Masuga Design

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We primarily manufacture educational furniture, but we also do some commercial items for higher education and healthcare as well. As one of the owners, I’m involved on the sales and marketing side.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Masuga Design?

We were originally planning on maintaining our original CMS, which was ExpressEngine, but we decided to migrate to a new platform called Craft. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Masuga Design developed our new site on Craft, and we populated it. One of the elements that we wanted was the freedom to make daily updates, so they built the structure to allow for that. The team imported some of the old data, too.

What is the team composition? 

It was a pretty lean team of three people. They relied heavily on Ryan (Owner) who was really smart. 

How did you come to work with Masuga Design?

We were looking for ExpressionEngine companies, and Masuga Design popped up. They were somewhat local to the Grand Rapids Area, so it was an easy connection. I looked at their site, checked out some of their work, and felt like it was a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

The costs were in the $50,000–$60,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2015, but we transitioned away from them officially in February 2021. By that point, they were still housing information for us but weren’t actually doing any specific work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site earned more traffic, and we were able to add more content, which made it more valuable. Customers were able to find our furniture more in searches and gave us more calls. We also got a lot of compliments, even though the site was built 5–6 years ago. 

How did Masuga Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They used an email system that maintained our correspondence and created tasks from our messages.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Ryan’s ability to understand customers’ visions and turn them into realities was impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In general, we had some issues with them because they weren’t always responsive nor customer-friendly given how lean their team was. We had a lot of items we were interested in updating, so I think we became more of a nuisance to them. 

The team was also charging a lot of money upfront to help us. They wanted to put us on a monthly retainer, but I wasn’t a fan of paying for a service that didn’t give me value. They should look to maintain their work at a reasonable price.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Masuga Design does a great job upfront if you want to build a website. However, if you want to build a website and then make adjustments on a regular basis, then they might not be the best fit in the long term.