Spiral Scout

Please describe your company and your position there.

Content marketing manager for a cloud communications company. I lead content initiatives, including the blog.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

We hired Spiral Scout to do web design and development for our blog, as well as ongoing support and design work.

What were your goals for this project?

More modern blog design, with greater email and search capabilities, with faster load times and more relevant articles for readers.

How did you select Spiral Scout?

We shortlisted 3-4 vendors, out of nearly a dozen, and Spiral Scout came back with the best look, feel and capabilities for a modern cloud technology company. We knew right away that the mock functionality and designs were what we were looking for, as well as the international/localization angle.

Describe the project in detail.

We had a series of meetings, timelines and benchmarks for success. I took over the project midway through after the previous project manager left the company. I helped gather the right people for things like design, email, localization/translation and IT support. We met weekly for 6 months to monitor our progress, and Spiral Scout was super communicative on expectations and deliverables.

What was the team composition?

Spiral Scout dedicated 4-6 people to the project, from designers to developers to project leads, and the team size hasn't really changed.

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

The goal was a modern blog, ith great search functionality and more subscriber/email capabilities for our various core languages.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We used spreadsheets, chat and video communications to connect over various time zones.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Spiral Scout is always willing to understand our needs and if they can't, then they gather each side to talk everything through. They're super responsive and really understand trends in web design. They shot down outdated ideas and brought modern ones to the table. Spiral Scout truly cares about the end results.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Some of the time zone differences mean it's harder to communicate in real time, especially when support is needed. But it hasn't been that often.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for a web development company, specializing in training and educational software. I am the Producer for various in-house and client projects.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

We hired Spiral Scout developers to assist our internal leads with day-to-day development tasks. Developers have to learn and be comfortable with proprietary software and strict use guidelines.

What were your goals for this project?

In addition to limited custom-code solutions, developers have to primarily identify solutions and build courses using proprietary software tools. They must support the ecosystem with robust investigation, reporting, and overall documentation to boost the ecosystem while simultaneously delivering quality course products on time.

How did you select this vendor?

Spiral Scout was chosen for their experience with the required toolset and familiarity with what the end-goal products are. They adapt well to changes and are amenable to shifting needs.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Spiral Scout developers are usually pulled into a project after content & design teams have created high-fidelity wireframes with detailed copy & user flows. They are responsible for using proprietary tools to build out these highly detailed courses.

Whenever the toolset does not provide the ability to execute on design, developers will conduct further investigation into what is needed to update the tools in order to execute. They will often come up with alternate solutions until an update or fix to proprietary tools can be made, at which point they will update accordingly.

Developers also have to coordinate with cross-disciplinary teams to help guide design where there is uncertainty about what can be built. Often attending various meetings to review design concepts and provide insight as to what design options can be completed.

What was the team composition?

Courses typically have a stable product team consisting of a Product Owner, Project Manager, and Producer. 1-2 Tech Leads depending on the scope of the course. 2-4 developers or more depending on scope. The art and content teams can range a bit more but developers will typically only interact with leads and the above core product team.

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

The work done by Spiral Scout has been a key contributor to a healthy partnership with our client. That partnership has grown tremendously from a client/vendor relationship where we previously worked on one or two courses per year, to over 10 in 2020.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The Spiral Scout team always provides timely communication throughout any given project. We communicate daily via Google Chat / Hangouts, Gmail and within JIRA, GitHub, and wherever needed.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their adaptability, commitment to our needs, and quality work impressed us. They respond well to all requests and provide easy to understand feedback for non-technical roles to understand.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Very little to suggest for improvement. I have great confidence in the team here that if any suggestions or requests were made by a client, Spiral Scout would be happy to accommodate.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Human Touch is the leading provider of high-quality, innovative lifestyle products, massage chairs, and experiences that have been delivering indispensable, life-changing benefits to an ever-growing number of consumers for over 40 years. Products are available at fine furniture stores, back care specialty stores, and mass-market retailers across the U.S., through international retailers and distributors in more than 40 countries, and online at www.humantouch.com. My role within the company is to function as a Digital Marketing Manager, overseeing the company's eCommerce website and managing digital content and advertising on a multitude of online platforms.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

Spiral Scout completed a major platform migration for us and were extremely flexible, communicated promptly and worked long hours to deliver on time. Their work has received positive feedback from several people in our company ranging from our CEO to our Accounting Department who were impressed with their ability to stay in budget on such a large scale project.

