Studio Graves

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Space City Pawn of Dickinson is a licensed, independently owned pawn business with 2 locations in Dickinson, Texas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Studio Graves?

We had developed a basic website with an online store to feature our continuously updating inventory and sell online. We had a "health check" of the website completed by a digital marketing firm and learned we not getting read by Google among many other problems.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals of this project were to take the digital marketing firms analysis of our website, fix the problems and improve the SEO coding on our site.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We hired a social media consultant who reviewed the analysis of our website and she connected us to her Facebook community of web developers. Gjvon Graves Studio immediately responded to the request for help!

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Gjvon Graves analyzed our basic website and the analysis provided by the digital marketing firm. He initiated a very thorough phone conversation in an effort to get to know us, our business and industry, and our needs. He provided us an extremely fair quote to do the work but we shelved the project due to the Covid19 Pandemic. Gjvon, also being profoundly affected by the pandemic, professionally and generously reached out to us with a volunteer opportunity offer we could not refuse to get started on the improvements and resign of the website project. We did not understand fully digital marketing or the web design world. He researched for hours to understand our industry and how we needed to look online. Gjvon spent hours upon days and weeks analyzing, researching, and creating videos in an effort to explain what we needed to do to improve our online presence, SEO coding, readability with Google, and much, much more. He made it very simple and easier to understand this extremely complicated topic while working diligently on the improvements to our site.

What was the team composition?

Gjvon was and is the team composition while being self quarantined.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are still in the new stage with our online site but it is so much more usable, attractive, and appealing to our customers. It is much more functional with Google and we expect it to really take off once we begin blogging. The pawn industry is last to the party when it comes to changing online technology and Gjvon brought us to present day. Very few pawn businesses that are not major chains pay attention to this kind of integrated detail of their businesses. Gjvon created a much more profession and respectable aspect to our business we did not know we were missing. We look forward to experiencing its impact online!

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was just Gjvon and he was highly effective while maneuvering our lack of knowledge and his own isolation. He was extremely timely and followed through very friendly and professionally.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed most with Gjvon Graves attention to detail while helping us understand. He is very relatable and genuine while being extremely intuned to his customers and own industry. Although, he generously offered his services for free due to the pandemic crisis in an effort to help others and learn himself, his quote was well below others in the industry. We had been at a Texas pawn brokers convention in February and learned how expensive this kind of programming work would cost before we reached out to Gjvon Graves Studio. He was more than fairly below the industry standards with a great deal more to offer.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The only constructive improvement I would add would be consolidating the information in the videos. However, this was new to both of us due to the social distancing and he was trying to explain in simpler terms recognizing my weaknesses in knowing what I needed. It worked fantastic and I learned a great deal!!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former co-founder of DMR eSports, a community-driven esports organization. We organized tournaments and were active in the community.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Studio Graves?

When we first started, we didn’t have an online presence established. We partnered with Studio Graves to create our website so we could generate more traffic.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team was responsible for building the website for us. We needed to make our social media accounts visible, as well as create an online schedule for our community. The site, built on WordPress, was designed to be relatively simple. We wanted it to be more of an informational hub for our community rather than a website with a broad range of functionalities.

What is the team composition?

I worked exclusively with Gjvon (Founder).

How did you come to work with Studio Graves?

Gjvon is a close friend of mine, and I thought he would be a good fit for the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $500 on the site.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement took place from October 2018–February 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Even though the project was straightforward, we were still impressed by what the team created. It was quite a quick build. Once the project got started, it was clear we were Studio Graves’ priority.

How did Studio Graves perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well. We usually scheduled a weekly call on Discord, and would chat over Facebook and email as needed. The communication was probably one of the best aspects of working with Studio Graves. Gjvon made it easy to understand what his plans were and how they connected our needs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Gjvon is a very down-to-earth, all-business person. Once he’s hired, he takes a very clear cut path to accomplishing his clients’ goal. It makes working with Studio Graves really easy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really. Gjvon is constantly working to stay ahead of new technologies and developments in his industry.