Design and Technology with a Human Touch
Nopio is a one-stop digital agency that merges exceptional design with state-of-art technology. We work equally well directly with clients, and as white-labeled resources for other agencies. Our team strategizes, designs, and develops custom websites and web applications for businesses around the world. We approach projects as proactive business consultants, constantly providing feedback and focus to drive success.
Areas of expertise
We are your team if you need one or more of:
- Design & Branding - Everyone needs a unique brand and a design that enhances its online image.
- Company websites - Handcrafted by experts, loved by your team and your clients alike.
- Web applications - When you really need something unique, we bring in Ruby on Rails, NodeJS, and ReactJS.
- eCommerce integration - from small WooCommerce builds, to big, custom Spree Commerce installations.
- Consulting - Business, creative, product, or technology. We can help you choose the right direction.
Common pros
- Human-centric - everything we do is aimed at building successful relationships. First, with you during the project, then with your internal team and your customers through a great product.
- A seamless blend of design and technology - We keep an equal focus on the creative and tech sides of our work, so whatever we build is not only beautiful (and useful), but also thought through, and executed perfectly on the tech level.
- Flexibility - our team is especially good at spotting and reporting what can be optimized or changed to offer a better end-user experience. Working with us you will get a lot of feedback and suggestions.
1 Language
- English
4 Timezones
- ECT
- PST
- CST
- EST
headquarters
other locations
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Franciszka KniaźninaKraków 30Poland
Focus
Portfolio
Sesame Workshop, Porter Novelli, Genea, Fathom, Industrious Office, The Underwear Expert, Ceros Inc., World Politics Review, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Fathom Website Design & Development
Fathom is a global leader in water risk intelligence. They provide clients and partners with market-leading flood models based on the ever-advancing frontiers of scientific research in the face of increasing challenges posed by climate change. Academic research remains essential to the team now as when the co-founders Andrew Smith and Christopher Sampson met whilst completing their PhDs at the University of Bristol. This collaboration resulted in a no-bs approach to consulting and a distinctive visual company identity, albeit needing refinement.
The Challenge
Fathom prides itself on a uniquely quirky brand, targeting large clientele, including insurance companies and governments. However, Fathom suffered from inconsistent brand materials and a website with poor user experience. Further complicating matters, the existing website relied on a proprietary hosted solution that made it hard to maintain and update—improving these shortcomings while maintaining brand personality was of utmost concern for the Fathom team.
Solution
With SEO and UX research under its arm, Nopio could move boldly into the design phase. The Nopio team prioritized elevating the existing brand’s character without losing its established quirky personality.
The team then employed Nopio’s in-house modular approach to WordPress development called ThemeFlex™. This approach allows the client to quickly spin up beautiful pages or amend existing content without developer intervention.
Nopio’s human-centric approach to web design and development ensured that Fathom’s team was in control and involved in all critical phases of the project. Meaning the project was on time and within budget.
The Result
Our work has been awarded a Web Excellence Award 2022:
https://we-awards.com/winner/website-of-fathom-global-leader-in-water-risk-intelligence/
Genea - PropertyTech for the modern era.
Nopio provided a refreshed branding, design for the new website, as well as a comprehensive website build on WordPress. The site went through a performance optimization round as well.
Dietomix Diet and Nutrition eCommerce Platform
Dietmix is a Polish web portal offering healthy, well-balanced diets from meal recipes optimized for a Thermomix device. Since the site is owned and operated by certified dieticians, it's a safe source of healthy ideas for easy and quick food to prepare, becoming an ideal offer for everyone too busy or just not into regular cooking.
The Challenge
The idea behind Dietomix is simple—provide pay-for-play diet plans online. Before coming to Nipio, the Dietomix team had begun working on a fully custom software project. After months and very little progress, it became apparent they needed to pivot. It wasn’t clear to the Dietomix team if the problem stemmed from a lack of resources or if the technological approach was to blame.
Solution
We concluded that a custom software approach was wrong for Dietomix. Information Architecture (IA) required to store recipes and diets is hierarchical and well suited for the WordPress CMS. Furthermore, custom software that combines an eCommerce solution would be more expensive than an existing platform like WordPress.
When possible, we advise startups like Dietomix to utilize a stable platform like WordPress rather than build fully custom software. This approach gives the company a working solution to validate at a fraction of a custom build’s predicted cost (and time). Later after obtaining product validation, a custom software solution can be considered.
Our team created a completely bespoke system for building and managing recipes and diets, including microelements, calculations, and other tools to help dieticians create diets effectively. Our team worked closely with Dietomix to build a solution that mapped their vision and unique use cases.
The project spanned three months from start to finish and launched on March 8th, 2022, taking its first orders mere minutes after going live.
