Inventive Works

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of eCatholic, one of the largest web hosting providers for the Catholic Church in the US.

What challenge were you trying to address with Inventive Works?

We needed a frontend development partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were in the process of building a new web application on top of our existing product offerings when we sought assistance from Inventive Works. Initially, we conducted a scoping process to explain our requirements and project goals to their team. 

They then referred to our development solutions to build the frontend of our app, mostly relying on React. They worked with our engineering team to complete the design of our platform, which is now nearing its go-live stage.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a senior designer, two software architects, one managing partner, and one account executive.

How did you come to work with Inventive Works?

Inventive Works was referred to me by a close acquaintance. We had a vetting process that involved other service providers, but they stood out and met our expectations in terms of proximity, price point, and service quality.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from January–August 2021.

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

Inventive Works met our expectations by delivering a sustainable and high-quality app design. They successfully designed a deliverable that our in-house team could manage and maintain easily, which was truly our main metric for their work.

How did Inventive Works perform from a project management standpoint?

We conducted regular meetings organized by their project manager and relied on Jira and Confluence for project management.

Inventive Works was a highly collaborative and proactive team — they met our deadlines and brought innovative ideas to the table while paying close attention to our team’s feedback and preferences. Overall, we had a flawless engagement because of their team’s ideal communication skills and transparent workflow.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were most impressed with their team’s adaptable nature. It mattered to us that they created a product that met our needs and mirrored our ideas and preferences. 

Additionally, we never worried about being stuck in the process because they were always prepared with useful alternatives and spot-on solutions that addressed any issue we encountered.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We didn’t encounter any areas for improvement. Inventive Works was one of the best companies we worked with — we were pleased with everything they delivered.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear understanding of what you want to build, and don’t hesitate to seek advice from their project manager if your ideas need some refinement. Inventive Works will help you meet your needs as long as you communicate these concisely and transparently.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a project manager for an assistant professor at a major university.

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

Create a website design and build the website. Initial stage is a one-page website to share project information. Goal is to have a flexible site that can be expanded for any future commercial opportunities from the project.

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

Inventive is a contracted vendor with our university. Checked internal references and they were highly recommended. They helped us define goals and expectations in our initial meeting.

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

Define goals and set expectations in initial meeting. Provided project description information and graphics collateral. They came back with a design that was reviewed by our project team, some slight changes incorporated. They then built the website and launched it.

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

Project manager, designer, web developer. Sales also did a regular check-in to gage satisfaction.

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

Still too early for measurable outcomes, but website has been received favorably by our project team and partners.

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

Excellent communications. Weekly project review meetings followed by written update with detailed progress and spending report.

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

They were very flexible and professional, as our schedule created some delays in the project.

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

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a software company that provides virtual data room software for secure document sharing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Inventive Works?

We needed to scope out and design a new virtual data room software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did research and discovery of what it’d take to build the software we wanted and what the cost would be. We decided to kill the project because the total cost and other dynamics like the market and prospect of growth weren’t a good investment.

What is the team composition?

We initially worked with their president, but then Laura (Sales Director) became our main point of contact. We also worked with James (Principal Software Engineer) on coming up with the scope of work and with another person who did most of the coding. We ended up working with 4–5 people from their team.

How did you come to work with Inventive Works?

Clutch got us in touch with different potential developers to help us out, but we ended up going with them because we liked their professionalism and approach to work with the product.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $10,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–May 2021.

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

Even though we killed the project, we were impressed by their willingness to work with us on coming up with the right decision.

How did Inventive Works perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great at meeting deadlines, open, and easy to communicate with. Laura did a great job, and I enjoyed working with her.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The job they did made us happy. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on. 

Any advice for potential customers?

Give them a call, and they’ll walk you through everything to help you out. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the president of an IT company. We manage search engines for other companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Inventive Works, LLC?

We have a platform that runs n multiple clouds and needed help implementing part of our software platform by extending it to Azure.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Inventive Works, LLC provided cloud consulting services. They enabled our platform to run on Azure. They used Azure SDKs and Java for this project. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a senior director, and a developer.

How did you come to work with Inventive Works, LLC?

I have a personal relationship with the CEO of Inventive Works, LLC. I was looking for someone who could do it quickly and within our reasonable budget, so we decided to work with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested between $50,000–$199,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement ran from January 2021–March 2021.

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

We reviewed the code as it was submitted, and then merged it into our codebase. I gave them an initial project roadmap and some synchronization points that weren’t followed. The code that was delivered did what it had to do, so I was satisfied with that aspect of the project.

