develop it anymore. They claimed that they could develop the custom features we originally wanted but quoted us a price at that point of almost $1,000,000, which was much higher than what we could have gotten at a different agency.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Honestly, I wish there were some positive feedback I could give them, but it’s negatives all around. We gave them a lot of ground in terms of giving up elements of the scope in order to launch on time, and even then, they missed deadlines and offered only band-aid solutions to the problems the platform had.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think the biggest step they could take to improve would just be to have transparency around the scope and quoting at the beginning of the project. The wireframes that we offered them were detailed enough that everyone bidding should have known exactly what we needed and how much it would take to build.

It would have saved everyone an incredible amount of money if, when they lost their first project manager the first month in, they had been able to admit that they made a mistake and weren’t going to be able to produce the app for the cost they had quoted us originally. Just explaining that they needed to use solutions that would pigeonhole our capabilities would have put us in a much better position entirely.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Walk through your whole plan incredibly carefully. They have a skillset of knowledge that you don’t have, but it’s up to you to make sure they stick to the milestones you have on a weekly basis. As soon as those start to get missed you have to treat that as an immediate red flag instead of letting it go and letting things snowball into a much larger problem.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a venture-backed technology company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We focus on machine learning algorithms and AI solutions development. When we find companies with expertise in other areas, we tend to leverage them

What was the scope of their involvement?

Impekable built an SDK for our software application using Twilio’s API. Their team developed a feature for receiving text messages and web chat capabilities. Mostly, their team worked on the backend, but they also designed the actual chat and text icons.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 3–4 people from Impekable. My central point of contact was Pek (CEO, Impekable). Our product officer was in contact with another individual.

How did you come to work with Impekable?

Twilio recommended Impekable to us. Their methodology and familiarity with the Twilio API are what attracted us to them. They provided a workshop before we engaged, which I found useful.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in August 2019. We received the finished product in November but plan to continue working with Impekable.

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

We’ve been testing the product extensively and have been satisfied with their work. Their methodical approach combined with their experience make them an ideal developer to contract.

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

We had regular calls, updates, and demos, so we always knew what was happening throughout the entire process. We shared a Google sheet to track the project. We had specific goals and timelines that were met. If an issue came up, Impekable informed us immediately. Their team was always available.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overall, it was a positive experience and I’ve had some terrible experiences in the past. It was a pleasure to work with Impekable. Their team was professional and skilled in their craft. We will continue to work with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I wouldn’t have changed anything. They’ve got a good take on how to approach and manage a project as well as expectations to deliver successful results.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have dedicated points of contact on both sides.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the data science lead at a research company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We needed help taking our MVP product—a web app—and bringing its frontend up to production quality.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Impekable started the redesign process by leading user interviews and user testing sessions. After looking at our initial drafts and mapping the user journey, their team delivered design mockups with clickable screens. They used Sketch and InVision to provide these mockups.

How did you come to work with Impekable?

We chose Impekable based on their portfolio as well as feedback from their clients and providers in the same space. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from March until October 2019.

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

Based on the user testing, Impekable took a complicated idea and turned it into screens that look simple and easy to use.

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

Impekable did a great job. They took our rough ideas and dove deeper, showing their understanding of our domain very well. We used a project management tool and Google Hangouts to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to pivot and turn around new ideas quickly stood out to me. In general, Impekable’s customer service was very good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Impekable could do better to leverage their experience with prior clients and get our project started faster. I’d also appreciate it if they were more willing to break out of traditional workflows to work more flexibly with us.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Panasonic Beta is an innovation incubator of Panasonic.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We wanted to develop a design system so that we could produce digital products for other organizations. After struggling to find a solution in-house, we looked to a third party to help us complete the project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Impekable is helping us create a design system. By the time their team came on board, we had already created a few design initiatives. They produced a few design options as well, and we worked together to select the best fit for the platform. They are currently implementing the design on the frontend of the system. Impekable is building the platform in Node.js and managing the content with Wagtail.

