Unfold

Introduce your business and what you do there.

 I am the founder of Voys. We're developing a next-generation language learning product for mobile devices.

We approach language education quite differently from other apps, as we’ve developed our own speech recognition technologies to understand accented speech, as well as provide feedback on pronunciation, intonation, and other dimensions of language. We also have a very unique take on curriculum design, which borrows ideas from academia that have never been tried in a mobile app before.

What challenge were you trying to address with unfold?

We aim to have a visually game-like, playful, and fun experience that is not easy to achieve for an app without affecting UX. We worked with Unfold to deliver just that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started working with unfold to cooperate on the visual design of our application, and they have done a really good job. They’ve designed our entire app, prioritizing the idea of having a fun, engaging, and playful experience.

We are working with them on the branding side of things as well. They’ve contributed to our logo design, the app’s colors, and the general look and feel of the product. We are also going to work on illustrations with them as well.

What is the team composition?

During peak times, we’ve worked with almost 10 people from the branding, illustration, and UI design teams.

How did you come to work with unfold?

Before working with unfold, we worked with different agencies around the world. We then found unfold because we couldn’t create the experience we wanted to create with our previous agencies. We wanted to up the game and work with a more experienced agency like unfold, and things have turned out quite well.

How much have you invested in them?

I don’t have the exact cost, but it is close to $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2022, and it is an ongoing engagement.

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

The primary aspect of our product is the playful and fun vision and experience. We couldn’t execute on this with the previous agencies as I mentioned, but unfold sees where we are coming from.

Our previous agencies were not really good with feedback, either. Unfold both listens to us and pushes us. In many cases, we have gone in the direction that they have suggested. On the other hand, they also experiment and then sometimes choose the way we want to go. They are great communicators and when you combine it with an extremely talented team, you get incredible results.

How did unfold perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project isn’t a standard one where you go and get an estimate for the deliverables. They’re developing the product with us, and sometimes we want to have multiple iterations or see different layouts or executions; then, everything can change when it comes to the design, which is why sometimes things take a little longer or can take less time. The beauty of it is that we control it. We don’t have strict deadlines because we want to work on particular components as much as needed, and that decision is on us.

We use Figma as our main tool for collaboration, as well as Slack, Zoom, and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It is their communication and the high quality of the work that has been delivered. The amount of talent they have is incredible. I really mean that when I say the high quality of work because we have worked with 3–4 different agencies and there is a huge difference between what we had in terms of experience. The quality of work and communication both contribute to this.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If anything arises, we talk about it with them, as we have great communication. I really can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They work as an extension of our team, and they work iteratively. When it comes to feedback, they object to things that they don’t agree with and they accept things they do agree with. There are no specific suggestions I can make because if you know what you want, then they’ll deliver and support you in the process on multiple levels.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Co-Founder at Lofty AI. We let people invest in tokenized real estate for only $50 and sell anytime.

For what projects/services did your company hire unfold?

We hired Unfold to completely redesign our website and branding from the ground up. This includes our home page, property marketplace page, About Us page, and more.

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

We heard great things from friends and peers at Y Combinator. We loved their designs of other websites and the fact that they had worked with crypto and real estate companies before.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We first met with the branding team at Unfold to discuss our logo redesign as well as our style guide which included our color scheme. They worked quickly to come up with different branding styles based on other websites, and let us choose which one we preferred the most. Then, they came up with a number of different logos that we were able to choose from. We iterated a lot until we came up with a logo we loved. We then worked with their web design team for 1.5 months to completely redesign our website from the ground up. We met twice per week and each time we'd meet, Unfold would come back with a ton of work done and it was always impressive. We would jump on a call to discuss their designs, iterate, and continue to move on from there.

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

We worked with 5 people from Unfold - 2 Designers, Creative Director, Graphic Designer (for the hero image on our homepage), and a branding expert.

