Savas Labs

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a program director for a higher education institution in North Carolina.

What challenge were you trying to address with Savas Labs?

We were tasked with creating an interactive research roadmap. We wanted to bring content from 30–35 offices, each having their own website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and developed a Drupal website from scratch. The goal was to create one central website that would bring together information from all these different offices and be very interactive and engaging for users.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Chris (CEO), one program manager, one designer, and two different developers.

How did you come to work with Savas Labs?

We reached out to our procurement office, and they had previously done some work with other offices. They were highly recommended with the ADA compliance with the websites they’d done before. We reached out to them, as well as two other local companies, and got bids from all of them. We decided to go with Savas because we felt a lot more comfortable with the pitch that they gave us, we liked their aesthetic design style and a variety of other factors.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and we wrapped up development in September 2020. They’re still involved in maintenance and upkeep.

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

We’ve done a couple of demos of this site for our higher-level leadership, and we’ve gotten very positive feedback. People are very excited about how it meets our goals, it’s very user friendly, interactive, and easy to use.

How did Savas Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great with project management. Maddy (Full-Stack Developer) was our project manager and we met weekly. We got updates from her every week on the timeline and the budget. and they were flexible throughout our project, too.  They totally stayed within our budget and finished slightly ahead of time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team seemed very genuine and they were all good people. They were really fun, professional, and enjoyable to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not necessarily. We did have to do some tweaks afterward, but that could be because we didn’t explain it correctly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

 I’m the VP of client services at a strategy, design, and development agency. I oversee our project management and account management teams, along with project delivery.

What challenge were you trying to address with Savas Labs?

We have a long-standing relationship with the University of Virginia, and their Darden School of Business. For many years, they used Drupal as their platform, which isn’t a platform we develop in.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We brought Savas on as our partner to execute a re-design project. We did the content work and information architecture, and they took on the backend development work in Drupal. They were the CMS implementors on the project. Their work ranged from technical consulting, to integrating our frontend development files as templates in Drupal, and project management.

What is the team composition?

The core team was 3–4 people.

How did you come to work with Savas Labs?

Our offices are actually right across the street from each other. The COO at Savas was formerly a project manager at our company, too. We knew that they specialized in Drupal and that they’d done similar higher education work with Duke, so that’s how we vetted their work and brought them on as a partner.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off in October 2018, and we launched in August 2019. They provided support until October 2019.

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

The feedback that we got from the client is that the CMS hit all of the goals we were looking for. It was flexible, easy to use, intuitive, and they’ve also been able to take over ownership in-house.

How did Savas Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Since this was a multi-vendor dynamic, we ran into the most challenges with project management. The team was incredibly collaborative, and we both ended up being flexible on our timelines and budgets to come to an ultimate solution. This was probably the area of the project where we had the most amount of overhead, too. We used BaseCamp, Slack, and Redmine for project management and communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have a trusted partnership with them and we know they can jump in and collaborate easily with our teams. They also give us recommendations and push back for the best technical approach, especially since they know the ins and outs of Drupal. They came through on that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The main thing that we both discussed was investing more time in technical discovery and feature definition. That way, we could’ve set the client’s expectations around how things would work in the CMS and what was possible.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re incredibly collaborative, open, and honest in their communication. Embracing them as part of your team and going all-in on that collaboration will yield the best result. The team is very solutions-focused and will get to an end result that’ll work for everyone.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Vintoux is a startup for myself and a few other entrepreneurs.

What challenge were you trying to address with Savas Labs?

We had the concept and some of the basic user flows, but we needed a company to build the app for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed backend database development and API integration. They worked with React Native.

What is the team composition?

Their team had a team of two developers. We had a project manager as our point person and a lead developer.

How did you come to work with Savas Labs?

We researched companies to work with. That involved a search in the Raleigh-Durhan area. I had a conversation with them and it was clear that we shared values in common. The local partnership and its transparency made it easy to connect.

How much have you invested with them?

It was between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work went from November 2019 to April 2020.

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

The quality of the development work that we got was very good. They embraced the idea of collaboration and partnership. The collaboration was ultimately successful in launching the app. Any issues that we encountered, which were typically on our side, they jumped on the phone to help us.

How did Savas Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management involved a strong tool that they shared with us. The project manager kept everything well-organized. They were able to follow through and execute on deadlines. It wasn’t a problem at all.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with their strategic abilities. Their thoughtfulness about user flows and presentation was great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I was very happy.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We asked them to share their expertise and recommendations. We listened to it—I’d say we followed most of their recommendations. You should approach the situation with flexibility. We had some healthy debates on what made the right sense for our business. Let their expertise guide the path forward.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Marketing & Communications for a unit of Duke University that provides educational programs to gifted students in grades 4-12. Our student base is located across the U.S. and the kids we serve go on to enroll in a wide variety of universities.

