SEMbyotic

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work in marketing and communications for a semiconductor company that develops the core video technology for automotive, wearable, sports, drone, and security cameras.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SEMbyotic?

As cameras become smarter and incorporate AI hardware, we have shifted from developing traditional video technologies to building advanced computer vision technologies. We needed our website to accurately reflect this shift in focus. We tasked SEMbyotic with completely redesigning our site.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to modernize, streamline, refocus, and reimagine everything about our web presence. This involved updating our hosting and backend services, our look and feel, our educational content, and our imagery. We wanted to better educate visitors about our technologies and present a crisp, streamlined UX.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had worked with SEMbyotic before and didn't even consider working with another partner. I didn't continue to work with SEMbyotic simply because of inertia or unwillingness to change.

SEMbyotic is special. They are excellent designers, which is paramount, but they also took the time to understand our business. In my experience, that's uncommon. They know our history, messaging, and goals so well that they can articulate each one fluently. This has made a tremendous difference in our ability to reach our goals.

Describe the project in detail.

They managed a complete website redesign. We changed hosts, platforms, site map organization, colors and imagery, educational content, and messaging. SEMbyotic designed mockups, wireframes, and functional pages. Over time, we refined those until achieving the final result. 

What was the team composition?

SEMbyotic gave us access to a marketing expert and a web development and design expert. Both had expertise across several domains. It was helpful to have multiple perspectives simultaneously. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

SEMbyotic delivered a new website that achieved every project goal and checked all our boxes.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was perfect. Our workflow depended on the particular needs of the project at any given time. We had face-to-face meetings, screen-sharing meetings, phone meetings, and email exchanges. SEMbyotic implemented an organized, methodical workflow and communicated with patience and warm professionalism. 

All their communications were timely, so we never waited for information. They resolved all our healthy disagreements quickly and effectively. Because SEMbyotic understood our business, I trusted their opinions. When they challenged one of my assumptions, they were usually correct. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

SEMbyotic is extremely experienced. SEMbyotic listened to our goals, understood our preferences, and used their vast knowledge of current trends to recommend approaches that suited our needs.

They honestly seem to have seen and done it all. They understood how to design a UI, how to organize content, how to develop educational materials, how to choose a platform and host, and how to make everything look and run beautifully. They took the time to understand our business, our internal processes, and our unique culture. They did everything with kindness, patience, and good humor.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Truthfully, I couldn't have been happier with the outcome of this project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a marketing, brand, and communications strategy consultant. I work with clients in Silicon Valley and around the world on branding, communications and go-to-market strategies. I also author articles, documents, and websites to support marketing and PR objectives.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SEMbyotic?

Primarily, I brought them in for assistance with web strategy design and development. That’s a big part of what I've done with them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I’ve worked on several products with SEMbyotic. Our projects include websites that are designed from scratch as well as redesigned. Sometimes, what starts as a redesign is actually going back and starting from scratch, rather than redesigning. My experience with SEMbyotic includes wireframing, sketching, and outlining long before code gets written. These are not things that get done in weeks, if you think about the process of going through the wireframing, design, and everything else. That then goes back to the company, which is usually the slowest part because companies often have lots of reviewers. Lots of time is spent actually with the company, considering what's been put in front of them, and then asking for revisions and changes. I don't know all the technologies that they employ, but I know for a fact that they work with WordPress, Drupal, and others, as well as doing custom database work. I'm often less interested in the how than the result.

How did you come to work with SEMbyotic?

I had worked with SEMbyotic's President long ago at Lumileds, a company that we were both at. That’s how I knew of them.

How much have you invested with SEMbyotic?

I've deployed tens of thousands of dollars to SEMbyotic for various projects, either for myself or on behalf of clients. I don't know the total amount, but if we're just talking about a website project, it is usually in the $20,000–$25,000 range at the very low end. A more normal cost would be in the $40,000–$60,000 range. Again, it completely depends on the project, objectives, company, scope, and scale. Websites don't come in at a fixed price since they have a scope and scale that determines what has to be done.

What is the status of this engagement?

There's a huge range on the timeline. A website that's fast-tracked, if it has any complexity to it, would last at least two to three months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They are fantastic to work with. SEMbyotic’s depth of knowledge and experience helps me work with my clients on how a website could accomplish their goals. A lot of the time, people have an idea of what they think they want, but they're not actually familiar with all the possibilities. SEMbyotic is good at fleshing out how the web might work for a company or objective and providing development strategies to make that happen.

I continue to use and recommend SEMbyotic with my clients and for my clients. Because of their retained experience, I know that SEMbyotic continues to have an ongoing relationship with the clients that have used them to develop their sites, either through me or in other ways. However, based on my clients, I don't have a way to quantify performance data that I'm not necessarily privy to.

How did SEMbyotic perform from a project management standpoint?

They have performed really well. I've worked jointly on projects with them, and timelines are adhered to. There may be delays on the client’s side in reviewing material, but that gets incorporated into the timeline. SEMbyotic is good about outlining what's going to take place in a project and how long it's going to take.

SEMbyotic has several tools they use for communication and project management tracking, which sometimes depends on what the customer is using. But in my role, I am in face-to-face meetings or joint working sessions with them on a regular basis, so I'm less on the tools.

What did you find most impressive about SEMbyotic?

One of the things that differentiate them is they don't just come in and execute a requested website. They try and understand the business objectives, offering strategic and tactical guidance to the company on how that might be achieved with the web. That may include search engine optimization, links to social, links to backends that they have, etc. They offer more than just simply saying, “Sure, we’ll program your site.” After years and years, they're my go-to company for web stuff, so I feel good about where they are.

Are there any areas SEMbyotic could improve?

As a client, you always want things to happen quicker. They could have more graphics support, but they do provide a fair bit at present.

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

Clients need to be clear on what their objectives are for the site and how it's going to be managed over time—because that becomes a backend interface question. They also need to specify how the site would be updated over time and how they want to measure success going forward. If they understand all those things going in, they'll have a better experience with whoever they select.