We continue to use them for our web development and intend to keep increasing their scope of work as we discover the broad range of services that is covered by their knowledgeable teams. Spiral Scout leadership is highly collaborative and is always willing to pivot rapidly to meet business goals.

Our project manager is detail oriented and organized and excels at follow-up and keeping our team informed and focused. They have been an excellent fit with our organization.

What were your goals for this project?

We had just over 3 months to complete this migration, in order to meet the Magento 1 platform support cutoff date. We also needed this done in tandem with our regular website maintenance, and had a number of custom website modules that would need to be reconfigured for the new platform.

How did you select this vendor?

We found Spiral Scout on Clutch.com!

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Spiral Scout has provided us with website development work by way of both maintenance and migration support, as well as exceptional organization and project management support.

They have suggested a number of helpful tools so that we can stay on top of both large and small projects, and have had excellent communication throughout this entire process. We have also sought them out for SEO work, website design, and digital advertising analysis.

What was the team composition?

Spiral Scout has provided us with support from their CEO, Project Manager, Technical Team, SEO Management team, and several website developers. This team has remained much the same size since we initially engaged with them.

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

Our website migration was seamless, without any type of negative impact on our ranking or website performance, despite the rushed deadline we asked of Spiral Scout.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We used Jira, as well as Confluence to coordinate project management tasks. Until this point, our team had no experience with either of these tools, and Spiral Scout has been wonderful at helping us to understand and maximize our use of these tools.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Spiral Scout has been amazing to work with. They have really impressed us with their excellent communication, organizational skills, technical knowledge, and willingness to work long hours when needed.

We enjoy our routine maintenance calls with them, and they have been provided us with friendly and informative support for both the migration and also our regular website maintenance.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There really aren't many things I would change about our relationship with this team, and I say that with 100% honesty. Their CEO is always quick to hop on a call with us if we have questions, and they have really been helpful as they explain situations where we may struggle to grasp some of the more technical concepts of these website projects.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO and co-founder of Cheque.

What challenge were you trying to address with Spiral Scout?

We needed to build our product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Basically, we presented them with a scope of work. We reviewed the scope together, talked about our goals, and discussed how they would address specific features. And then, they started to build the app and the CMS.

The product was released in March, which was intended as our beta version. It was meant to be an in-person product — a scan and go app with a backend inventory piece. But then, COVID-19 hit and everything closed.

We quickly transitioned to an online solution, so our beta product became our main, live product. We had real merchants and real shoppers having real experiences on the platform right out of the gate.

What is the team composition?

We had three points of contact. One is a project manager who oversaw the initiative. Another person acted as the brains behind the operation. And then the third person focused on the business aspects of the project. We spoke to them about invoicing and sprints.

How did you come to work with Spiral Scout?

We found them through word of mouth and decided to work with them based on their references. We called and spoke with a bunch of their customers. All of them were happy, so we decided to give them a shot.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $350,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in November 2019 and the product rolled out in March 2020.

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

Spiral Scout built solid software with clean code, so we haven’t had any downtime. When we launched the product, we quickly had a tremendous volume of users, but everything went seamlessly.

Their team was forward-thinking, creating the design with growth in mind. That helped us tremendously. As we hit the ground running, we were able to make changes and adjustments that Spiral Scout anticipated. They foresaw that needs would arise that we hadn’t written into our development plan.

How did Spiral Scout perform from a project management standpoint?

We talked to our project manager daily. During the development, we had weekly calls when their team showed us their work. We both asked questions and they presented their thoughts.

They’re a responsive team. They showed up at what would be 3 a.m. their time on multiple occasions. Spiral Scout accommodates for any time differences.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team actually thinks about the implications and future applications of development requests. If we said that we needed a widget, their team would ask us why and consider the best way to build it. Their team thinks through the implications of requests before executing them. Spiral Scout’s a great team that we view as part of our company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I wouldn’t change a thing about them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Marvel Power Group is a boutique consulting and brokerage firm focusing on energy, water, and transportation.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

SpiralScout helped us create our brand, new logo, and they did all of the web design and development for our new site.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed someone that could understand our needs and see our vision for how we wanted to position ourselves in the market, and then help us create a brand and online presence around that. We also needed a one-pager we could send out to our prospective clients. They absolutely nailed it on all fronts.

How did you select this vendor?