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

Our sign up rate has increased by over 150% and our traffic has doubled since our new website came out. We have been featured on multiple noteworthy news outlets and have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our community on our new website.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were extremely easy to communicate with. We did everything on Slack and had two calls per week - each time, they would come back with amazing results and they made the process very smooth and non-stressful.

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

I was blown away by how quickly their turn around time was. But, even more, I was beyond impressed about how ridiculously good their designs look. The color scheme, branding, and overall thought process behind their designs was the best I've seen.

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

Nothing, they are the best. Seriously.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the President of Anedot a powerful donation platform for nonprofits that’s easy for everyone.

For what projects/services did your company hire unfold?

As our team has grown, my ability to stay focused on design work has decreased due to growing needs in other areas. We hired unfold to effectively become our internal design team to avoid the need to spend time recruiting because we were also heavily recruiting engineers. Unfold has worked with me on a number of projects as part of the relationship including brand refresh, product design, product launches, and overall day to day feedback and question response with our engineering and product teams.

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

I searched Dribbble for shots I liked and also started an initial process to recruit designers. I found a designer that seemed like a good fit so I reached out only to realize he had recently joined Unfold! I got connected to the team and we hit it off and seemed to work well together so we decided to create an ongoing relationship.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

For the brand work the process was more formal and followed a more standardized process where we had an initial questionnaire followed by a call with a brand researcher and others on the team. We then reviewed that work which was a write up with broad ideas. Then the brand design team started ideating with broad directions working with us to make broad decisions and over the course of a few weeks honing down on logo design decisions. The project was very successful and we even came back a few weeks later to launch a second brand project with another brand we plan to release later in the year. Related to Product Design, we are more than a decade old with a ton of product context and millions of existing users so there wasn’t as much of a formal process as much as getting the product designers up to speed on areas of the product and jumping right in. The process has been great. We work very well together.

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

We have worked with more than 10 people from brand researchers and brand designers, to UI/UX designers and product designers. We also have interfaces with designers who split some of their time as project managers inside Unfold.

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

Humble and easy to collaborate. The relationship is ongoing and we continue to release great work together. I can say that as we continue to grow, we plan to use Unfold more in the future God willing.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They largely have adapted to our workflows but it continues to evolve. Unfold wants to continually improve like we do as an organization so we are always learning and adapting and trying to be the best we can.

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

Proactivity, attitude, speed, consistency, quality, and humility all in a single company!

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

From our perspective the relationship is excellent. I have no areas to address.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m currently the chief strategy officer at Pinnacle Quality Insight, a survey software company. We improve senior care by helping providers listen to and understand their customers and employees. At the time of our project with unfold, I was the CTO.

What challenge were you trying to address with unfold?

We hired unfold primarily to redesign the UI for Retain, our employee SaaS suite that integrates with the HR software that our clients use. Retain invites employees to participate in surveys that employers can use to track progress and facilitate discussion about how things are going with new hires.

What was the scope of their involvement?

To learn our requirements, unfold surveyed us with some brand strategy questions about our competitors, application, current website logo, and so on. During the first week or two of the engagement, we decided what we wanted the SaaS web application to look and feel like. Using a lot of visuals and examples from other websites, unfold was able to present many possible options for us to weigh in on.

Using Figma, unfold completed a UI/UX redesign of the private logged-in screens that Retain users see, refreshing them with new styling, colors, and icons. They revamped the layout and integrated new features with what we already offered.

What is the team composition?

Peter (Partner) was our main point of contact for getting the deal set up and started. Peter estimated our costs and scheduled our project. Once we had signed the initial agreement and contract, we worked with Phil (Creative Director), who managed the project.

Mohit (Senior Product Designer) and Esther (Product Designer) did most of the heavy UI/UX design lifting. They were experienced in web design, web application visuals, and iconography.

How did you come to work with unfold?

Our CEO found unfold’s portfolio via a website he liked that unfold had designed. We reached out to unfold and moved forward with them.

Early on, we gave them an NDA, showed them the app, and met with them several times. After a lengthy break in which one or both of our companies prepared for the engagement, we reached out and fired the project back up, signing the initial agreement and contract.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $100,000 with unfold.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with unfold from August–November 2021.

