Outliant

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of noted, a logistics tech company specializing in online purchases and returns.

What challenge were you trying to address with Outliant?

We needed help with building our web app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Outliant helped us build our web app from scratch. They handled the app's development and design using these key technologies: Java and Node.js. They also created our website with Webflow. Currently, their team is providing maintenance support; they help fix bugs and implement new features for us.

What is the team composition?

We work with various people from their side, including a product manager, a QA tester, front- and backend developers, and an AI developer.

How did you come to work with Outliant?

A colleague of mine recommended Outliant to me.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Outliant in October 2020, and our engagement is still ongoing.

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

With Outliant’s help, we’ve seen an increase in site traffic, leads, and business conversions.

How did Outliant perform from a project management standpoint?

They always stay within budget and deliver on time. They’re also always in touch with me, so we’re constantly aware of what’s happening. For instance, they would inform us ahead of time if they couldn't meet a certain deadline. We manage the work through Airtable, communicate through Slack, and use Figma for design. We also have weekly meetings via Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their biggest strength is their ability to pair us up with resources that fit the needs of our business. The product manager they’ve assigned to us is really skilled and amazing.

Are there any areas they could improve on?

They can be pretty busy sometimes, so some tasks take a little longer than expected.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to establish a good relationship with their product manager. It’ll be easier for you to communicate any issues, concerns, and comments that you may have by doing so.

Please describe your company and your position there.

MakerBot is a desktop 3D printer manufacturer that produces 3D printers and creates cloud-based software that allows you to connect to printers wirelessly, prepare 3D models for printing, and manage queues of jobs across multiple printers. I'm Vishnu Anantha, Director of Product Design, and my team worked with Outliant to provide deliverables for multiple projects.

For what projects/services did your company hire Outliant?

We hired Outliant to improve the design system, through UI/UX updates and visual designs for MakerBot’s software and hardware.

How did you select this vendor?

We got a referral from one of Outliant’s clients who had great things to say about the company.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

During the course of this project, my team engaged the Outliant team to deliver support in improving the design and user experience across an ecosystem of connected hardware+software products. Outliant enhanced MakerBot’s visual designs, developed a detailed design system (used for digital products as well as the printer's on-board interfaces), and supported user research via customer interviews and usability tests.

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

2 UI/UX Product Designers

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

A significant outcome of this project was the optimization of MakerBot’s customer experience; it’s now fast and easy with interface designs on excellent UX foundations and management services for different target groups.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Extremely. The team has provided contributions and strategies to improve the process flow during every standup and ensured that all deliverables were provided within specified timelines. Their ablilty to move between tasks and on/off projects is extremely impressive.

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

Their design creativity and their ability to turn fresh ideas into well-constructed user process flow for a seamless consumer experience was particularly impressive.

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

None

Please describe your company and your position there.

Freedom Solar is a full-service solar company that installs solar panels and back-up power systems for homeowners and businesses. I’m David Kimbriel, the head of technology and application development at Freedom Solar. I worked as the main point of contact for this project, along with Ryan Hunter, the president of Freedom Solar Power.

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

Our goal is to provide complete residential and commercial solar power solutions with quality craftsmanship, attention to detail, and excellent customer service. We hired Outliant to manage projects and improve our solar installation process, by integrating it with our current CRM. We wanted them to design and build a custom software solution, allowing Freedom Solar complete control of creating workflow templates.

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

Through a referral, we connected with one of the founders of Outliant in early 2020 to initiate the process of building task and process management systems and technology.

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

The demand for green consumerism and work practices called for solar project management software that maximizes the overall efficiency of workflow, tracking resource usage, pending task assignments, goal completion, and schedule maintenance. Outliant built a standalone, project management tool that offered essential PM and CRM features with an intuitive UI. The core focus of this tool is to manage complex task dependencies, user roles, regional tasks, executive reporting, and analytics, making it possible for users to easily visualize projects in progress.

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

A team of 6, including management, 3 engineers, QA, and Design.