After talking with their team we knew they had they could see where we wanted to go with our site and marketing materials. They were also incredibly responsive and easy to work with, and were able to move quickly when speed was of the utmost importance to us. Last, we saw their work with previous clients and loved that they were able to work with a variety of industries and types of brands.

Describe the project in detail.

We started with a logo, and from there we moved to creating our branding and website design. In conjunction with that they helped hone our messaging. After that they led all of the development for our website, mobile site, and marketing materials. We provided input along the way and they usually turned around the changes within hours. They set out a schedule from the beginning and hit every single milestone on time.

What was the team composition?

We primarily communicated with their CEO, John Griffin. John did a really great job being the point person between us and the development team that was working on this for us.

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

We started with basically nothing and by the end had a full fledged brand and online presence. Each step of the way we were able to provide feedback and make changes, and they were really responsive so we could stay on schedule and on budget.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very. It was seamless. We used Figma to provide feedback on the website development and that made it very easy and efficient.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Three things:

1. Vision/creativity: They could see what we wanted and had some really good ideas to help realize our vision.
2. Professionalism: They were on schedule, on budget, and just very easy and professional to work with. We had zero issues.
3. Quality: There was not one time we didn't have a high quality of work passed over to us for review.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I saw. We are very happy.

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Pedestrian Safety Alliance for Small Cities (PSASC) is an international association of academia, industry, government officials and media dedicated to improve public safety. As Vice-President of the PSASC, I had the responsibility to establish our Web presence.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

Development of PSASC.org Website.

What were your goals for this project?

Provide a highend Brand image for the PSASC.org

How did you select this vendor?

I've know them for over 15 years. I went with confidence in their selection.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Turnkey website solution, from design, to integration and hosting.

What was the team composition?

I had one main contact and access to their team's specialists when needed.

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

Spiral Scout provided the Brand image necessary to onboard clients, sponsors and participants.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Simply by email. No phone call has been necessary as they have worked greatly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We're most impressed by their simplicity.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of a startup accelerator.

What challenge were you trying to address with Spiral Scout?

We were trying to overhaul our website and elevate our brand. We wanted the develop a more sophisticated UX design for the site and improve the look and feel.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided Spiral Scout with wireframes and sketches for them to start with and established that we wanted a WordPress site. The site needed a few specific functionalities, including a media page to host our calendar of events. We also wanted to be able to display new features and blog pieces for users to click. Our team provided all the content for the site.

What is the team composition?

It’s hard to tell who exactly was working on our site, but I communicated with John (Co-Founder, Spiral Scout) and one other individual.  

How did you come to work with Spiral Scout?

I had previously worked with John’s team when they developed the website for the company I founded a few years ago. I found them through a few recommendations during that time. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $16,000–$18,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project ran from April–July 2019, but they’re providing ongoing support for minor updates. 

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

Everything functions perfectly and looks great. The main constructive feedback we’ve received has been from the public institution we work with since some parts of the site were not compliant with federal regulations. 

How did Spiral Scout perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed at a pretty high standard. We mostly communicated through phone and email. Additionally, we now have monthly recurring phone calls to check-in. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were a very responsive team—I felt like they were on it at all times.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I can think of for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Our monthly recurring call is something we implemented later in the engagement, and I’d recommend utilizing that if you work with them. It helps to check-in by phone once in a while instead of email.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the chief visionary officer at One Group Digital Solutions. We’re an IT firm that helps companies of all sizes design and build world-class software. I manage all incoming sales leads, help with project management, and manage partnerships with sub-contractors.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

Lacking the necessary bandwidth, we needed a software development partner to help build a digital asset management (DAM) system in PHP and Go. We hired Spiral Scout to manage the project, write the actual code, and perform QA. 

What were your goals for this project?

Initially, we had to update a legacy DAM system to get our client through their busy season. Afterward, we set out to build an entirely new system and migrate their data onto the new solution.

How did you select this vendor?

Our CEO and I considered five outsourced software development companies. At the end of a RFP process, we believed Spiral Scout had the project management and technical chops necessary to deliver the project. They had a lot of experience building DAM systems, and we already had a good relationship with them. A consultant of ours had introduced us a year and a half ago, and Spiral Scout traveled to our offices to visit. This made us quite enthusiastic about working with them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

After patching up the old system, Spiral Scout helped to describe technical specifications, design high-fidelity mockups of the UX/UI, and deliver a new DAM software solution. Our client had some documentation written by their previous development team, but Spiral Scout used a business analyst to gather all requirements, which they used to create user stories and divide the project up into sprints. Then, they designed wireframes and had their technical team create the entire design and write the code for it. They also provided all bug testing via their internal QA team. Finally, their DevOps resources helped us deploy the project onto our customer’s AWS servers.  