How did Inventive Works, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

Our teams met every week and had good conversations. Their team was quick to respond to any questions I had and always followed up on them. When I did provide them with feedback about the lack of synchronization, they took my feedback seriously.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their code did what it was supposed to do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We did have some issues with the project roadmap it wasn’t followed exactly how I laid it out. I think they normally deal with companies that don’t have developers, so they weren’t used to the level of scrutiny. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are quite good technically and really know their stuff. Make sure they are following the plan you want them to follow. Set clear guidelines.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We design and manufacture firearms and accessories. I am the founder and owner of the business.

For what projects/services did your company hire Inventive Works, LLC?

We wanted to redesign our existing e-commerce website on a new platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase our conversion ratio and average order size by implementing a website that was better looking and easier to use, for under $10,000 and within a 2-month turnaround.

How did you select Inventive Works, LLC?

Inventive came highly recommended from a family member of one of our senior employees--he had worked directly with Greg for years, and vouched for his professionalism.

I trust the employee, so we made the initial contact and consult. I knew after a couple of meetings, that these are the sort of people I would want to work with. They were polite, transparent, and thorough.

Describe the project in detail.

We had two initial meetings to discuss the scope of the project. I presented Inventive with some mockups from my graphic design guy, and they came back to me with a proposal. First we worked on selecting an appropriate platform; they recommended BigCommerce and explained why.

Then we selected an appropriate theme to build upon. That was followed by the basic layout, product import, rebuilding of the old pages, and tweaking. The final steps were to select the BigCommerce membership level, and sign up for Authorize.net.

Inventive pushed most of these processes and was clear about when they needed me to act. There were weekly meetings and progress reports.

What was the team composition?

The team composition was a project manager, overseeing a lead developer and a specialist developer.

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

Overall, the project is a success: our conversion rate increased from 3.5% to roughly 5.5%. In the world of e-commerce, that's enormous. Frankly, I was hoping for a single percent, so to double that is truly excellent.

The average order has stayed static, but that's moreso because we have been out of stock on our core products than any deficit in the website construction.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Overall, very effective. Each week, on Monday, I had a meeting with the project manager and lead developer. We would review the progress, check-in, get any questions answered, and make decisions about moving forward.

I had occasional direct calls and emails with the lead developer to address any more urgent issues. These were smooth and effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Everyone was overwhelmingly easy to communicate with. Everything was explained up front, they were completely transparent in their processes, and they delivered. The final project was within 10% of the estimated hours, and was absolutely built to my satisfaction.

Are there any areas for improvement?

This is a bit of a nitpick. Inventive made such an overwhelming effort to be polite and to manage my expectations, that I found myself occasionally becoming impatient. That's moreso a style preference -- I tend to prefer blunt communication.

That being said, having spent thousands of hours dealing with customers, I understand erring on the side of being diplomatic!

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the reinsurance marketing manager at Assurant. We deal with different types of insurance products. The group I work in is property-casualty insurance. It’s an automotive warranty company. We provide financial, onboarding, and consulting services for automotive companies. My team provides reports on client investments with their warranties.

What challenge were you trying to address with Inventive Works, LLC?

We needed to update the process of how we communicate performance results to clients. Before, the process included printing reports, manually entering data into analysis reports, and submitting to the client for an assessment.

Inventive Works, LLC helped us extract data from the original information, reconfigure the data, and present it through a secure web portal. This eliminated the old access database and manual process we used before.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked through the design and the underlying concepts to create this portal. They sorted through our business requirements and how we tracked this information and were putting it in the database. They configured a UI to capture and store the information and integrated it with the SQL tools we use to bring the information into the portal.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 10–12 people on their team, including a project manager. While one team member was on vacation, they brought in an additional developer to ensure the project stayed on track.

How did you come to work with Inventive Works, LLC?

We heard of them through one of our executives who worked with them in the past. He was impressed with their ability to come in on budget and on time.

How much have you invested with them?

It cost about $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April and wrapped up in July 2020.

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

I’ve shown it to 30–40 people internally and externally. Our clients think it looks great. We’re very happy with the final result; we should have done this project sooner. Providing a digital option like this is meaningful step in the right direction.

How did Inventive Works, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

They managed the project well. I wasn’t a huge fan of the tools we used to manage the project, but the project manager ensured that everything was done on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They understood what we needed and applied their professional knowledge in order to deliver an effective solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think everything they did was optimal.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wish we were more prepared. We didn’t necessarily know what we needed to give them, but Inventive Works, LLC helped us work through that process.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of operations at TapNPay, an alternative payment method for tolls.