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

Outliant successfully deployed the application, managing several hundred simultaneous users; migrated our entire dataset with thousands of projects; and launched commercial solar power on the platform.

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

Their communication was thorough. The team was efficient at providing deliverables on time and communicating any issues or delays regarding the project.

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

Their organizational pattern is unique in that every team member is excellent at contributing to the growth strategy of the project and providing solutions to any issues that may arise.

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

None at the moment, Outliant was very impressive.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Senior Director of Website Operations. My team and I manage approximately 20 different websites for our company. We work closely with our Marketing partners as well as IT to drive numerous enhancements across our web properties to drive lead generation and revenue for the company.

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

We hired Outliant to assist us with rebuilding our customer-facing websites from WordPress to a new tech stack. The CMS that was chosen was Contentful with the framework of the site being on Next.js.

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

Before selecting Outliant, we vetted 4 companies as candidates for our implementation partner. Hands down, Outliant provided the most thorough proposal. You could tell that they had spent a lot of time getting familiar with our web properties, which enabled them to provide a realistic timeline and cost for this very important strategic initiative.

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

Outliant will be providing support in the following key areas:

• Working with Infrastructure / DevOps to set up environments and workflow (i.e. bitbucket)
• Setting up the new CMS (and working hand-in-hand with our Marketing team to ensure transfer of knowledge)
• Moving content from existing websites to the new CMS
• Ensuring that the sites are set up correctly to support SEO technical needs (working in conjunction with SQ SEO team)
• Rebuilding existing logic/functionality in the new framework (i.e. NextJS)
• Connecting the converted websites to the existing Zapier connection which sends data from the websites to the CRMs or rebuilding the Zapier connection if needed
• Supporting QA of converted sites
• Launching converted sites to production / working with our company to decommission WordPress sites (after a site is converted)

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

Right now, since we are in the early stages of this initiative, we are working most closely with 2 of the co-founders as well as 1 project manager. As we get further into the implementation, I expect we will work with additional staff, such as designers

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

We expect to be able to completely revamp ~20 websites in 17 months. This is an extremely aggressive timeline, which we believe would not have been possible using only existing internal resources.

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

Their communication style is awesome. We speak weekly in a formal readout and also have a Slack channel going with daily communication as needed. Overall, the team is very responsive.

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

How knowledgeable the team is with regard to successfully setting up web platforms as well as the ease with which you can communicate with their team. They are extremely customer focused.

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

Nothing - they have been fabulous!

Please describe your company and your position there.

At Crusoe, we are on a mission to align the future of computing with the future of the climate. We do this by providing oil and gas companies with a fast, low-cost solution to eliminate natural gas flaring by deploying modular data centers that consume otherwise wasted flare gas as their energy source. We also started Crusoe Cloud, which helps lower the cost and environmental impact of cloud computing. Cully Cavness – Co-Founder and President at Crusoe.

For what projects/services did your company hire Outliant?

Our team hired Outliant to do a full visual re-brand of Crusoe as well as design and develop our two websites: Crusoe and Crusoe Cloud. Our main goal was to create a world-class brand and website for Crusoe and launch the Crusoe Cloud website with added animations and data visualizations for a better user experience. They also have worked with our fundraising and marketing teams to create branded templates. We’re currently working with Outliant to expand our web properties as well.

How did you select this vendor?

We heard about Outliant through a mutual friend. We were told they did incredible work!

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

In a few months, Outliant developed and designed our two new websites. They also used an animation platform called Greensock (GSAP) to create various animations. The Outliant team managed the project from start to finish, including a QA process. In addition, we use Outliant weekly to do updates to our web properties.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a team of 7 - 4 designers (web & animation), 1 project manager, 1 frontend developer, and 1 QA engineer.