The Center - Therapists Logo, Branding & Website
The Center for Couples and Sex Therapy (The Center) is a team of relationship and sexuality experts on a mission to help patients create lives full of love, pleasure, and connection. As therapists, they aim to achieve the highest standards of professional excellence without sacrificing their down-to-earth humanity. That means patients work with real humans, not cold, clip-board wielding, Freudian robots.
The Challenge
As many small companies do, The Center started with a fairly generic, yet informative, website that allowed them to bootstrap the business—to a point. With the company’s continued success and growth, the team noticed that what worked, in the beginning, did not represent the enhanced professionalism and quality that they currently offer to their patients. The project started as a drive to refresh the website and make it more appealing, matching the current trends. This meant creating a more modern therapist website and logo that reflected the current state of The Center. Of course, due to the world in which The Center operates, visual messaging needed to be indirect and tasteful.
Solution
The initial brainstorming sessions made clear that The Center’s current brand did not meet the standards they wanted to see in the new website. Nopio and The Center agreed on a touchup of the brand as the right strategy to address this issue. In addition, Nopio’s team proposed custom illustrations for any practice-related graphics. These custom graphics can be genderless and unobtrusive, which was important to the look and feel of the updated brand. All of these elements came together in the website Nopio built using WordPress, and Nopio’s ThemeFlex™ approach to creating content management.
Erlang Solutions Website Design & Development
Erlang Solutions is the world-leading expert at building resilient, fault-tolerant, and massively scalable distributed systems. They have over 20 years of experience building the critical digital infrastructure that scales to billions of users without error. Erlang Solutions is the team that the creators of RabbitMQ, Erlang, and Elixir recommend for consultancy, development, and support.
The Challenge
Early in 2019 the team at Erlang Solutions decided to refresh the company brand as well as rebuild the website to match the brand’s new look and feel. Having completed the brand refresh and the updated information architecture for the new website, Erlang needed a partner to create the design for the website and perform the rebuild in a limited time before the big reveal.
Solution
Early in 2019, the team at Erlang Solutions decided to refresh the company brand as well as rebuild the website to match the brand’s new look and feel. Having completed the brand refresh and the updated information architecture for the new website, Erlang needed a partner to create the design for the website and perform the rebuild in a limited time before the big reveal. good planning. The two teams worked together to create a scope and a plan for the project that ensured that the design of the website would follow the new brand and keep its unique feel. Nopio’s expertise allowed us to avoid the time-consuming pitfalls of unnecessary integrations, and our unique approach to building content management in WordPress (ThemeFlex™) allowed us to deliver a high-quality product on time and on budget.
Wilderness Park Website Development
Wilderness Park is Lincoln’s (Nebraska) largest public park. The seven-mile, linear, 1,472-acre woodland is nestled just west of the Jamaica North Trail along Salt Creek from Van Dorn to Saltillo. The park features 31 miles of hiking, cycling, and horse trails within its naturally wooded landscape. The hiking trail was designated part of the National Recreation Trails Program in 1977.
The Challenge
The Park needed a new website to better present itself and attract potential donors and tourists. And because it’s 2021, tourists want information from sites before they travel, so tourism website development is more important than ever. The Park tasked the team at Eleanor Creative with brand updates and creating the design for the new website. The project had a very short timeline and the Eleanor team needed a partner experienced in quick WordPress website development to build the website in just 3 weeks. Also because it’s 2021, the only way to go is to create a fully-responsive, completely managed website, even when you’re talking about fast website development. This timeline needed to include testing and content entry as well as the development of the website. The remaining critical items were final testing and deployment to the hosting.
Solution
The team at Eleanor turned to Nopio, asking for an expedited build. After close analysis, the Nopio team deemed the build possible to deliver in the allotted timeline while keeping the high-quality standards, as well as all the CMS features that are available for regular builds. In order to make it happen, Nopio split the build into multiple workstreams, devised in such a way that no workstream blocked another and they were easy for different team members to pick up. Nopio designated one of its senior developers to watch over the overall progress and adherence to standards, in order to ensure there would be no issues when merging the individual streams together.
Porter Novelli
Agency decision makers, happy with Nopio’s previous projects, decided to bring us in to simplify the CMS, fix website visual and functional issues and add new custom features that were requested by content managers. We went through the existing system and advised the client that it wasn’t cost effective to continually update the existing system.
From there, the Nopio team estimated the cost of the needed updates would surpass that of a clean rebuild with our usual clean and extremely easy-to-use CMS built on top of WordPress and Advanced Custom Fields plugins. The main points of the plan were:
- Keep the existing style of the website but recreate them in order to eliminate all the issues with smooth scrolling, visual issues, and mobile experience.