What is the team composition?

We worked closely with their senior product manager, who oversaw a team of 10 developers and designers.

How did you come to work with Impekable?

They are based in our area, so we were already aware of their presence within the developer community. When we decided to outsource our project, they were one of the first names mentioned. Meeting their team, and getting a glimpse of their past work assured us that they would be a great fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project is ongoing.

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

We are delighted with the work that they have delivered so far. Impekable is doing a phenomenal job transforming our abstract vision into a functioning web product.

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

Their workflow is incredibly efficient. The design tools that they use make it simple to manage and share design files. We met their design team every week before they started executing the project; however, we have only met their development team via online video services. Phone, email, and Slack are other methods that we use to communicate. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team at Impekable is deadline-driven, but they always take time out of their schedule to make sure that our needs and wants are fulfilled. Their open and honest communication is the foundation of their success. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Impekable should consider giving their clients permission to view and edit files at the beginning of the process. Having access to the material helps us track their progress. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a subdivision of a water treatment company, that builds swimming pool equipment for residential and commercial use. I’m the product manager of this business unit, and I take care of connected devices and our IoT product line.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

Since this is an IoT product line, we had five to six different apps doing single features. Those apps were slow and old-looking in terms of UI, making it hard for users to figure out what to do. They weren’t designed with UX in mind, so our customers were complaining about having to click through a lot of places to figure out how to control equipment.

We reached out to Impekable to see if they could help us consolidate all those apps into one and make it look more modern, basically improving the whole UX.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The vision for this app is around anything that has to do with the water products made by our company. Anything to do with a user’s swimming pool equipment—like their pumps, heaters, mechanical generators, filters, water softeners, and so on—can be controlled through the app. We’re working with Impekable to design and develop both mobile and web apps for both iOS and Android platforms.

We started off with just one mobile app, looked at its performance, and then assigned the web apps and a bit of the admin dashboard to Impekable. We began with just a design process, and they’re handling development as well now. In fact, we’re thinking of hiring them to do some project management for us as well.

Our company doesn’t have mobile and backend development resources, so Impekable has been a subject-matter expert in helping us pick the right technology. We chose the React Native platform for developing the apps, Jira for project management, InVision for reviewing and putting comments on designs, and Zeplin to transfer assets from designers to developers. They’re working with us now to set up a CI/CD process using Jenkins.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with a couple of UX designers, one user testing expert, four to five developers, and one project manager. 

How did you come to work with Impekable?

Being a large corporation, our company has been exposed to a lot of developers. We’ve worked with large agencies, but the outcomes haven’t been favorable. I had worked with Impekable’s CEO in a previous engagement so, when I came to the company a year back, I felt the need to bring in a design firm that could work with us, understand our problems, and recommend a solution that fit out needs.

Having had a great experience with them before made me feel that Impekable would be the right pick for us, so I made introductions and we went through an extensive vetting process. They came out from that process with A+ ratings, so we engaged with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Impekable six months ago. 

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

My company doesn’t have the skillsets to develop mobile apps or backend systems, so Impekable has now become our trusted partner. They’ve been developing apps for top companies, so they’ve adopted the right processes to deliver fast and stable solutions. They’re currently helping us transition from being a mechanical company to being a software one. Overall, they’ve gained our trust and over delivered on what was expected, so we’re comfortable in escalating our involvement with them.

It’s been a long, six-month journey, but we’re close to the finish line, and we’re eager to get the product launched. 

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been an impeccable experience—the name of the company says it all. I believe there were five or six product managers involved in some multimillion product lines. There were a lot of strong forces, and it was amazing to see how Impekable’s designers got everything in order and took us close to the finish line. There was a lot of attention to detail in place as well, and they used the right processes for this project. I think they did a really good job of setting us up to be successful. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

This was a huge project, and we’ve worked with not only Impekable but also other developers, designers, and consulting firms. When another team needed them, Impekable was ready to get to work and help out. Conversely, other consulting firms told us we didn’t know what we were doing, which we knew, given that we’re not a technology company. It was amazing to see them help us through this journey. They led us to be successful, rather than have complaints.

