What was the scope of their involvement?
We’ve worked with Squareball Digital on a large number of projects, varying from branding smaller WordPress sites to developing product pages and products themselves.
From our point of view, we lead the UI/UX, integrating and working with Squareball to discuss what’s technically viable, best-practice, and most sensible based on the scale of the project. We do design to the point of Adobe XD and Zeplin handover. They then implement all the front- and backend code. They develop on React, WordPress, Laravel, and other technologies. They’re pretty much full-stack developers. We also do final checks and reviews, making the communication between our two teams very fluid.
Squareball has some internal creative resources. It’s a question of when the scale and the type of project require them. We both have individual clients, so we involve the other team where appropriate to extend our own capabilities. That’s how we’ve led a number of collaborations.
What is the team composition?
We mainly work with the account management team. When we have a handover meeting, it might involve the more senior developers. Usually, we interface with up to four people during projects, but I know that more team members support the development.
How did you come to work with Squareball Digital?
We invested in betahaus, which was one of the original coworking spaces in Berlin. We then left betahaus to work in our own coworking space, and Squareball came with us. They were in the office right next to us. We’ve extended that and have worked very closely with them.
How much have you invested with them?
Often, we will independently bill clients, but they’ve also led some of the projects we’ve worked on, and they paid us. I believe we have a spend with them in the range of €40,000–€50,000 ($43,300–$54,100 USD). They were the lead developer on some of our bigger projects and billed independently from us. I wouldn’t know specifically what those were.
The relationships still exist on some of those projects, but it’s not them working for us. We’re partnering together with them.
What is the status of this engagement?
Our first project was three and a half years ago, in mid- to late-2016. Most of our projects are ad hoc, but they are ongoing. Most of the projects we do with Squareball are fixed-budget. We work with them on an hourly basis if we want something small. They work flexibly with us.
Squareball turned around the website within two months; the client is satisfied with its look and feel, responsiveness, and easy-to-use backend. The team was diligent about problem-solving and most communications. Their willingness to go the extra mile for customer service stood out.