What challenge were you trying to address with Inventive Works?

I recently joined the organization, and the development and IT maintenance were being taken care of by an offshore team. I needed an independent assessment of the system, so I engaged Inventive Works to do that for me.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Inventive Works took a look at each aspect of our system, including the code, hosting, cloud setup, as well as the database itself. The team also looked for any non-standard elements or anything that could cause performance issues. They did a well-rounded review.

What is the team composition?

I worked with 4–7 teammates in total, but I had a single point of contact for the project itself.

How did you come to work with Inventive Works?

A previous colleague recommended them. I reached out to Inventive Works, and we had an initial conversation about what I was looking for and hoping to get. They were extremely professional and they understood exactly what I was asking for right off the bat, so it seemed like they were a really good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in September 2020, and they completed the audit in October 2020.

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

I needed this assessment for my meeting with the board members, and all of them were impressed with the level of detail, ease of explanation, and recommendations of what we needed to do next. 

I received several comments from board members stating that it was a top-notch audit and assessment. That in itself is a good indicator that the work that Inventive Works accomplished was well done. 

Although they only delivered an audit, what was great about them was that they also pointed out issues and suggested solutions. Now I can formulate my plan, and once I get there, I’m sure I’ll reach out to Inventive Works for any support I may need.

How did Inventive Works perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a really good job. My project manager was on top of things, had meetings scheduled, and provided solid next steps. There was never a time where I had to reach out to them because I already knew what was coming next. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Inventive Works is very organized, professional, and timely, which makes them stand out compared to other service providers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of off the top of my head. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clearly outline your objectives and requirements so that Inventive Works is able to target your specific business needs and deliver the quality services they are capable of providing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a software development manager at a company that moves cargo using marine inland waterways.

What challenge were you trying to address with Inventive Works, LLC?

We had a software product using an early version of NServiceBus. We engaged Inventive to look at the source code and help us with the issues that we faced.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Inventive consulted and guided my software development team on how to use the new version of NServiceBus and NHibernate. Their team consulted on how to upgrade our software to a newer version on NServiceBus Bus. They also looked at the overall architecture and provided guidance to my team on best practices. Their team identified what didn’t work, what wasn’t implemented correctly, and what needed to be done from those angles.

They made product changes for demonstration purposes. Their team took a slice of code and changed it based on their recommendations. From there, my developers implemented and learned from the code to do more in our main code branch.

What is the team composition?

In total, we worked with six people from Inventive. I was in more frequent contact with three people from their team.  

How did you come to work with Inventive Works, LLC?

I found them through the NServiceBus website that listed platform champions. Through that website, I found Inventive. Their team’s based in Austin, which was the main reason I chose to engage them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$50,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in July and finished it in August 2020.

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

The project met our objectives. We didn’t have metrics because it was a short-duration project. Their team was effective from my standpoint. They validated ideas, which allows us to make them concrete. My team found them helpful too.

How did Inventive Works, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated by email and Zoom. Their team was timely, visible, and effective. I didn’t have to keep checking the status of their tasks. It was a collaborative process, and I was informed throughout it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have experienced resources. I worked with two consultants and their CEO who were all accomplished. Their team had an effective approach, knowledge of technologies, and mindset.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this time, I don’t have constructive feedback.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to have clear objectives. We had clear goals and it was easy to work with Inventive.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Creative Manager for Texas A&M School of Innovation (I-School) and Innovation Partners.

For what projects/services did your company hire Inventive Works, LLC, and what were your goals?

We hired Inventive to redesign the current I-School website as well as create a separate, new website for Innovation Partners.

How did you select Inventive Works, LLC and what were the deciding factors?

We work for a state institution that has a list of preferred/pre-approved vendors or a pretty strict process for approving vendors we are allowed to use for various services. We selected Inventive Works because they were already in the Texas A&M system of approved vendors.

Additionally, they received a great recommendation from a colleague who had worked with them previously and we thought they did an excellent job on a recent website project that received extremely positive reviews in the A&M community.

During the vetting process, they exhibited advanced knowledge of the various software options available, presented the pros and cons of each, recommended what would work best for us/be the best fit for our project scope/budget, made recommendations based on our needs & not what was easiest for them.

They were easy to communicate with, creative, and a good fit with our team. Completion of the projects by our deadline was one of the biggest deciding factors. We had a pretty tight deadline and they were confident that they could deliver on time. To achieve that goal, they also did both projects simultaneously.

