Lumina

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and president of Brier Katama. We’re a marketing strategy and creative firm in the tours and activities sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Lumina?

Our client launched one of the first new attractions in Times Square in over 10 years. This 50,000 square foot museum of miniatures is continually being built out. We were working together to build a web platform with ticketing, content, and ongoing updates. By creating a site, we hoped to market the attraction and continue to update it based on new features and user-generated content.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After pitching the project together, we won the contract. During our requirement gathering phase, we met with the client to understand all of the performance characteristics we needed for the site. We worked together on the architecture and page mapping before starting the creative design and building page comps based on the agreed upon sitemap. Lumina developed the web platform using WordPress. They also made custom templates and created modules using WPBakery so we could add pages and sites sections on our own. 

Once complete, we handed off those materials to the team. They took a minimum viable product (MVP) approach to delivering the site. After quickly roughed out pages and templates based on what we had developed together, they came back for refinements and notes until we had a basic template and skeleton frame complete. From there, they helped us with implementation and built out pages using the content we provided.

Currently, we’re working on new types of pages and templates and more site sections. There’s ongoing work periodically after we launch the site. The whole process from pitch to launch took about 3 and a half months. We spent a month of live QA in addition to the prelaunch QA. Since the platform has been up and running, they’ve maintained our staging site and keep it current with the live one. They continue to help us with site optimization, schema markup, loading optimization, and new feature buildout.

What is the team composition? 

The three people that were visible to me were Yaniv (Founder/CEO, Lumina), the project manager, and the admin.  

How did you come to work with Lumina?

We went through a competitive bid process. I had known the founder for years, but we’d never had an opportunity to work together. This was our first chance to pitch a project together. My firm would handle strategy, account management, project management, and creative, while Lumina did the implementation, coding, systems administration, and ongoing production.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $27,000-$28,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–May 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The ultimate KPI for the client’s business is ticket sales. The strong conversion rate is more attributable to Lumina than anything else.  It’s in the high two’s for that site which is above the industry average of high one’s or low two’s. From a general performance perspective, the site outperformed industry benchmarks.

An informal KPIs we value is knowing that our development team has our backs, and Lumina always has. These guys always did. There was never a question whether they’d be there and get it done. I knew if I had a problem in the middle of the night, even if it was out of scope, they were always there for me to troubleshoot things.

How did Lumina perform from a project management standpoint?

Lumina was stellar. Their project management is exemplary. We formally communicated weekly, but they were widely available otherwise. We used WhatsApp and texting to stay in touch.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Lumina’s project management skills, ability to estimate time, and availability was really top notch. They were always willing to walk me through each step to make sure I understood everything that was happening.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wanted to leave the creative on my side, but they could potentially bring in more robust design skills in case we ever needed help with that. Their portfolio doesn’t look like they’ve been tasked with design jobs that require heavy lifting. Most of their work focuses on application development.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Lumina is a team of extraordinarily direct, no-nonsense people. My advice to anyone who plans to work with them is meet them on that level. Tell them what you need to get done. They’re not going to overpromise, so don’t give them false deadlines because you think you need to cover yourself. The team knows how to manage a schedule properly and deliver. Be direct with them about the scope, and you will be incredibly successful.