They have a proven process to deliver apps on time, and they’re willing to share it with companies like ours. That was important for us to be successful in this project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a lot of surprises when it came to billing, so that process could be more refined, especially for a company like ours. We knew what we wanted, but we didn’t know how to get there, and this process ended up being expensive for us. Had Impekable given us a different, better engagement model rather than just an hourly rate, it would’ve been a win-win situation for us. Their engagement model is probably just an hourly rate, but I believe they’d stand to gain from a project-based one.

They’re also too distributed. Most of our organization was done over the phone, and it would’ve been good to have more face-to-face discussions. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product management for a world leader in printed electronics. We provide smart solutions for brand protection and customer engagement. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We work in the nearfield communication (NFC) area, a technology that’s ever-present today in products such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. We’re trying to bring it to everyday items and turn normal products into smart products so that users can then interact with those and for brands to have a channel through which to reach out to consumers. This would be through the use of an NFC chip that we manufacture. 

We wanted to provide a platform where brands could manage these digital experiences, including the digital activation of their products and data insights on those. We reached out to Impekable for this purpose. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Impekable has helped us rebuild our customer application from scratch, tackling both web and mobile versions. The web app is meant for brands while the mobile apps are for the customers of those brands. NFC communication on Android doesn’t require external apps; those are only required on certain iOS devices, and Impekable helped us out in this regard.

Given that NFC is a relatively new technology, we create prototypes and demos from time to time. These are concepts that we put in front of brands, demonstrating what kind of experience can be driven when someone interacts with a product. For example, someone in a store could receive a coupon, learn a story, or be given some information. Impekable has helped us ideate and develop some of these concepts, as well as create high-fidelity images. 

Furthermore, Impekable has handled all our design needs, since we haven’t had an in-house designer for a long time. We’ve used Sketch and InVision for sharing their designs as well as Zeplin for sharing all the assets and wireframe specifications. We’ve also used Adobe XD.

What is the team composition?

We have one designer from their team involved, who’s our primary contact. Depending on the workload, we may involve multiple designers from Impekable. We also have an in-house product management team that works directly with the designer. Once a high-fidelity design is produced, we share it with our engineering team.

How did you come to work with Impekable?

Before my arrival, the company had been using a different design agency. They started looking around, came across Impekable, and we went forward with them.

The overhaul went well, and some concerns around usability, design, and the color palette we addressed. Impekable conducted some great creative exercises where these items were reviewed by other people in the company as well, and the results were awesome. The company continued the engagement with them since then. When I came onboard, we were launching version 2.0, which was a complete refresh. All of that was done by Impekable. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Impekable was already working with the company when I joined in April 2018. I believe they started working with us at the beginning of that year. 

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

One of our earlier issues was user adoption. Those numbers have definitely gone up, and, even though it could be due to multiple factors, the key aspect was having a better-designed and more modern application. 

Overall, we’ve evolved as a company. We used to only provide hardware and software services, but now we’ve gone into solution services. Impekable’s keen design eye has definitely helped us evolve and have those conversations. 

Design is a key priority for us as an organization, and Impekable has been with us throughout this journey. We look forward to our work together going forward. 

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been excellent in terms of coordination, communication, and project management, both from a micro and macro perspective. For longer projects, we’ve been able to regularly involve the team at Impekable and work with them on planning timelines. They’ve been diligent, clear, and transparent in this sense.

Overall, it’s been a great process and we haven’t had issues like missed timelines due to design flaws or someone being unavailable. Impekable has been specifically responsive whenever we have additional design needs. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Impekable has vast experience working across enterprise and consumer web and mobile apps. We’ve been able to collaborate well remotely through messaging and video tools, and they turn things around quickly. Over time, we’ve reached the point of not needing to go through many cycles as they tend to understand the problem and deliver quickly. 