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

We are SO happy with our new websites! The animations and data visuals are even better than we expected. We believe the website has elevated Crusoe’s brand and credibility. We get tons of positive feedback on the websites. We like that the animations add interest, while still being clean and simple. The team is very responsive and quick with website updates as well.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

In the initial stages of our project, we had weekly video calls to review any key details. We also communicate via Slack as needed. The team laid out the entire project timeline for us, and we always knew what to expect with every meeting.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Something unique about Outliant is the level of detail, when it comes to web design, that you won’t find anywhere else. We love that our websites have an “interactive” and 3D feel.

Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?

I don’t think so! Our team loved the new brand, designs and animations on our new website. The results are both eye-catching and professional.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founded in 2020, Mandolin is the first livestream platform built to recreate the live concert experience that the pandemic took away. Mandolin is a digital platform designed to help artists, venues, and fans connect through live music. The platform facilitates and offers content creation, distribution, live-streaming of events, and fan insights. I’m Steve Caldwell - Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Mandolin. I’ve been a tech entrepreneur for 15 years and also a lifelong musician.

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

We brought in Outliant to develop a unique and user-friendly artist portal, where artists could run their shows. It needed to be loaded with features that artists would expect to have when setting up a live performance at a venue. We wanted the experience to be enjoyable for all Mandolin platform users, so that any artist or band that tries it will eventually return for more performances.

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

I knew the founders of Outliant through our network, and they had the exact skills we needed to set up the artist portal.

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

Their team used an Agile approach, by delivering work in small increments. They helped us turn our concept into a working artist portal within 3 weeks. The components they built for the platform allowed our team to scale, from only being able to host a single live show per month, to hosting more than 3 concerts a week. Before hiring Outliant, we used many engineering hours to set up a concert. Thankfully, they built an admin panel that allowed our dev ops team to create and manage shows without our engineering team having to get involved.

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

We worked with a team of 6 - 1 Full-Stack Frontend Developer, 1 Senior Node.js Developer, 1 QA Engineer, 1 UI/UX Designer, 1 Project Manager, and 1 Consulting Partner.

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

The components that Outliant built for our platform allowed our team to scale our shows and spend less time on the development side of things. After working with Outliant, our operations team was able to save dozens of hours per month previously spent on inefficient show management.

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

We had weekly calls and daily updates via Slack. They delivered our project on time, within 3 weeks, which was FAST!

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

We needed to build an MVP quickly, and Outliant delivered an incredibly intuitive artist portal in a short amount of time. We were really impressed with the look and feel of the portal.

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

I don’t think so. We are more than pleased with the project results, and they managed to find a solution for every tech complication.

Please describe your company and your position there.

At Superbud, we help cannabis stores create better relationships with customers. In short, we give "budtenders" in-store customer experience tools and allow them to interact with customers online. I'm the Founder and CPO for SuperBud.

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

I hired Outliant to create a single landing page/website for customers to access Superbud’s services.

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

I was already connected with one of the founders, Konrad, so I contacted him about working together.

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

Over a few weeks, the Outliant team created a landing page for both web and mobile. They designed and developed the site, carried out a quality assurance process, and they currently manage the site. They used Figma to create the designs and Webflow to create the landing page.

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

I worked with a team of 4:

• 1 designer
• 1 frontend developer
• 1 QA engineer
• 1 project manager

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

The design of the landing page is fantastic! I’m really happy with the flow of the webpage and the images they used to highlight what Superbud does.

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

I mainly chatted on Slack with the project manager/founder about the project. Their team got the landing page up and running fast!

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

What I find most impressive about Outliant is how quickly they managed the development side of marketing. I also am super impressed by the design of the landing page. It’s streamlined, clean, and easy to read.

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

I can’t think of anything, they finished the project promptly! Also, any adjustments I had were updated right away.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a real estate platform with a mission to make homeownership more available throughout America. I'm Spencer, VP of Operations.

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

We hired Outliant to help integrate various systems for a more seamless user experience and to automate various workflows.

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

We learned about Outliant through a team that was building a customized mobile app for us. We decided to move forward with them because they are professional, responsive, and delivered excellent results from the get-go. They also came highlight recommended.

