MW Digital

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at the Northwest Company, we're a home textile company, with licenses from sports to entertainment products. We make products between blankets, bedding, beach products, bath products. I manage our website and social media, and I also write the product copy for other retailers we sell to.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MW Digital?

We had an existing e-commerce site. MW Digital helped to fix security and back-end issues and to make it run more smoothly. We wanted to make sure all of our products look appealing. We also introduced a new product onto our website that we wanted to test out before we released it to other company's websites. So, MW Digital helped us out with that project. We needed a company that knew what they were doing instead of actually researching things and then doing it. And Moose (MW Digital developer) does things in a quarter of the time that our single developer would do things.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a few landing pages that we had to set up. In a very short amount of time, they were able to do it right then and there which is nice. Whenever a new issue came up, I could email the CEO, and he would get back to me within the hour. It’s normally a very fast response. Once a new feature is almost complete, they’ll send me a sample of how it would look. They let me test it out, make sure its running well.

What is the team dynamic?

I mainly contacted their CEO. We talked a few times a day. And he would always answer back pretty quickly. And then I believe we had two or three developers with us. They’ve put one person on our project, but if we need extra help or were under a time crunch, they’ll grab other people

How did you come to work with MW Digital?

We used to work with a company that set up our website in 2013. We contacted them after having some back-end issues. They referred us to MW Digital, who we really liked. We met with Alan, their CEO, and went with them.

How much have you invested with them?

I'd say just about $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

They’ve been doing ongoing web hosting for us for about three months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had a 25% increase in sales. The main page is much faster, and it invites more people to come and use the site. And they’ve helped fix our issues of shipping rates displaying incorrectly. We can also test individual projects on our site now, and we’re offering that services to other sites.

How did MW Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

Great. I only have good things to say about them. Everything was delivered on time and within budget.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their responsiveness, specifically with emails. I know I’ll always get a response. The other day I needed an inventory feed quickly ran and it was in within 15 minutes, which you really can't expect much more, especially when they have other customers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had to remind them at first just to give us quotes on project. Not that it was anything surprising, just like being informed beforehand.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a partner and creative director at SS Digital Media. We provide digital advertizing services for multiple verticals—anything from e-commerce to service-based or product-based companies. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MW Digital?

We are a full-service agency, so a lot of our projects are focused on design and development. Whenever we have a request for special or custom programming that’s related to a website build, we reach out to an outside firm. MW Digital is our development partner, and they provide the skill sets that we can’t accommodate in-house. They’ve assisted with some high-end web development and programming projects when we needed support. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our project scope included a custom API integration from our client’s third-party provider. The web project required us to integrate that API into our build, and MW Digital was able to offer an approach for completing that. We were able to align our needs with their solution.

Our first engagement was for a yacht dealership. We have a client that sells and brokers high-end boating vessels. Their inventory is maintained by a third-party provider via a kind of municipal listing service, but for boating vessels instead of homes. We wanted to provide a real-time update of that feed and create custom pages that we could optimize for search. Instead of just iframing that third-party feed into our website, we wanted to come up with a way to create custom pages for each of those vessels in real-time. MW Digital was able to help us create a solution that integrated with the web design that we’d created as well as providing ongoing maintenance.

They also host many of the websites that we’re responsible for, and they provide development services. I deal with K. Alan [Owner, MW Digital] and 2 of his project managers directly. A few other actual developers also were working on the project.

How did you come to work with MW Digital?

Prior to MW Digital, we did not have an external development shop. Our in-house developers are competent, but this particular project required a unique skill set. We were introduced to MW Digital several years ago by a mutual contemporary. We had lunch with them and kept in contact. When the need arose, we reached out to them, and they were able to jump right in.

They were able to complete the development project that we were in the middle of by providing both logistical and architectural insight. We have a full creative team that is able to accommodate a range of projects. Reaching outside for fulfillment was a different choice for us from a control perspective, but K. Alan and his team were able to coordinate with us and provide a level of comfort and confidence in meeting our goals.

How much have you invested with MW Digital?

We’ve spent about $70,000–$80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them March 2014 and continue to do so. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

They’ve been able to extend our capabilities in the type of services that we’re able to offer to clients. On the web development side, we’re able to grow our e-commerce service offering and the bandwidth capability of any special request that clients may have. We’ve been able to close new business opportunities because of this partnership.