The project was a mix of JavaScript, PHP, Go, and AWS. It also required a partial refactor and rewrite of our client’s codebase. Some of the features they helped to build from scratch were a customer facing website, a subscription service for downloading images, an integration with Stripe and Mailchimp, a backend dashboard for our client to manage their users and files and gather reports, and a collaborative image editing and captioning tool. Additionally, they provided and implemented SEO recommendations and wrote documentation on how to use the new software.

What was the team composition?

We’re working with a business analyst, a UX/UI designer, three front- and backend engineers, a QA engineer, a project manager, and a DevOps engineer. Team size fluctuates based on what we need at a specific time.

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

Our customer experienced an increase in their revenue and website signups and a dramatic improvement in website performance. They were able to decrease their AWS bill from $3500 a month to $800 a month and increase their organic traffic from search engines. Spiral Scout continues to work on the project with our internal team.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Anton (CTO and Co-Founder, Spiral Scout) acted as their lead project manager and was very effective. He communicated clearly and was responsive, keeping us updated throughout the project and constantly re-evaluating the timeline when new features were added. There were also no communication issues. We spoke via daily standups on Discord, as well as on Slack, Skype, and UberConference.

Spiral Scout’s co-founders, John and Anton, were instrumental to our success. We could count on both to maintain contact with us, emailing back in minutes, even during the most challenging parts of the project. Their communications were so clear we could simply forward them to our client. It was truly seamless.  

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their communication and honest and reliable feedback stand out to me. They manage our expectations well and never sugarcoat what’s going on.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The only thing that proved to be a small challenge was the time difference. We had to do calls when it was early morning for our customer (they’re on Pacific Standard Time) so that Spiral Scout’s co-founder could join us. This is a nitpick, but everything else has pretty much gone according to plan.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of custom solution strategies for eLearning Brothers. We offer tools, templates, and custom services to help customers provide training.

What challenge were you trying to address with Spiral Scout?

We developed engaging mechanisms for online training portals to help people interact with training content and learn more. We needed a way to organize these templates online for showcasing and browsing. It would allow people to search for what they’re looking for—be it a drag-and-drop, matching, or multiple-choice exercise—and interact with it in a pop-up window.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Spiral Scout built our first site from scratch. It was a collaborative effort, and each side brought ideas to the table. We didn’t have a hard notion of what the site would be, so they helped us envision it. The team also designed the asset libraries and site interface that structures how users engage with our digital assets. 
 
The site has since become an e-commerce platform, and the libraries are the product side of our business. We’ve now grown to millions of assets, so the structure Spiral Scout built for us is the bedrock on which we run our entire business. Customers can log in to an individualized portal where their teams can collaborate on the digital assets they’ve customized over the years. These private portals are something else Spiral Scout has helped us with. 
 
Typically, our clients design their training materials themselves, but they also come to us to do it. Spiral Scout helps us envision or architect some of the solutions these programs involve. For example, they helped create a social learning app that allows salespeople around the globe to interact with one another. Spiral Scout has supplied everything we needed to help fulfill a particular technical requirement from a client, from design to implementation.

Spiral Scout specializes in Java, but as a full-stack solutions company, there’s really nothing that they don’t touch. Some of our clients choose HTML5 for custom learning interfaces. Spiral Scout has also used React.js and Golang.
 
What is the team composition?

John (Co-Founder and CEO, Spiral Scout) is our relationship person. He’s always involved with us. JD (Co-Founder and CTO, Spiral Scout) is the programmatic genius and program head. Spiral Scout also put together a team of developers, web architects, and graphic artists. We work with around six people from their team at any given time; John and JD are often involved along with 4–5 backend people. John usually serves as our PM and primary point of contact.
 
How did you come to work with Spiral Scout?

John started a stock photography site called Cutcaster several years ago. Our co-founders had realized that we needed a portal—with search and e-commerce modules— that could contain all our digital assets. They began looking for stock photo sites, found Cutcaster, and loved its simple interface. We even started using it for some of our daily image needs. One of our founders eventually contacted John and told him they liked what he’d done with the site and that they were looking for something similar. John instantly obliged, and they began the relationship.
 
How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $500,000.
 