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

Outliant audited our existing systems and processes and proposed a project plan to expand our abilities, particularly specific to work order management and internal and external communications, by integrating the multiple systems we were using and automating significant portions of our workflows.

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

Depending on the project and timeframe, we worked with anywhere from 2-4 project managers.

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

We were able to grow the capabilities of the systems we currently use with little internal resourcing, which resulted in an 18% increase in customer experience and the automation of roughly 25% of our daily tasks.

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

The communication process was excellent and always prompt. We’d do a weekly video sync and exchange emails for project coordination. Simple and organized.

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

They have a "can do" attitude - no task is too large or small, and feels like they were part of our team from the get-go.

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

Nope! The Outliant team has been an absolute pleasure to work with.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Origin is a cross-chain multi-metaverse platform that focuses on singular property listings that are available to be purchased or sold. I the CEO, and Founder of ORIGIN. My main responsibilities regarding this project are to review and approve all deliverables in line with the vision of building a real estate marketplace leveraging Web 3.0.

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

We hired Outliant to design and build a simple, secure, and streamlined virtual, real estate marketplace. Our goal for this project was to create a platform that unifies isolated worlds into an easy-to-use marketplace, fully compatible with all platforms and cryptocurrencies.

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

Referral from a digital agency.

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

The first 5 months focused on developing features that facilitate getting to know the users on the platform, as well as listing metaverse properties for sale across blockchains. The second phase will allow for physical real estate to be bought and sold as NFTs. Going forward, we intend to implement a payment option and create additional features that would provide users with advanced analytics on metaverse properties. We’ll also enable new home buyers to build virtually, based on the home builder’s available design options, floor plans, and pricing and sell physical homes as NFTs.

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

We worked with a team of 8 - 1 Project Manager, 2 Designers, 1 Tech Lead, 1 Blockchain Developer, 1 Backend Developer, 1 Frontend Developer, and 1 QA

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

We completed the v1 design and created a Figma prototype to measure and define the process flow of the platform. The team handled the entire process masterfully from production to development.

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

The team was refreshingly efficient. Each task stipulated to meet a specific timeline was handled with commitment and ingenuity. If there were to be an issue regarding a particular timeline, the Outliant team communicated these issues promptly, providing effective solutions moving forward.

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

Their team structure. Every member of the team assigned to the project was proactive and contributed creative ideas that projected the goals of the platform. The team was professional and approachable; they had an exemplary work ethic.

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

None

Please describe your company and your position there.

Billd is a simple payment and finance solution for the construction industry. Contractors purchase materials from their preferred suppliers and get 120-day terms. I am Christopher Doyle, the President and CEO of Billd.

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

Billd has regulations, requirements, and sophisticated internal workflows to follow in order to qualify applications and make proper financial decisions. We hired Outliant to help set up third party integrations with our Salesforce instance and build out business intelligence tools required for Billd to succeed.

How did you select Outliant and what were the deciding factors?

I had the chance to work with one of Outliant’s co-founders, Rob Schmidt, in some of my previous projects, so I had confidence in their proficiency and expertise in software development. I knew that their team would be able to create the best platform with Billd’s mission and purpose in mind.

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

The Outliant team helped us integrate salesforce with a variety of third party services and create workflows that make sense for Billd employees. They also developed an application for the Procore (construction management software) marketplace for a sophisticated, embedded experience. They set up a RedDash BI tool to index and normalize large amounts of data and run complex queries. AWS and Python were used for this project.

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

We worked with two of Outliant’s software engineering consultants and three members of their engineering team

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

API integrations for credit scoring, invoice and account statement syncing, property research, and identity verification/fraud detection. Procore integration that allows users to sync Procore projects to the Billd site.

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

It was great working with the Outliant team. They were responsive to our questions and needs through both email and Slack. The deliverables were produced within the agreed upon timeline, and they were very hands-on throughout the entire project.

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

Outliant’s software development has helped us solve some of our most difficult technical problems. They are the most reliable and efficient software development company I’ve worked with.

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

It was a great experience overall.