- Create new content management menus in the admin panel that are clear and easy to use by staff without web development training.
- Make sure that the site is extendable so there are no problems with adding new features or sections.
- Enhance the design with all the small details that were always planned but were not possible in the previous version of the build.
- Make sure that the site is well optimized and has great performance.
- Move all the content from the old site, including blog posts from the last 8 years.
Website for Premium Flexible Workspace Provider
Challenge
Keeping up with the company’s rapid growth
Ever since the company experienced significant growth, it became essential to obtain the ability to add changes to the main website quickly and easily. It was no longer possible for a part-time freelancer to keep up with time demands and deadlines.
Solution
Improving overall website management
Our team gradually took over WordPress site maintenance and helped with shaping plans and development processes for the project. During the months following the takeover, we worked on:
- Site frontend reimplementation using Bootstrap 4
- Multiple data migrations and rearrangement in order to fit new IA
- Integrations with third-party systems
- Site performance optimization
- CI & Automation
- Basic DevOps
As a result of our work, the site is now fully responsive, easy to maintain, well-performing, and ready for future expansions.
The Underwear Expert
Challenge
The Underwear Expert wanted to create a subscription model business in the form of a custom men’s underwear of the month club. The challenge was to automate the process of ordering and managing stock, processing payments and developing tools to manage the business.
Solution
Nopio team created a custom-built solution using Ruby on Rails, ElasticSearch, Postgres, and MongoDB to:
- Sync inventory between the e-commerce platform and multiple warehouses
- Manage and optimize the inventory
- Perform advanced subscription processing
- View the state of the business via custom reporting and analytics suite
- Track company financials in a custom accounting solution
The system has been designed in such a way that most of the common tasks are performed automatically. Additionally, we provided design support to create a great and eye-pleasing User Experience.
Ceros
Challenge
Ceros is a cloud-based experiential content creation platform for marketers and designers from New York. Since Ceros is growing rapidly and there is a high demand for its unique product, the internal tech team is focused solely on product development and maintenance. As a result, there’s little time left to spare on the company’s websites. That situation led to a poor condition of the sites which were severely outdated, not performing very well, and very hard to maintain.
Solution
Ceros’ team brought Nopio in and discussed what can be done to improve the situation. We’ve proven to be a capable partner who helped Ceros to get out of the deadlock with their website maintenance and focus on product development and marketing. Over the course of the last 3 years, we’ve been maintaining all the public company websites through our proven web development process using the WordPress platform. We ensure success by:
- Detailed implementation planning that aims at allowing optimal customizability of the site’s content
- Usage of the best plugins on the market, such as Advanced Custom Fields Pro to implement amazing admin experiences
- Rigorous testing and quality assurance process that allows for a smooth project delivery
- Experienced and very involved tech team that constantly provides feedback and suggestions for optimizations
When Nopio was done, Ceros’ sites became easy to maintain with a unified brand look and a seamless user experience.
Website for Pork Production Management Tool
EveryPig provides the easiest way to collect data, collaborate with your team, and track all outcomes using the existing technology in your pocket—no fancy equipment required.
Challenge
EveryPig’s mission is to serve animals, producers, and consumers by improving animal health and increasing transparency in the food chain. In order to make another leap towards the overall goal was to improve the company’s digital presence, allow for better lead acquisition, and quick and efficient content updates.
Solution
The project started with EveryPig’s internal team creating the design for the new website. When this was done, they began the search for the right tech partner to bring their visuals to life. After the initial meeting, it became clear that both teams had a good cultural fit and that Nopio would be able to satisfy all the requirements of the project which included:
- Creating a flexible, yet easy-to-use content management system, using Nopio’s WP ThemeFlex™ approach.
- Integrating third parties, such as HubSpot and Analytics platforms.
- Enabling the use of multiple animations and effects to enhance the “pop effect” of the project, heavily using SVG graphics for the best quality.
- Advice on hosting options, and delivery to the chosen solution.
- Ensuring a smooth integration with the company’s existing application.
- A fixed-bid estimation of the project, so the client could plan the budgeting upfront
MiHomecare
Challenge
MiHomeCare has a wide spectrum of offered services, but the previous site has been difficult to navigate and not really flexible in terms of content management. The primary goal was to allow end users to find the closest branch to a given location and allow for easy contact with managers in order to discuss needed services. Time was an additional factor in the build as the site was needed quickly and the buffer for potential issues was small.
Treecasa, a Magical Retreat Space in Nicaragua
Challenge
TreeCasa needed a website presence that reflected the quality of the experience offered to the guests which also allowed it to showcase many different types of programming that were available.