What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in the summer of 2009, and the first site launched in January 2010. We continue to work with Spiral Scout on similar builds as well as site edits, upkeep, and general enhancements.

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

We’ve seen 100% growth in our revenue year over year since we started working with Spiral Scout. We earned $10 million in revenue last year, $2 million of which came from recurring revenue from the website. SEO and Google AdWords account for much of our traffic, but Spiral Scout has helped us with a lot of custom solutions. We could directly attribute half a dozen industry awards to the work done by Spiral Scout. They have exceeded our expectations.
 
How did Spiral Scout perform from a project management standpoint?

Spiral Scout is highly responsive. They’re always ahead of the game, and they’ve never dropped the ball on anything. I cannot think of any time when our collaboration failed or we had a challenge with meeting timelines. Our partnership has always been smooth.
 
I’m not always engaged day-to-day with Spiral Scout in my current role, but our project teams communicate daily through email, IM, and weekly standing calls. Spiral Scout usually uses our collaboration tools such as Basecamp. We’ve also used Google Docs, email, and Skype, and they have a private portal on their website. All our work is remote.
 
What did you find most impressive about them?

A crackerjack team of experts, Spiral Scout demonstrates a high level of efficiency, capability, and availability. I know their team is busy, but they make us feel like their only client. I can get ahold of John whenever I need to. They are always interested in our success, and teams get staffed immediately on our projects.
 
Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had some issues with time zone differences. There were a few times when we needed to work around the hours, but Spiral Scout is willing to work at any time, day or night. I can’t think of anything else.
 
Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should set clear expectations and then just let Spiral Scout work.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO at IM Action, an online marketing agency providing clients from a variety of business domains with services such as online strategy development, SEO, PPC advertising, social media optimization, and web analytics.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral QA?

We began our strategic partnership with Spiral QA over a year ago. Since then we have utilized their services to test our clients’ web applications and software products.  

What were your goals for this project? 

Our main goal is to make sure that our clients' web and mobile applications are stable and functioning as expected prior to kicking off strategic marketing campaigns. The applications need to meet both the needs and requirements of their target audience in addition to driving conversions. We always strive for a flawless look and feel as well as an intuitive, bug-free user experience.

How did you select this vendor?

We worked with John Griffin (CEO, Spiral QA) on a couple of earlier projects with another company of his, and they did a superb job. When we needed a QA team for some of our other projects, we already knew about Spiral QA and were sure that they could execute on the tasks we gave them. 

Describe the project in detail. 

Spiral QA has performed web and mobile application testing for our clients, including functionality, usability, and performance testing. These software come from a range of business domains like IT, education and e-learning, gaming, e-commerce, and more. As a result, all of their software products are different, and most have rather complex backends; they’re either built from scratch or customized from off-the-shelf solutions. Spiral QA works to identify and resolve any technical issues they find. 

What was the team composition? 

Spiral QA is made up of a strong team of specialists, each with their own vast expertise and patience that allows them to dive deep into someone else’s code regardless of the technologies, frameworks, and CMSs in use. 

Most of the time we’re in touch with John and Kseniya Yuk (Software Testing & QA Engineer, Spiral QA). It’s so helpful that they have two international offices—basically, it means that at any time, day or night, at least one of them is available.

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

The Spiral QA team is thorough, finding technical issues and bugs that need to be fixed as well as actually fixing them. So far, we have worked together on projects for three different clients. For all of them, the Spiral QA team managed to identify existing issues, which allowed our clients to fix and improve their products either before the launch or after. This ensured minimum downtime. 

For example, we had a client with an e-commerce travel website that had a lot of visitors but very few conversions. Spiral QA performed usability and performance testing that uncovered serious UX issues and a few interface-related bugs. They provided the client with recommendations on how to fix them. Upon implementing the recommendations, the client’s key metrics improved significantly. The updates ultimately optimized the website for our marketing efforts too.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We are more than happy with the job the team does and how they interface, set plans and goals, and meet deadlines. Communication is one of their main strengths. The fact that they have two international offices in different time zones allows them to be available almost 24/7. We also have weekly calls and well-established reporting routines, which our clients consistently report as one of their favorite parts of working with us.  

What did you find most impressive about this company? 

I’m impressed with their strong communication and reporting routines because they ensure traceability and transparency. Besides that, Spiral QA has a professional attitude toward projects. They treat each client’s project like their own, and it definitely shows in the results.  

Are there any areas for improvement? 

No, I can’t think of anything.