Our goal is to help them reach their full academic potential in the years heading up to college while supporting their emotional and social needs. In addition to program staff, we have a large research department that specializes in giftedness.

For what projects/services did your company hire Savas Labs?

We hired SAVAS to conduct a usability study of our main website. This was with the understanding that the usability study would be the first step in a re-design of our main website.

What were your goals for this project?

To see if our 4-year old website design still satisfied our needs and delivered our stakeholders the info they needed in a an intuitive, seamless way. In addition, because there were so many conflicting opinions within our organization as to how the website should be improved for the future, we felt bringing in outside experts might help settle some internal debates.

How did you select this vendor?

We asked for proposals from a number of companies, outlining our goals and needs. Three companies submitted proposals that put them in the final round, but SAVAS won out on the strength of their proposal. 

They had really listened to what we needed, created a proposal that addressed our concerns, provided a great deal of helpful background information as part of their proposal, outlined a specific approach upfront and really seemed to be listening to us.

In addition, their price for a usability study was very competitive. They were upfront about what we would get for our money, what might be needed in the future, and what could be cut if our budget needed trimming. Not once have they ever pressured us into contracting for more then we needed. In fact, their entire communication style is to be upfront, frank, and transparent. It is very much appreciated.

Describe the project in detail.

We had a website originally designed by an in-house university-wide team that served us to four years but nonetheless had created confusion among our stakeholders because of its architecture, design style (non typical treatment of links), and complexity.

We brought SAVAS in to conduct in-person and online usability studies and focus groups with our parent, educator, student, and alumni stakeholder groups. After conducting this research for us, SAVAS presented recommendations on what our actual users felt about the website along with recommendations for how we could prove it.

Their recommendations included things we could do internally at no extra cost, short-term strategies for improving the existing website, and a longer term plan for redesigning it.

What was the team composition?

On my end, my content manager served as point person for the project. i was heavily involved, and other team members rotated in and out as needed. Our Executive Director wanted to be a hands-on member of the project team toward the end and SAVAS accommodated her nicely.

From a SAVAS standpoint, I was aware of two SAVAS principals plus various developers, focus group and survey leaders, and support staff on the project.

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

They created a recommendations presentations that was incredibly helpful. They provided background and context, educated a lot of people on our end on the issues involved plus the terminology, then presented their findings in a very clean, prioritized way that addressed our budget concerns and manpower constraints.

They really got that we needed to work within certain parameters and respected that. I found their recommendations to be right on the money, presented in a way that made them palatable to leadership.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were great! They set up a special instant messaging channel for us, had an account manager, kept us updated daily, and responded to our questions in a very timely fashion.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

1. They way they really listened to us.
2. Their ability to put our best interests over their desire to land more projects from us.
3. The way they stuck to their deadlines and made every single one. When is the last time that has ever happened in any project?
4. The way senior SAVAS staff stayed involved in the project from start to finish.
5. The way they delivered exactly what they had promised they would.
6. The way they communicated with us in a very transparent,  non-B.S. way.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly, I see no areas where they could improve. We considered tiny one man shops, huge ad agencies,and then SAVAS which turned out to be the perfect middle ground. We got personalized service with real, specialized expertise.  Their account service was great and their advice right on the money.  We will be using them again.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We were a design agency that hired Savas to supplement development work on a prototype that we were designing for the client, Videntity and the Alliance for Better Health. I am the CEO of the design agency, Clade Design.

For what projects/services did your company hire Savas Labs?

We needed a web app prototype in order to test our designs with various non-profit organizations in the Albany NY area. They were hired to build out this prototype based on our designs.

What were your goals for this project?

The Alliance for Better Health was working with Videntity on allowing the homeless or underprivileged community have access to their health information when working with these organizations. It was a system where all the organizations could share information about these patients.

How did you select this vendor?

Savas labs came recommended and was based in the same city as the client, Videntity.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They built a front-end web application with no back-end integrations. The purpose being that the client would use this front-end to hook in existing integrations. We needed an accessible design that looked good and reflected the design work that we did to a T.

What was the team composition?

Two back-end developers, two designers, and Savas provided the front-end developer.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We were successful in the initial launch, but the client was unsure if they wanted to move forward after seeing the prototype since it infringed on another product that they owned.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We managed Savas lab's employee. She was very effective in her communication and timeline.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The quality of work and knowledge was exceptional. Even though this was a smaller project, they handled it like pros and executed a prototype that was fully fleshed out and realized.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I witnessed.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the cofounder and CTO of Killer Aces Media. We run one of the top personal finance sites in the world.

What challenge were you trying to address with Savas Labs?