How did MW Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re satisfactory. K. Alan and his team are really responsive and transparent. If there’s a challenge that they can’t resolve, they’re upfront about it. In general, they are able to resolve any issue. Alan and I frequently talk offline, even about subjects that aren’t really project-related. Being in project management myself, I know that’s super important for client relationships—having that rapport offline so that when an issue does arise, it’s really easy to find and execute a solution.

What did you find most impressive about MW Digital?

They are competitively priced, which is great for our business. The world of web developers can be challenging, and many firms are at the mercy of an external team’s timeline. MW Digital has been pretty responsive and accommodating of our timeline needs.

Are there any areas MW Digital could improve? 

Since we’re located in different cities, sometimes we run into challenges that could’ve been avoided if we all worked in the same room together. That being said, they are really responsive via chat, as well as by phone and email. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director at my organization. We create and post original content, lessons, and professional development materials on our website for Jewish schools.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MW Digital?

We had had an individual entrepreneur and individual designer create our initial website. There was a host of problems, it was unstable, we got hacked, and we weren’t able to post like we wanted to.

We wanted a stable site that we could upload content to. Right now we have 450 different lessons in very specific categories. We wanted it to be accessible around the globe. We also wanted to have a store to sell some of our materials. We needed a component site that would allow people to join and purchase memberships to access the content. We wanted something that was sleek, contemporary, beautiful, and easy for us to be able to manage. We needed it to be secure. We turned to Alan [CEO, MW Digital] to help us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The website platform is WordPress. We needed 20 separate curriculum boxes; each curriculum needed to lead to individual lessons that would be posted. One content box might have 20 different lessons that had to be available for download. That was complex. We also wanted to have a store, membership, and all sorts of services.

MW Digital ended up doing a second site for me as well, so the project spanned quite a long time. Alan hosts the website and troubleshoots for me. He’ll still update certain things on the development site to make sure that they’re going to play well with all the different plug-ins. He then will tell me to go ahead and update it on the live site.

How did you come to work with MW Digital?

Alan was recommended and I talked to him on the phone. I gave him a written list of what we needed. He examined the existing site and gave me a proposal of what needed to be done to accomplish what I wanted. He delivered it in a timely fashion and was just wonderful. I do not have the background in web design to use the correct terminology, but he was patient and wonderful and helped me through it. MW Digital was terrific. After talking to Alan, there was no need to go any further and look at any other companies. I felt an instant connection and I felt I was in incredibly capable hands.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was a two-year process for both websites.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have curriculum being downloaded in 97 countries and we average a few thousand downloads a week. Membership is growing, we really have been able to reach more people than we ever thought. People are buying things off the website. They are finding us and love the ease of use of the website.

How did MW Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They were terrific. We communicated mainly through email and, if necessary, we’d set up an appointment using GoToMeeting. He would screen share with me necessary things I needed to know. Everything was delivered on time and within budget.

The team with MW Digital was fabulous, responsive, and wonderful. When I didn’t understand something, they would create a video to teach it to my staff or me. We had regular meetings when necessary. They sent me options for how things could happen. Whenever I have a question, Alan responds really quickly. If he doesn’t have the answer right then, he lets me know that he will research it and get back to me. His designers and developers, who may be in Ukraine, were equally wonderful to work with, responsive, and nice. When all of us would talk, it was warm and friendly. We usually worked with Alan plus one developer or one website builder. I spoke with Alan whenever necessary; every time we entered into a new step or he had something on the development side that he wanted me to check out. We communicated as much as needed.

What did you find most impressive about MW Digital?

I think it spans everything we’ve talked about from their humor, kindness and just being good people to work with, to their capabilities and understanding my vision and translating that into a wonderful working website. They do all of that with grace and deliver a great product.

Are there any areas MW Digital could improve?

The only thing that was difficult was my learning curve, not them. I got wonderful service from MW Digital and I would recommend them to anyone.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with MW Digital?

I would tell them to spend time creating their vision and then articulate it to Alan, or whomever they’re working with, and get ready for a wonderful ride.