Solution
TreeCasa engaged one of the designers we successfully worked with in the past, Mihae Mukaida (make sure to see her portfolio). Together TreeCasa team and Mihae created a new, fresh and beautiful design for the website.
When it came to actually building the new site, Mihae decided to involve Nopio as a trusted technology partner. Nopio filled the role of technology consultant who helped to button up the project plan and finalize the functionality of some site sections for the best user experience.
- The project is created on a custom-built WordPress theme that allows a lot of customizations for the content organization.
- The website is performance optimized and thoroughly tested.
Maiden Noir
We helped Maiden Noir, a Seattle based fashion store, to solve some technical difficulties, re-brand their online presence to the provided design and make sure the site looks great on mobile devices.
Project with Scholastic Art and Writing Awards
Challenge
The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers has very specific needs in terms of running the program. Throughout most of the year, the main function of the project is to provide information about the program. Their remaining time is very busy. Site traffic explodes from about 30 thousand to 1.5 million page views per week. Students upload hundreds of gigabytes of work to the system. Panels of judges from around the nation review thousands of submissions, judge them, and assign awards. To make all of this possible, a very specialized set of tools is needed.
Solution
The Nopio team has been tasked with building the tools up to the specification. Using C# .Net MVC, MsSQL, BackboneJS, Solr search and Amazon AWS, we created a system that fulfills all the requirements of The Alliance that is:
- Handles student registration, upload individual work and portfolios, and processes payments for each application
- Manages staff users, judges, teachers, students, uploaded works, awards, and event RSVPs
- Provides an easy-to-use review system and judge tools to optimize the judging process
- Creates a Digital Archive system to store the historical works
- Designs and creates an infrastructure that is flexible enough to handle predictable traffic spikes
Patten Studio
Patten Studio creates amazing experiences that offer interaction between people and technology. We helped them change the company website to match the awesomeness of the installations they create.
International Affairs and Global Trends Portal
Challenge
Nopio, as the site maintainer, was tasked with the implementation of a new, fresh look that the client had created with the help of another design agency. The design looked great, but due to unfamiliarity with the project, some of the pages were not covered. We were asked if it would be possible to avoid going back to the design studio, as doing so would significantly delay the project.
Solution
In order to accommodate the client’s needs, our team reused bits and pieces of the new design to create the missing views of the site. In each case, the client was presented with multiple mock-ups of possible looks and descriptions outlining the pros and cons. Since this process was based on prototyping page views, it was significantly more efficient than a standard design workflow. Additionally, the site has been updated to use Razor templating engine and a new deployment automation.
Reviews
the project
Web Dev for Farming Management Platform
"We were shocked at how well the Nopio team did on our website both aesthetically and technically."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
We started EveryPig because we saw an incredible opportunity to bring technology to pork producers while increasing transparency in the swine industry. I lead our design team.
We approach pork production problems with a customer experience mindset. As such, the needs of our end-users drive our product design. This method allows us to create easy-to-use software pork producers, field staff, and veterinarians will actually use. We love what we do, and I think you will too.
For what projects/services did your company hire Nopio?
Nopio provided WordPress web development for us. We need a thoughtful development team that would care as much as we did about the quality of our site.
What were your goals for this project?
Our goal was to build a responsive website on WordPress with deep Hubspot integrations. We needed a much more up-to-date website that gave us more flexibility to experiment with our marketing and sales funnels.
How did you select this vendor?
We sent out RFPs to several development houses including our in-house team. We considered six teams during the process. We chose Nopio due to their open and friendly quoting process and fixed-bid contracts.
Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.
We built a pixel perfect website mockup using UXPin which included all guidelines and specs. From there we developed a technical requirements document. It was very important to us that the development team provided a pixel-perfect site based on our mockups.
It was also very important that WordPress was implemented in such a way to make it easy to maintain. It wasn't enough that we had code dumped in blocks, we needed fully-flexible custom-built blocks in WordPress that would enable any nontechnical member of our team to make edits and maintain the website. Nopio also provided a great deal of technical consulting along the way.
What was the team composition?
Nopio provided four resources. An account manager, technical lead, and two senior-level front end developers.
Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?
We were shocked at how well the Nopio team did on our website both aesthetically and technically. The site looks great and their unique approach to WordPress means we have a really easy to maintain website.
How was project management arranged and how effective was it?
The Nopio team uses Asana for project management. They hit all their deadlines and made sure we were in the loop at all points in the process. Their whole team speaks great English and as such communicating with them was a breeze.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
Nopio is a customer-focused company which means they really care about their customers. Honestly, they felt like an extension of our in-house team and that's hard to find. Furthermore, they thought around corners for us, which meant we could put our trust in them that they'll find the best solutions without us having to constantly nag them.
