Specno

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and director of ihempi. iHempi was created to offer no frills, clean, no hidden nasties and sustainable HEMP based skin and body care. We have created a community rooted in diversity, self-expression and fearlessness.

It’s our mission to empower individuals to be their most authentic and courageous self.

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

I hired Spenco specifically to an e-commerce website with a visually unique and vibrant design- a leader in its industry. I needed a website that would be distinguished from the current beauty crowd.

I also required digital renders for my products and business advice on how to best launch with a MVP.

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

After obtaining 4 quotes from around the world, the absolute deciding factor was the fact that they offered not only a tangible visually appealing website, but also on-going emotional support for getting my business off the ground and business advice that was not limited to developing my website.

I was offered key-insights from their experience in the product and e-commerce industry.

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

he project was broken up into multiple phase. During the discovery phase the team spent time understanding my market, the business and the brand. They went over my user personas and social media to pick up on my taste preference.

Next they went into wireframing and prototyping where I could see what the system would look like. Finally they went into the build phase. They used Adobe XD and webflow, as well as zoom and slack for communication, the team kept me in the loop throughout the process.

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

I worked with a small team from Specno. My initial engagement was with the managing director and the creative director, where they walked me through what the process would be like of building my site and gave me some tips to starting the business.

I was also given access to a project / account manager, as well as a second designer who worked on my product mockups

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

They design prototypes first, so before I had to commit to a build they had shown me what my site would be looking like. I could see that they offer completely trailer made solutions, they took effort to incorporate my brand and give me something unique.

Once they started the build they also often spent time with me showing me progress and keeping me up to date with what comes next.

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

They are an agile development agency following the lean methodology. They would often give me tips into how I could keep costs down in the beginning and then scale things as the business grows.

They had an outlines of how they would be handling my project and were good at scheduling meetings and giving me enough time to process their progress and provide adequate feedback.

There was a good connection between the team and myself, and I found it easy to talk to them. They created a slack channel for me to communicate with each team member directly, and then had weekly zoom calls whenever they needed to present.

All in all the project ran over 2 months.

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

I was most impressed at how they guided me through the whole process of what I needed to launch with a minimum viable product.

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

There aren't any areas for improvement

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and managing director of Simpl. Simpl is a managed services company that makes use of software to track tickets, manage client communication, and provide a dashboard for collected data.

For what projects/services did your company hire Specno?

Specno was tasked with doing an analysis of the current system and business and coming up with a proposal of how to make the system more user friendly. They then needed to turn this proposal into a prototype and conduct usability tests. The team also needed to understand our business model and workflow in order to come up with a system that worked for us.

What were your goals for this project?

To create something really sleek, modern, and user friendly. The look of the system is supposed to act as a selling point for why clients should use our system. Have a system that makes our lives easier.

How did you select Specno?

Í was in need of a technology partner that offered the full range of services from UX through to development and had heard of Specno through someone in my network.

Describe the project in detail.

Specno needed to take the existing interface and understand the user flows and how the users go about achieving each of the tasks within the system. The main goal of the system is to give our clients full access to their IT resources, support and reports.

What was the team composition?

It was myself as the product owner working directly with the founders and Specno’s user experience designers.

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

The new system is definitely a lot cleaner and sleeker, and I can see that the team and our clients are eager to move to this new system. The design follows the brief in terms of being user friendly and easy to navigate. Presenting the designs make it easier to sell the service offering.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

There was good collaboration between the teams and they made a great effort to ensure that we could function remotely as effectively as if we were in person.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The way they were able to extract all the needed information and take not just the interface but how they incorporate our business model and brand into the solution.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They are quite structured in their meeting times and tend to set it a few days ahead of schedule which can be difficult to stick to, but it wasn’t an issue.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of Galigro and personally wrote the algorithms and backend of Galigro, I have a background in Finance, Software and Agriculture.

Galigro is a powerful data analytics engine that provides farmers, agronomists and fertilizer manufacturers with easy to use tools and calculators. Simply upload your sample analysis and within seconds you will be presented with interpreted results.