Our company has been working with their team for over a decade for all of our IT consulting and assistance that we need. Our most recent project was the overhaul of our entire server system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were seeing a lot of outages across our system and wanted to get our uptime to 99.95%. They overhauled our server system to do that, instituting technologies like Varnish and Long Train, and eventually achieved over the 99.95% uptime goal that we had set.

Since then, we have kept them on retainer for 5-10 hours a month to monitor the servers and provide upgrades or updates as they need to happen. All of that has been on top of the work they do maintaining our Drupal website, helping us to upgrade that as needed and occasionally implementing custom modules as well.

What was the team composition?

For the server overhaul project, I mainly worked with three people at Savas, including a main project manager who came from an engineering background. The main guy doing the work was one of the senior engineers, and occasionally one of their directors would consult on various components.

How did you come to work with Savas Labs?

We talked to them about this project, received a few RFPs from their team and several others, but decided to hire Savas Labs for the work in the end.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, the project cost around $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

This latest big project ran from February 2017–May 2018, but we have continued working with them on a retainer basis.

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

The quality of their work is really great. I trust their team completely, which is one of the most critical contributors to our success. They do highly in-depth research both on the technology itself and to understand our business needs so that they can deliver the most comprehensive proposals possible.

How did Savas Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

One of their biggest strengths is the communication either from the directors or from the engineers directly. They give incredibly honest feedback on the context of why certain things are good decisions based on the cost of the solution versus the severity of the business problem.

Their project manager is always on top of our weekly calls and provides really thorough updates on our progress and plans for the upcoming week. They have given me the ability to log in and monitor the results myself as well, which I really appreciate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think their culture really starts from the top. Chris really cares about the clients he works with and is very passionate, and that attitude spreads down to the rest of his company. They really care about providing a quality product to their customer rather than just serving as a factory production line.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Because I do have such a relationship of trust built up with them, I keep asking them to provide more services, and I sometimes wish they had a broader offering in that regard. But everything they do, they do extremely well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be honest with them about your needs. They are on the expensive side for providers, but you get quality for that price, and they are more than willing to work with you to adjust the work order to make sure that it fits your budget. The more open you are about what you’re struggling with, the better they will be able to help you find a solution for that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technology director at Omega Institute. We’re a holistic learning center.

What challenges were you trying to address Savas Labs?

We’re brought them on to build a new Drupal 9 website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re helping us transfer from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9, ensuring everything is up to speed. They’re working with us on architecture, UX, and web design. We want to launch more robust online learning, so web development is essential. In the near future, they’ll also be helping us with improvements to our e-commerce platform. 

 We’re a multi-faceted organization, but they’re helping us make the best choices for our site and the institute as a whole

What is the team composition?

We have 6–8 people working on the project including a project manager, UX designer, front- and backend developer, and a designer. There are also internal resources from my side that are working with them. 

How did you come to work with Savas Labs?

My web consultant attended a Drupal conference and connected with them there. Their mission aligned well with our values, so we had a lot of respect and understanding of one another. Their time feels like part of my team. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested well over $1 million dollars. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our first big project with them around July 2017. Our work is ongoing, and they’ve worked with us on several web projects.

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

They’re really clear and are willing to be in a negotiation about what’s possible. Their team manages their hours and scope so that we can stay within budget. It feels like a partnership, rather than just a client-vendor relationship. They want to understand us. 

When we’ve had times where things didn’t go as planned, they were always willing to help us fix issues with long term solutions. 

How did Savas Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

I’ve had several project managers with them. Both were really on top of it. Originally, we used Redmine, but they’ve since switched over to Teamwork. The communication is clear and constant. They provide a lot of detail and documentation, so it’s easy to revisit information if necessary. 

We have a weekly check-in meeting to go over hours, budget, and plans for the week. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Savas Labs has been the best experience I’ve had with any web design company. They’re truly about being a partner in how one plans their technology. They’re willing to do research to help us see things with a fresh perspective by providing us with options. Their team values being part of our strategy. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Initially, there were a few problems with project management. However, as our relationship has grown, those issues have dissipated. They’re growing as a company and are learning how to navigate it all, and they’re very self-aware. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

Be willing to be in a relationship with them. This means being communicative and letting them know what you need. The best way to be successful is through transparency.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of two co-founders at a company that creates business simulations that serve as digital learning experiences for assessing and training talent. Our background is in corporate training and executive education. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Savas Labs?

We keep a lean development team but needed to scale up.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided web development support, with the ability to do full-stack engineering. Our project required integration with a large enterprise, so they dealt with serious backend work and DevOps engineering. We relied most heavily on their database, backend, and DevOps resources.  

What is the team composition?

We first worked with the CEO who then put us in touch with a project manager. In total, we’ve worked with five people. Our project manager helps us source the right talent for their team.  