Are there any areas for improvement?
Nope.
the project
Text Messaging Web App for Investor Marketing Firm
"I particularly noted their positive attitude and proactiveness in making decisions for the best result."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
Plexus Media is a data-driven investor marketing firm enabling new digital ways to share investment stories and attract potential retail investors. I am the co-founder and CEO of Plexus Media.
For what projects/services did your company hire Nopio?
A client in the telecommunications industry saw an opportunity to better serve its customers with an SMS solution that had not yet been developed. We reached out to Nopio for assistance in creating this solution from the ground up for our client.
What were your goals for this project?
The goal of the project was to provide a unique direct-to-business SMS solution to their clients across North America.
How did you select this vendor?
Nopio had an excellent track record with previous clients, and during negotiations, communication was transparent and efficient. We wanted someone who would be easy to work with and proactive.
Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.
They designed, developed, configured, and launched the new application for a direct-to-business SMS solution. After launching MVP product, they iteratively developed additional features based on priority. They helped manage QA/QC with our team, to ensure the highest quality releases at each iteration.
What was the team composition?
The team utilized for our project included specialists in product management and application development. Nopio fluidly included new team members as different tasks occurred requiring different specialties.
Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?
Although we cannot share figures related to the recent launch of this technology solution, this collaboration has certainly expanded the business opportunity for our client in North America and shifted their focus in a short matter of time. They have since hired team members to fully focus on the new solution, and plan for further expansion in the coming months due to its success.
How was project management arranged and how effective was it?
Our team provided the vision and initial wireframes for product development, and transmitted client and user expectations throughout feature development. A ticket management tool was used throughout the process.
Communication was efficient and clear, and response times were very quick from the Nopio team. We communicated extensively via Email, Asana, Google Meet, and WhatsApp—tools that our team was already familiar with. Although Nopio is an offshore firm, we experienced no issues with language barriers or time differences.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
They operate quickly and efficiently. I particularly noted their positive attitude and proactiveness in making decisions for the best result of any given situation. They were easy to communicate with, and responded to requests quickly. Also, they stuck to timeframes that they provided us on each feature development, and we at no point fell behind schedule—something we have found rare in our experience!
Are there any areas for improvement?
There is very little I believe they could improve.
the project
Rebranding & Web Design for Real Estate Saas Compamy
“We can tell they really want to make us happy.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the head of marketing at a real estate software company.
What challenge were you trying to address with Nopio?
We needed help with web development and rebranding.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Our old brand was dated, and we needed to refresh it to reflect our company. Nopio did our complete rebranding, including a new logo and color scheme. They also made brand style guide, as well as business cards and letterheads. The team also did our new website, adding an additional product from an acquisition.
What is the team composition?
Piotr (CEO) is our main point of contact. We also worked with one designer.
How did you come to work with Nopio?
I met Nopio at a previous company I worked for. They did good work then, so I wanted them to complete this rebrand too.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent $25,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in February 2020, and our work is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We’re satisfied with how everything looks now. We’re phasing out another brand that we acquired, so they’ve been a huge help with that.
How did Nopio perform from a project management standpoint?
They’re super responsive. We communicate mostly through Asana. They stuck to our deadlines, so we’re very happy.
What did you find most impressive about them?
We can tell they really want to make us happy. They don’t nickel and dime any little changes that happen out of scope; they truly want to see us happy with the end product. It’s very refreshing.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, nothing comes to mind.
the project
Wordpress Dev for Community Management Web Comic
"They were fast, efficient, and responsive."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
Home Game Comic (http://www.homegamecomic.com), Lead creator
For what projects/services did your company hire Nopio?
Development of design and Wordpress template
What were your goals for this project?
To develop a Wordpress template, as well as some technical migration work from an older GoDaddy server
How did you select this vendor?
Recommendation from a colleague
Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.
* Design work * Wordpress template creation * Technical and project management work
What was the team composition?
Project lead and developer
Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?
The team was able to get the site design and up and running in no time at all. They were fast, efficient, and responsive. This was fantastic for me because I was trying to launch a net new project during the pandemic that was pandemic related. So the timing was critical.
How was project management arranged and how effective was it?
Direct project management between me and the PM
What did you find most impressive about this company?
Speed and quality of work
Are there any areas for improvement?
No, I had a great experience. I'm continuing to use them for additional work.
the project
Cloud Migration for Education Nonprofit
"We had 140,000 submissions the year we started, and by the time I left, we had more than 310,000."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is a non-profit which runs a yearly competition for young artists and writers between grades seventh through 12th. I no longer work for the company, but I was director of web and information technology when I was there.