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

This was my second project with the company, we tasked them with coming up with a progressive web app to follow agronomists and farmers to use blending calculators and other tools. We gave them a budget and trusted them to give us the best system they could within that budget.

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

We had used them on a project before and they blew us away, so it was a no brainer to use them again.

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

Galigro is a web-driven data analytics engine which provides farmers, agronomists and fertilizer manufacturers with easy to use tools and calculators. We had already developed the backend functionality and turned it into an API, the team simply had to build a frontend to interact with the API, which is their strong suit so we trusted them to come up with a solution.

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

We interacted with their business analyst to understand what was required, he then took that info to the developers and designers to come up with a solution. From there we had some interaction with the team to make sure we were happy with what they were building.

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

We received a fully scalable web app, easy to use. The app was extremely low in data. It was easy to teach to farmers and agronomists. We have started getting invaluable data from its use.

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

They met our time and performance targets and we were kept up to date at all times by means of Slack.

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

They could quickly grasp our requirements and come up with a solution that was perfect. The autonomy was exactly what we needed.

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

The project was a short project and we were very happy with the results. I can’t comment on improvements.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Donkidrive is a Peer to Peer parcel delivery and e-haling service with the aim to reduce carbon emissions and provide logistics opportunities to small communities. I am the founder of Donkidrive and responsible for the rollout of the business.

For what projects/services did your company hire Specno?

Donkidrive is a progressive web app released in the Western Cape, South Africa. The app has been bootstrapped and had never gone through a prototyping and design phase in order to properly develop something that was truly user friendly.

Our number one problem was that our users were telling us the system was too complicated to understand or use, and since we had no traction we couldn’t raise funding for mass-market adoption. We needed Specno to create a design that was intuitive.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed Specno to understand the business case of Donkidrive, and be able to translate it into a system that was user friendly and intuitive. The designers needed to take into account our development budget and what had already been developed and come up with a design that would not take too much time to implement.

How did you select this vendor?

The team managed to wireframe and prototype the system within just a months work, while quickly grasping the concepts and coming up with beautiful designs that were easy enough to implement. We are currently in the implementation phase.

Describe the project in detail.

The team was to reduce the number of pain points in the current app/software and enhance the user experience to attract and retain users.

• They started with wireframes that focused on realizing the eventual goal of our users whilst simplifying the process for achieving this.
• Then they introduced a user-interface that re-inforced these principles and created an attractive aesthetic for the software.
• They developed a design language for the brand and consistently implemented it through all contact points in the software.
• They ended by creating a prototype that allowed us to interact with the new designs and together we fine-tuned the interface and user-flows.

What was the team composition?

Our CTO, Michael I., dealt directly with their creative director who personally ran the design audit and work on the UX/UI.

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

We conducted user tests to see how the new designs shaped up to the old look and feel and found that the new designs were a lot more intuitive.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We began working with the team during the first week of the national lockdown of our country. Everything was fully remote. The team was completely set up to handle all the work, telling us what they needed from us before and after each call. We would choose to continue remote work over needed to come in.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They quoted me a relatively low amount of time required compared to other agencies, but I was highly impressed by what they were able to deliver in that time. They came in better than I expect for a price lower than I expected.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I was satisfied with their work, no room for improvement.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Jumping Fox Software was established in 2016. Our software helps collection teams to follow the prescribed pre-legal steps and identifies the best next step in the collection process to increase the collection success rate. Daleen & Hendre Vorster are the owners of the business and directors of Jonker Vorster Attorneys. In September 2019, the business owners decided to expand the product line.

For what projects/services did your company hire Specno?

The new product had to be up and running in January 2020 and had to run parallel with the existing development roadmap. The in-house development team was working at full capacity and the company had no alternative but to outsource the project.

What were your goals for this project?

The project had to be finalized within 3 months, with all necessary marketing material to launch the product.

How did you select this vendor?

Specno software and design agency, with their team of experts, managed to build the system within the scheduled time frame and within the agreed project budget. Their design team also provided the business with high-quality marketing material.