Secondly, their quality of work is really high. This is important to us, given that we’re producing both a consumer and an enterprise application, which sometimes requires different skillsets. We’ve seen a high quality of work throughout. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They’ve been doing well. They’re responsive to our needs and have stepped in at times when we had to move fast. While our requirements have changed, they’ve adapted to them, even with last minute things. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They’ve been able to create an application from scratch, as well as handle a complete overhaul. Impekable has a lot of experience, they provide high-quality work, and are really professional. They’re a great design firm to work with for someone weighing in all these aspects.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the manager at a large retail company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We were looking for a way to notify potential customers about brand moments, so we reached out to Impekable to set up an SMS marketing campaign.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Impekable set up an SMS marketing campaign that includes a web page where interested parties can sign up to receive text messages to be notified whenever we have certain brand moments. Working alongside our own design team, Impekable provided all development services related to setting up a server that collects cell phone numbers in a confidential manner, while enabling us to send out push notifications for specific events. They also collaborated with our legal team to ensure the verbiage on the site doesn't create any legal gaps that could potentially cause problems.

What is the team composition? 

Christopher (VP of Engineering, Impekable) is our main point of contact, but we also communicated with Pek (CEO, Impekable) quite a bit in the beginning as well. 

How did you come to work with Impekable?

We were already working with them when I came on board, but I know that they were one of the only North American agencies we could find that had all the capabilities we were looking for. They were very responsive and willing to come in and pitch their services from the start. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since around June 2018.

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

We're very happy with the new marketing channel they've set up for us. Impekable's SMS marketing campaign has generated as much as 400% more revenue compared to other efforts.

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform very well; we've never had any communications issues. We mostly check in through Slack, but I also have their cell phone numbers should I ever need to text or call someone on the team. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their willingness to respond quickly regardless of the time of day sets them apart. They've also been very flexible despite some of our own disorganization and last-minute requests. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There's always room for improvement, but I can't think of anything specific for the type of services we've worked with them on. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We were a bit late in the game to find out all that they offer, but knowing about all of their capabilities can help understand and determine which services will be the best fit. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am an executive at an insurance agency.

What challenge were you trying to address with Impekable?

We hired Impekable to build a unique iOS mobile application MVP to distribute and market our products.

What was the scope of their involvement?

After we relayed the concept to them, they got right to work and provided us with wireframes, which drove the development of an MVP. To put it more broadly, they helped with product strategy and design, and they vetted the technologies that we could consider. Unfortunately, we needed to determine if what we wanted to do was possible. We didn’t get to the point where coding was involved. Impekable was tasked with identifying the user experience and validating the process.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a UI/UX designer, and a team of mobile app developers.

How did you come to work with Impekable?

During our interview with Impekable, they demonstrated their successful outcomes working with clients who work with automotive insurance. We saw the parallels between ourselves and that industry, so we were encouraged by Impekable’s experience and abilities.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April 2018–February 2019. We are pursuing the application’s full development with another vendor. We had no performance-related issues with Impekable—we felt that a different company was more aligned with our company from a relationship standpoint.

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

We’re not a company that has a lot of experience with iOS or mobile devices. It was helpful for us to have their expertise on hand to help validate our concept and move our project forward.  

How did Impekable perform from a project management standpoint?

We scheduled weekly meetings, and their team was always flexible when scheduling conflicts forced us to postpone those sessions. We have a very positive engagement with Impekable from that perspective.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team is a valuable asset during the translation of the process. We appreciated their ability to take our concept off of a whiteboard and put it into wireframes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any suggestions for improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Preparation is going to be critical with any vendor. When you engage with somebody, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of your objective and provide a guiding document so that your chosen vendor can understand the concept as well.