What challenge were you trying to address with Nopio?
When I arrived at the Alliance, we were facing rapid growth, and we had an unstable, buggy platform, hosted on physical servers which could not respond to the cyclical nature of our program. I worked closely with Nopio to migrate over to a scalable cloud-based system, and over the next five years we enhanced the underlying platform, designing and implementing custom-built solutions to address the growing needs of the organization and its constituents.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Nopio migrated us onto AWS [Amazon Web Services]. The tools we were using were EC2, elastic load balancing, S3, and Amazon RDS [Relational Database Service]. We also built digital archives which contained several thousand records. Our working relationship was very close. I oversaw the product on location and evaluated the need for updates. I had trust in Nopio’s ability to give constructive and objective feedback for different solutions. I presented the problem to Nopio, and then I would work with them to come up with solutions. Sometimes I would create wireframes and sometimes Nopio would. Sometimes we would build the solution incrementally based on the urgency.
How did you come to work with Nopio?
I started at Scholastic in January 2010, and Nopio had already been vetted before I was hired on.
How much have you invested with Nopio?
We spent between $100,000 and $150,000 per year with Nopio.
What is the status of this engagement?
The project is complete.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We had 140,000 submissions the year we started, and by the time I left, we had more than 310,000. We grew by more than 100% while I was there. Once we migrated to a cloud-based platform which could accommodate the growth and cyclical nature, then we had close to zero downtime. Everyone was very satisfied with Nopio's work.
How did Nopio perform from a project management standpoint?
Nopio was very flexible and was able to adapt to whatever our project structure was. I worked with the account manager, he was always very aware of our cycles and our high urgency moments, and always made himself available when we needed him. With larger scope projects, we would set deadlines, and they were able to meet those. If a deadline was unrealistic, Nopio talked through it with us, and the same way was done with the budget. We also had some budget concerns and set a ceiling when we needed to scale back. Nopio was very good at communicating about where we were at with the budget.
What did you find most impressive about Nopio?
I appreciated Nopio's ability to pass on knowledge. As an offsite consulting entity, our fear was losing the programmer. Nopio was good at bringing a second person on to help and made sure there was no loss of knowledge. I notice they are expanding into different fields including designing, SEO [search engine optimization], etc. which is great.
Are there any areas Nopio could improve?
For our needs, the team at Nopio was just right.
the project
WordPress Web Dev for Hotel Retreat Center
"They’re easy to work with, and they are a good resource for technical recommendations."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I am one of the co-founders of a hotel retreat center in Central America. As part of my role, I manage all marketing and branding.
What challenge were you trying to address with Nopio?
We’re a relatively new resort, so we had an interim website in place. But as we’ve built it out, we’ve come across new needs, so we wanted to transfer to WordPress to take advantage of its features and add functionality. We wanted the website to tell our story and drive bookings and interest.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We had a third-party designer create the wireframes and the visual presentation, and Nopio followed those guides and helped implement them. We reused some content from the old site but not a lot of it. It’s primarily an informational website, complete with pictures, videos, and other content.
What is the team composition?
I worked with one of the Nopio founders and one main developer. Those were the two I interfaced with, but there might have been other members of their team.
How did you come to work with Nopio?
They were recommended to us by a colleague who had worked with them on a website.
What is the status of this engagement?
We began working with them in November 2017 and our site is nearing launch.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Nopio has implemented what we asked for, and we are very happy with the look of the website.
How did Nopio perform from a project management standpoint?
We used Trello and had it well organized in terms of the assets we gave them, the wireframe designs and whatnot. The one challenge with this project, and it’s not entirely their fault, was the difference of time zones. I’m in San Francisco, they’re in Poland, and some members of my team are in New York and Nicaragua, so everybody is on different schedules, and that makes it more challenging in terms of turning projects around quickly.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They’re easy to work with, and they are a good resource for technical recommendations.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I’m unsure if they have a QA manager on staff, but they didn’t always solve everything that needed fixing. Some things would sometimes require one more round of work. They’re happy to go back and fix it, but that causes another delay. Those kinds of things can be avoided with more oversight.
Any advice for potential customers?
We found it useful to have weekly standups to review smaller items and discuss what’s being worked on.
the project
Ruby-based Web Dev for Software Company
"Since we’ve been working with Nopio, we have been able to improve the website and develop new features."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I'm a member of the corporate marketing team at Erlang Solutions. Our software company provides consultancy services and products in the programming language called Erlang. We're based in different offices throughout Europe and the U.S.
What challenge were you trying to address with Nopio?