Describe the project in detail.

The system had to be able to manage school fee exemption applications online. The system also had to include functionalities such as a dashboard, reports, add a user, permission levels, back end workflow, document uploads, print, percentage calculations, and an admin portal to create new sign-ups. Applicants have their own portal where they can apply and view application statuses.

What was the team composition?

Our business owners, support team, and some of the current Jumping Fox Software clients worked with the Specno team to finalize the project on time. The communication and support from the Specno team added some extra value to ensure that work was completed effectively and efficiently. The founder of the business acted as their project manager and system analyst and their creative director handled all the design work.

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

More than 30 clients signed up to use the system and to date, 3000+ applications have been lodged through the system. Specno has been very helpful and provided continuous support from day one. All support tickets logged were resolved within 24 hours. Their team is currently analyzing the system to add new features and improve user experience.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between the teams was very good. Their development team took the lead with the development of the back - and frontend as well as the system architecture. One the frontend the systems were developed in parallel and our team was very involved with the system analysis and design phase. Specno's project manager was in constant communication with our team and they were able to remain agile.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The system is built on the requirements of the South African Schools Act and in order to understand the workflow and calculations you have to understand the act and the appropriate legislation. The team skilled them on all legal requirements and understands the exemption process in full. That was impressive. The fact the system was developed in such a short time and with such high standards is also something to be proud of. Development was speedy, they grasped concepts quickly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The Specno team places quite a high importance on usability and well-designed interfaces and insists on getting it right, if your company just cares about the functionality of a site you may feel like time spent on designs is a waste.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of Wardworx, a health tech startup in South Africa. Wardworx is a task management, team collaboration tool for healthcare practitioners in South Africa.

For what projects/services did your company hire Specno?

Design and development of a progressive web based app. User Interface and User Experience design. User testing.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create an intuitive, purpose built platform using concepts from our existing paper back product and incorporating input from doctors from across South Africa. We are launching December 2020.

How did you select this vendor?

We were referred to Specno by a software developer in our network. We approached two other (larger, more established) development companies in the Cape Town area and the choice was a 'no-brainer'. Specno out performed the two competitors despite being relatively new in the industry. Their young, new, fresh approach was their biggest advantage in our eyes.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Specno invests alot into initial introductory/brainstorm meetings, they won't settle untill they understand your vision as well as you do. Wire frames and userflows were discussed with us on a daily basis, allowing us to be actively involved in the process. Specno assisted us in interactive usertesting to test all designs before development began.

What was the team composition?

We interacted daily with Specno's head engineer (systems analyst & fullstack developer), as well as their technical lead (technical operations managers & business development) and their creative director (user experience and Interface designer).

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

Our user flow tests have been well received, the doctors can't wait for our beta launch. We already have 100 volunteers willing to take part in our beta launch.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

This is where Specno shines, we feel actively involved in the process. Their communication is frequent, insightful and professional. They make themselves available for regular feedback sessions and are open to and encourage suggestions and input.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The way they took our project on with the same passion we have was impressive, the way they applied themselves as if it were their own.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly, no.

Please describe your company and your position there.

My investor pitch training is pivotal to the success of startups. In the past, I have left the startups and investors to find themselves through any means they could.

Specno has helped me to create a website that provides the entry to my Pitch Platform. It that will allow investors to see good quality startup pitches that are truly worth seeing.

For what projects/services did your company hire Specno?

Web development

What were your goals for this project?

To attract three different clients – startups, accelerator programs, investors – all via the one website.

How did you select this vendor?

They are bright, current and multi-talented.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They provided site design – both artwork and site flow, form development and general advice on how the site should work for visitors.

What was the team composition?

Designer, developer and client manager.

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

Not yet, I am still doing the soft launch.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

I'm very happy with the result. They are a really great team to work with – always friendly and always professional.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They have an uncompromisingly professional approach to their work. They really care about the final product and about giving the client the best they are able.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Yes. I would like to see them add explainer video capabilities to their portfolio of services.