How did you come to work with Savas Labs?

I was at a coding boot camp even while looking for someone to work at my company full-time. The best candidate that we met that day ended up taking a job with their company. Because of that connection, I thought their team would be a great resource for accessing additional talent. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $15,000–$25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project lasted from August–Dember 2019. However, we’re in-touch and looking for new ways to work together.

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

Their team was very experienced with enterprise backend development and integration. That familiarity with the technology ensured that we were working with a safe pair of hands.  

How did Savas Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

I was impressed with the professionalism in which they managed their team and communications. We communicated through Slack and Jira. They adapted well to our communication systems. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They worked professionally and displayed a depth of knowledge that was essential to our project’s success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As they grow and scale, they should be able to help people with even larger projects. I saw no downsides to working with them. In fact, we’ll work with them in the future when needed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Budget time to communicate with the project manager. It’s important for you to have a parallel commitment to the project management aspects of this project.  

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is an independent, bipartisan, nonprofit organization that develops strong, pragmatic, and principled national security and defense policies. I am the Communications Specialist at CNAS, responsible for the Center's digital engagement and congressional relations.

For what projects/services did your company hire Savas Labs?

The Center was hoping to make several design improvements to its main website, cnas.org.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals for this project were to execute several design improvements efficiently and effectively, without disrupting site performance or compromising design continuity.

How did you select this vendor?

We selected Savas Labs for this project after an extensive review process of comparable firms, which also involved an exploratory demonstration with Savas Labs.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project involved: (1) Identifying necessary immediate-term design improvements, (2) working with Savas Labs to develop feasible solutions, (3) reviewing and adjusting the solutions produced by Savas Labs on our stage server, and (4) monitoring the deployment of these approved solutions to our main site experience.

What was the team composition?

The team behind this project consisted of several developers and UX experts from Savas Labs, as well as the CNAS communications team and Creative Director.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The CNAS communications team received positive feedback from colleagues within the Center, as well as key external stakeholders, about the design changes, especially with regard to the new table of contents navigation feature that Savas Labs designed.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Savas Labs performed well when it came to managing this project, offering clear guidelines and deadlines for the Center’s review and consolidating steams of information to streamline the Center’s approval processes.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Savas Labs seamlessly translated our existing site design into the added improvements.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Savas Labs used Teamwork to facilitate conversations with the Center regarding review and approval of proposed changes. As the Center does not frequently use Teamwork to collaborate, this required Center personnel to adjust their typical communications workflows.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director of the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice at Duke University. It’s a nonprofit organization focused on history, arts, education, and social mobilization. We’re a part of Pauli Murray Projects, so I’m very involved in both.

What challenge were you trying to address with Savas Labs?

I’ve taught classes at Duke under these programs, and one of the assignments required us to create an online map that could become a public resource. We wanted to display all different kinds of local activism using Google Map, but it crashed. Because of this, we hired Savas Labs to build a proprietary site for us to transfer our entire map. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a Drupal site for us after recommending it as most suitable for our goals. We gave them some content, like map markers, so they could create a few samples. It was important for us to be able to upload audio, photos, map locations, and other files that were all accessible on tablets, computers, and phones, so they built those features in for us. 

From there, we were able to upload the information from my students and curated it for the map. I’m able to handle all of the content updates on the site. 

What is the team composition?

Three people were on the team, including Chris (CEO & Founder), a cartographer, and a project coordinator who would take my feedback back to the team. 

How did you come to work with Savas Labs?

I knew the cartographer previously and he also worked at Savas Labs, so that’s why we decided to use them for the project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April 2015 – May 2016.

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

The goals that we set in the beginning were all exceeded. We laid out our expectations for usability, visual attractiveness, and accessibility on different devices. They met every one of our goals in each area. It’s a very pretty site and it works well. We have anecdotal responses from people who’ve used it in other classrooms. 

How did Savas Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

The timelines were dependent on me, but they did a good job with it. They made sure I had a point of contact and everything was synthesized through them, which was really useful. We would have face-to-face meetings to discuss what’s working, what our goals are, and what we should try. 

I’d never worked on a project completely from scratch like this, so they laid out a design and production process that made sense and was easy to follow. We wanted to know what the steps were and have feedback loops in place, and they were great to work with in this way. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their creativity and ability to truly listen to what I wanted were most impressive. Since my idea hadn’t been done before and didn’t have an existing template, they really listened to all of my information and goals. They did everything they could to deliver it. 

They were also able to work well with me even though I didn’t necessarily understand the backend of the website or all of the coding language. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We ran into an issue when we needed to change the server and we have limitations because of our university affiliation. However, that wasn’t their fault, it was outside of their control and they were able to adapt.