We were looking for ongoing support from Ruby on Rails developers for our custom-built website. We often need fixes and improvements on quite short notice. The support and technical development of that platform were initially in-house, but we decided to engage with an agency. We had a list of tasks for Nopio to complete for our first project together.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Nopio has created and integrated several new features for our company's corporate website. It’s custom built in Ruby on Rails, so some things were hard coded. We requested specific features and functionalities that we can modify internally. Nopio implemented Google Tag Manager and made sure tall the tracking scripts on the website were clean and worked properly. This tool lets us now manage them ourselves.
Nopio added more flexibility to the CMS and integration with the marketing automation backend system. They added form editing and made changes to widgets. They also made it possible to have gated content on the site such as whitepapers users can download. They're mostly involved in technical development rather than design. In a few cases, their frontend developer has made minor changes.
What is the team composition?
In the beginning, we mostly worked with the owner and founder, and Krzysztof (Rails Developer, Nopio) was our regular developer. As it progressed, they introduced another slightly more senior developer to the project. On a daily basis, we now mostly work with those two resources. They’re in close contact with our system administrator team.
How did you come to work with Nopio?
We found Nopio while doing research online. We based our shortlist of agencies on skill sets, past projects, reviews of their experience, and client interviews.
What made us decide to go with Nopio was their pleasant mode of personal contact. We liked that the founder was skilled and hands-on. He gets personally involved in projects.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in the summer of 2017, so it's been about a year now. Our partnership is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Since we’ve been working with Nopio, we have been able to improve the website and develop new features. Within the marketing team, having a much more flexible CMS makes work easier and faster.
Nopio's efforts and deliverables have led to more results for the entire company. The changes they’ve made have also positively impacted all the PPC campaigns we're running. We’ve been generating more new leads, conversions, and enquiries.
How did Nopio perform from a project management standpoint?
They're quite quick regarding time management and responding to our questions. In the beginning, the founder had several different roles. He was both project managing and technically involved. Being the founder, he's also engaged in different clients' projects.
A few months ago, our regular developer was less available because he’d started a university course again. They quickly addressed this by ensuring we had support from another resource at this time.
What did you find most impressive about them?
This type of work can seem complicated to us as marketers because we can't code. If things are hardcoded, Nopio translates the actual work they’ve done in terms that are easy to understand They've made quite simple for us to work with the CMS modifications they’ve built.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Automating the overview and time process could help ensure we received it every week. Sometimes, both of us would forget to either send or request one. We ended up getting it on more of a bi-weekly or irregular basis.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Make sure to be in touch on a day to day basis and hold weekly meetings to discuss ongoing tasks. Make sure to have clear communication and briefings on the features that you'd like to have included.
the project
Web Development for Interactive Design Company
"They were on time and highly communicative."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the creative director of an agency that specializes in interactive installations. Our work is about creating interactive designs in the physical world, including moving sculptures, kinetic objects, and computer-controlled physical objects.
What challenge were you trying to address with Nopio?
At the time, we were doing a rebranding.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We did a visual rebranding and updated all of our marketing touchpoints, including the website. That is where Nopio came in. They helped us with the front-end development and backend CMS system WordPress, which is what we were using for our site. We did the design of the site and then worked with them on building the user interfaces on the backend and WordPress functionality.
How did you come to work with Nopio?
I don’t remember how we found out about them. Talking to their team, we could tell they were detail-oriented, thorough, and timely. Their costs were much lower in Poland than in New York City.
How much have you invested with Nopio?
We spent less than $10,000 on the project.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started the project March of 2016 and it was completed June of 2016.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We don’t have any specific numbers. In terms of being able to bring our designs to life and functional, it’s been very beneficial to have that online presence. The website is functional and responsive. They were able to give suggestions for any problem that came up.
How did Nopio perform from a project management standpoint?
The 1 point of contact I had was Peter, who was super responsive. We drove the process by providing the requirements and they responded to those requirements.
What did you find most impressive about Nopio?
If there was something that needed improvements, they weren’t afraid to talk to us about that.
Are there any areas Nopio could improve?
None. They were great to work with.
the project
Web Development for Underwear Company
"They're very organized and have met all of our timeline expectations."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
The Underwear Expert is an underwear-of-the-month club. I am the chief executive officer of the company.
What challenge were you trying to address with Nopio?
We were trying to launch a custom apparel curation system.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Nopio developed our platform from scratch using Ruby on Rails, Elastic Search, MySQL, and MongoDB. We had several industry-specific requirements for our underwear subscription program. We have worked with Nopio from business and technical strategy perspectives, explaining our challenges and technical requirements. Nopio used this information for developing a technical spec.
How did you come to work with Nopio?
Nopio's owner had worked for another technology company which I hired a few years ago. We stayed in touch over time.
How much have you invested with Nopio?