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

unfold did a really great job, and we liked the finished product. We paid for the project and finished all design work, and we’re now beginning to implement unfold’s design.

How did unfold perform from a project management standpoint?

unfold’s project management was great. They handed off all elements and deliverables to us via Figma for comments and feedback.

Throughout the project, we held one-hour weekly meetings with Mohit and Esther. Esther took really detailed notes on our thoughts and ideas during these calls, outlining their tasks for the following week. During the next weekly meeting, we’d address those items first. There were times when I was kind of a bottleneck — it was really hard for me to provide feedback. They had to work on their own for a couple of weeks, aside from whatever feedback I could provide via our one-hour weekly call. 

Phil also joined us for monthly check-in calls, reviewing the project’s overall progress with our designers. unfold kept us on schedule, ensuring that they were meeting our expectations. The project went really well, and we look back on it as a positive experience.

What did you find most impressive about them?

unfold found their footing fast and did a good job delivering all the features and UX that we wanted. We were impressed by the quality of the actual deliverables and also with how good unfold’s designers were.

Our company can be pretty particular about the way things look, so we were worried that working with a third party could result in a lot of back-and-forth communication or design tweaks on our end before implementation — but unfold really listened to me, found their footing fast, and understood the project early on. We were really satisfied with everything that they delivered.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't have any points of critique for unfold.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If it’s really important for you to stay on task and stick to a specific budget, do some upfront work in preparation so that unfold has a checklist of tasks to work from.

Our process with unfold became very collaborative because I hadn’t prepared the exact specifics of which features and assets we needed to update. In some ways, collaborating with unfold during that planning stage was great, but it did come at a bit of a cost. On my side, it felt expensive, but I’m not sure how their price compares with other options.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the design lab lead at Merck Co., a pharmaceutical company that focuses on delivering life-saving medication for global consumers. My role focuses on internal- and customer-facing digital product development for our patients, physicians, and internal consumers. 

What challenge were you trying to address with unfold?

We hired unfold to help us increase our patient engagement. There are a lot of perceptions about pharmaceutical companies within the industry, and we wanted to develop products that opened up a new sense of trust in our consumer base. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We've worked with unfold on various projects for the last two years. They've assisted us with user research and interviews, design auditing, art direction, and prototype and final product development. 

We've just paused a project focused on chronic cough with unfold as it goes through legal review. unfold has worked with us on that project from the very beginning, from the initial idea to the concept to art direction. We've worked with them to determine where to go with the product, development, and product launch. 

What is the team composition?

We've worked with 6–8 designers from unfold who specialize in everything from copywriting to product design. 

How did you come to work with unfold?

Initially, I wanted to ramp up our company's design capabilities and was having trouble finding talent that met my requirements. After doing some research and reaching out to my network, I found unfold online and set up an interview with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested around $1 million with unfold. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with unfold began in January 2020, and it's ongoing. 

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

I don't have any overarching metrics, but for one project, we've seen patient engagement increase from 30% to 70% in our key markets. We couldn't have gotten our latest project to a final stage without unfold's expertise and contributions. Honestly, we wouldn't be working with unfold if they weren't meeting our expected outcomes. 

How did unfold perform from a project management standpoint?

unfold's project management has improved throughout the partnership. I've requested that they be more aggressive about project timelines, and they've taken that feedback in stride. unfold has reached a point where their project management has exceeded my expectations. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I've worked with many agencies throughout my career, and there can be a lot of misleading quality information in agency pitches. unfold, however, has exceeded my expectations from the very beginning. It's a luxury in our industry to have access to the talent unfold has. A lot of their success can be attributed to their ability to hire great teammates. Beyond the work, it's great to have a positive relationship with the unfold team. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

unfold has already applied the feedback I gave about their project management, so I have nothing else for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I'd advise customers to be clear about work and timeline expectations before starting a partnership with unfold.