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

We had a kickoff meeting to introduce the two teams (one for I-School and one for Innovation Partners), who was on each team, and what they did. We set up a process for communicating going forward and regular, weekly meetings. After the kick-off meeting, we dedicated some time to design and design concepts, moved into site map and wireframes, then selected templates for each page so they could be built out by the Inventive Dev & Design teams.

To get an understanding of the scope of this project, we had about 30 pages on the I-School site and about 65 pages on the Innovation Partners site. Once the pages were in production we started compiling and delivering content for them to add to the pages themselves.

Once the content was loaded to the page, we reviewed, provided feedback, reviewed the revision, and so on till the page was finally approved. After the sites launched we had a training session on how to make changes in Word Press.

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

We had a team of about 15 staff members from Inventive Works working on both sites. We had one project manager for both projects and a variety of web designers, web developers, engineers, etc.

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

We have not run any analytics on the new sites yet and it might be too soon to see any significant changes or increase in traffic (the new sites have only been live for less than 2 weeks) but we will be running analytic reports and sharing the results with the Inventive Works team.

However, the feedback we have been getting both internally from our team who were not involved in the project/hadn't seen anything during the process and those outside our organization have been extremely positive. Absolutely everyone is thrilled with the new sites, exceeds expectations, and love not only how they look but the functionality as well.

One of the challenges with this project was to make the 2 sites look like they were siblings - you can tell they are related but they each have their own personality. I have heard from multiple people that we definitely achieved that goal. The Inventive team did a great job of helping us decide what that looks like and pull it off from ideas to reality.

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

We had weekly meetings for overall updates, review any mockups, answer any questions, and make any decisions that needed to be made immediately in order to keep us on track. If an urgent issue came up before the weekly meeting we would schedule separate meetings to address those as needed. We also emailed each other daily using standard language in the subject line to draw our attention to messages needing immediate attention ([ACTION NEEDED] or [INFO ONLY]).

In addition to email, we also used Slack to communicate and share docs, as well as Google Drive, Sheets, and Docs. Our project manager also sent dashboard reports summarizing meetings, the next steps, status updates, etc.

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

I was impressed with their responsiveness, dedication, and commitment to the project. The Inventive Works team was always available to us to answer any questions, have an impromptu meeting whether by phone or Zoom.

Since we were working on a very tight deadline, there were times where we needed an answer within the hour. I could and did pick up the phone a number of times and our project manager were always available. They were dedicated to the project and committed to getting it done on time even if that meant A LOT of 12 hour days, sleepless nights, and working weekends to make it happen. They also had the ability to develop creative solutions (especially on the data/data feed side) to issues as they arose.

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

Clearer communication is something that is a take away for both us as the client and the vendor. They were great at being available to us for a meeting, calls, etc. and scheduling consistent update meetings but early on there was some miscommunication on a design that caused us to spend more time on design and delays to the schedule.

We also weren't aware of the overall process and that when we were making decisions they were final/changing our minds later might cause delays.

Giving an overview of the process in "non-web developer" language (LOL!) during the kickoff meeting (including phases, what decisions need to be made by when in order to stay on track, when decisions are final and the impact of changing a decision later, etc.) would help the client know when they need to make a decision, when it's final, etc. Asking clarifying questions on both sides would also help with the process.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our platform is Tenavox.com and we make leasing commercial real estate easy. In addition to connecting prospective businesses to the best properties for their space needs, we provide an online and offline source of lead generation for brokerage and ownership entities in commercial real estate.

For what projects/services did your company hire Inventive Works, LLC?

We hired Inventive to build out platform from the ground up.

What were your goals for this project?

We need a fast, reliable and quality UX web platform for our users and customers.

How did you select this vendor?

We were connected through a mutual referral partner.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Their team started with what we had build (not much) and drove through the development of our entire platform. We ended up with a significantly faster, better and more reliable site than we had before engaging Inventive. Their team, in particular the software developers and project managers were excellent to work with.

What was the team composition?

We had 4-6 developers along with a project manager depending on the needs/sprints for that month.

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

We have delivered over 20,000 leads with our platform, Inventive is a big part of making that happen.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management, particularly Brandon, were really communicative, organized and effective. Honest feedback and "pulling" back the reins when we got too wide-eyed was very helpful too.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their attitude and culture were most impressive...they're all very high-functioning geniuses :) They are not only great developers but kind, honest and good people to work with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not much, perhaps more consistency from the accounting staff but that's a minor concern.