Kholab

Please describe your company and your position there.

Global 360° is a parent company to a group of companies that operate in the fields of real estate, investment, finance, healthcare and more. ‍ Our companies and activities foster an environment for like-minded, altruistic individuals to create platforms that power change for good. We donate a minimum of 1% of our global revenue to humanitarian programs.

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

We hired Kholab to create our brand identity through a logo system that could be applied to our parent company and inherited by child companies. We wanted a recognisable brand look that would tie all of our brands together visually and support greater brand recognition in the market.

How did you select this vendor?

We had no hesitation in selecting Kholab as the creative director Tem was very in sync with our company vision and values. What many people find to be a difficult concept and structure to decipher, he grasped effortlessly and resonated with it which is why we had faith in him leading and directing the creative effort on our behalf.

Describe the scope of their work in detail, including any steps and the final deliverables.

The kholab team delivered 6 brand identities, 4 websites and a suite of marketing collateral for us.

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

I have mainly had direct contact with Tem the creative director, several account managers and the graphic design, UX web development team.

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

We presented the team with a lofty challenge, to create 4 brand identities, websites and marketing brochures within 2 months to be ready for our Christmas launch event. The Kholab team were fantastic at working to this deadline and delivering a high-quality end result.

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

Kholab use a range of communication tools including Email, Google Meetups, and Discord, to Figma and Notion. The tools do help communication and feedback to flow quite seamlessly and enable collaboration to occur across timezones as if someone was sitting right next to me. They were also happy to use some of my own tools to help visualize multiple project progression.

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

Tem was very willing to do whatever it takes to understand the scope of the project at hand. Also, does not bring any pre-conceived ideas or ego into the equation. He is very easy to deal with and always makes sure his team goes the extra mile.

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

The team was quite new and was left with a leadership vacuum for a while as Tem was separated geographically due to Covid. Naturally, all businesses faced issues during this time and as a client we understood this.

However Tem was diligent to make sure any loose ends were addressed when requested and has been working tirelessly to establish his team, processes and quality control measures. Everyone faces challenges and mistakes but it is how you emerge from them that counts. That's what gives me confidence in this team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m in the management team of Young Growth Academy, an education company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kholab?

Originally, we came by them to get our website redone, but after speaking with them we realized that we didn’t have a clear idea of who we were or what we were doing. They asked us some very eye-opening questions about our brand and then we dove into working with them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, we had a workshop where we spoke with the founding team about our values and missions. Kholab was detailed and thorough, asking us important questions about how we want to sound and what our audience’s perspective was.

After we got some of that down, we talked about how to deliver our message and worked through wireframing the website. We’re not an inordinately large company, so we circulated the designs through our internal design resources and then worked with Kholab to build the colors and font. In the end, the deliverables were the new website, a new logo, and a complete brand book.

They’re now crafting social media plans and branded templates and working to flip content into social media pieces.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with around 10 people, including 3–4 that I work with closely.

How did you come to work with Kholab?

I have a friend who works at a media agency, and they recommended Kholab. After getting on an initial call with them and viewing their portfolio, I decided to try them.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent around $30,000 AUD (approximately $21,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since May 2020. The website took six months to deliver, and we’ve been working on social media since then.

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

We ran a survey for our students and audience to see how the website, logo, and brand performed. People will recognize our logo on shirts and banners. Their work is simple and iconic, and our new brand strategy is solid.

How did Kholab perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re pretty good. We’ve had moments when we were busy and slacked in our responses on our side, but it’s always good from them. We communicate over Slack, Clickup, and Trello.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their discovery phase was game changing, as they took the time to understand our strengths and weaknesses, as well as help us construct a message that resonated with our clients and audience.

Their strength is also their design work, but that flows from having a properly planned idea during discovery. Everything has played out better than I expected.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In terms of communication — and this is a fault of ours as well — it may be easier to have fewer points of contact. It works with us, as we’re not a very large company, but if someone has a larger team it would be more streamlined to have one point of contact.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open at very beginning and be honest about your audience and what you want to attract. This will help you uncover many things you haven’t thought about. Sharing as much insight as possible will sow the seeds to harvest many advantages later.  

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Co-founder of Sidestep Digital, we're a boutique digital marketing agency with clients all over Australia.

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

We recently launched our brand in 2021 when both my co founder and I started our own marketing agency. We knew what we needed was a professional website that's mobile friendly, interactive and can build trust especially from the very first impression. We needed Kholab for:

• Branding
• Logo Design
• Web Design
• Web Development

Our goal was mainly a website that showcases our skills, unique value proposition and acts as a 24/7 business card where potential clients can find resources and case studies of our work and engage with us.

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

Being in our start-up phase we needed to be conscious of our cashflow and decision process was based around:

1. Budget
2. Expertises
3. Any case studies or other relevant client work in our industry.

Tem and his team took the time out to answer all our concerns and we were able to brainstorm together before our engagement to ensure that they were the right party. What stood out was their ability to capture our vision and come back with actionable insights and recommendations. We found this extremely valuable.

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

We kicked off the project with a branding and strategy session to really break down who we are as a business, what we offer and how we can stand out in a saturated market. This gave us clear insights into our branding, messaging and priorities when it comes to our website. We were able to review a clear scope of work and go through step by step, the website wireframe, mock ups and draft versions of the website and eventually the website launch.

Everything was built on webflow and we had the opportunity to review and provide feedback on multiple occasions. Communication was across Discord and Email and we were happy with the project.

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

We worked closely with 3 members of Kholab. Tem for everything branding and strategy. Eric for everything webdev and changes to the look and feel or functionality of our website. MJ for everything admin/account management

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

As we previously did not have a website there's not metric we can compare to. However, the feedback from friends, family and clients have been overwhelmingly positive. The website looks very professional and is easy to navigate. At the end of the day we needed potential clients to trust that we can delivery and have results and case studies to back it up.

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

Overall creating a brand new website from scratch involved a lot of moving parts and need regular review and feedback. The project was very straight forward and brokendown in the steps mentioned before. As each item is ticked off we were able to proceed on to the next task/deliverable and see our website come together.

Overall Kholab has been organised and we were able to get a hold of them when needed.

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

Tem and his team has been really helpful throughout the whole process. As the website is a significant investment for our new business we were understandably nervous. However seeing everything come together really helped. What we found really impressive was the responsiveness of the team, the ability to adapt, take feedback and implement as necessary.

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

As it's my first time using Webflow CMS there was a few things I was confused about. My experience was mainly around shopify and Wordpress. It was mainly a miscommunication as webflow editor and webflow design was different and meant that I could only change the content but not the font which was annoying as we can be perfectionists however this was resolved quickly.

Would be better if there was more training around the handover of the site however we got the hang of it pretty quickly.