The cost of Nopio's work was above $200,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We have an ongoing relationship. After our software platform was launched, Nopio has continued to improve and maintain it.
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
Our company wouldn't exist without the platform built by Nopio. It's a sophisticated and well-working solution, and we're constantly adding features to it.
How did Nopio perform from a project management standpoint?
Nopio performs very well from this perspective. They're very organized and have met all of our timeline expectations.
What did you find most impressive about Nopio?
Nopio's team is very good at translating business strategy into technical strategy. We don't always know what we need, but we know what our business requirements are. Nopio can turn this into something more technical.
Are there any areas Nopio could improve?
No.
the project
Branding & Web Dev for Psychotherapy Firm
"Our site is an accurate reflection of who we are and what we do."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I own a group psychotherapy practice in Portland, Oregon called the Center for Couples and Sex Therapy.
What challenge were you trying to address with Nopio?
Our website was in desperate need of a facelift. We had it for approximately five years and it had an outdated design, content, branding, and more. Since everything was old, we wanted to start over from square one, and that’s the reason why we engaged with Nopio.
What was the scope of their involvement?
When we initially reached out to Nopio, we were only looking for web design. We were thinking that we would try to repurpose our existing logo, colors, and fonts. In hindsight, I had no idea why I thought that was ever a possibility.
After that, Nopio told us that even though they want to design a great platform, they couldn’t do it because of our current brand details. The team explained and shared their rationale for why they thought we would benefit from a branding overhaul.
As a result, we decided to go ahead and let them develop our new branding. Once we decided on the project’s scope, they gave us a timeline and presented all the phases we needed to go through, from the branding phase to the website's development and design phase.
Along the way, we were getting PDF reports of our new branding materials. We were also given access to the site’s wireframe as it was being designed. After the design was finalized, we moved to plugging in all the information and transitioning our current site over to our new platform.
The branding and web design were completed, but we continue to engage with them for our web maintenance.
What is the team composition?
I work directly with Peter (CEO & Founder), a designer, and developer.
How did you come to work with Nopio?
We probably interviewed five different web development teams, and we were just impressed with Nopio across the board. Their portfolio was gorgeous and it was so intuitive and user-friendly.
Our first couple of conversations with Peter and his associate were fantastic. They were honest, down-to-earth, and collaborative throughout the process. I never felt like they were trying to sell me, and they truthfully said what they think we needed in order to be successful. In the end, I totally agreed with all of their assessments.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent $12,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
Our ongoing work began in September 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The word-of-mouth feedback that we’re getting for our new site has been incredible. This is the nicest website I have ever seen in my industry. Moreover, people in our community as well as potential clients have told us that they love our platform; It looks professional, clean, and well-designed.
Even our internal employees have been so happy and it made them even more excited about being employed here with us at the center. They've also been transparent with their pricing and timeline.
Our site is an accurate reflection of who we are and what we do, and that shows in our increased email and client conversion rates. That involves third-party stakeholders landing on the site and reaching out to schedule with one of our providers. Our inquiry rate has also gone up, but we haven’t noticed a dramatic increase in our web traffic yet.
How did Nopio perform from a project management standpoint?
We had the chance to leave real-time comments about the wireframe, specifically on things we liked and didn’t like. I've never felt like they weren’t available to me directly if I had questions or concerns. Peter and his associate have always been available pretty much all the time.
When we were in the phase where they were using technology unfamiliar to me, Nopio often had tutorial tech calls and walked me through things until I understood it.
We have also been impressed with their receptiveness to feedback. They’re used to working with big businesses all the time, and we’re the first small business they have a project with. As a result, we have had some learning curves together, but overall, Nopio has a great project management system.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They’ve been doing an excellent job because of their genuine curiosity and understanding of the work that we do. Then, with the information Nopio has, they come up with a lot of ideas we hadn’t thought of yet.
We like them compared to other companies we’ve worked with because they don’t just follow our requirements, they do the best that they can to give us what we need. Additionally, they slow down when needed in order to get the best results possible for us.
Are there any areas they could improve?
The only thing that they could’ve done better was having another person on the team aside from Peter who was focused on providing a project management role during the branding and web design phase.
That extra person could’ve gone between me and their other teammates to make things smoother. However, I’m hesitant to share this because everything went so well and it wasn’t really a big problem for me.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
The Nopio team will always think critically about how to make your project better, and if you go to them with an open mind, it can be a good collaboration. When you do that, your partnership is going to be much better than you thought possible.
Nopio delivered a website that's aesthetically stunning and easy to maintain. They hit all of their deadlines while cueing the client in on all developments. Their great communication skills made the project a breeze. They're a customer-focused team that feels like an extension of your own.