UniKwan

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-founding CTO of Plim Limted

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

we at PLIM offer self care on your terms. A platform that gives access to aesthetic and cosmetic procedures with accessible payment solutions. PLIM is a marketplace model that includes ratings, promotions, and payment plans.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire UniKwan to accomplish?

• Design Partner
• Industry best practices
• Skilled business partner to help us deliver good products

SOLUTION

How did you find UniKwan?

Referral

Why did you select UniKwan over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from UniKwan were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We set out three main objectives during which UniKwan helped us achieve them all. 

1. Beta launch of the platform to validate our initial problem statement within 3 months and onboard 10 merchants 
2. MVP release based on the outcomes of the beta launch within 2 months post Beta 
3. Initial target market fit achieved within 12 months of MVP launch with 600 merchants signed up and 20K customers acquired

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

User adoption through Daily active users Number of transactions on the platform

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

We managed the project scope and deliverables along with UniKwan team and they were very diligent and thorough with their work. We crafted our own design driven development model that suited our team's skills and organisation and the team responded really well through-out the numerous sprint cycles.

What was your primary form of communication with UniKwan?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They do a great job at what they do, they are very mindful about the changing needs of a start-up like mine. They bring UX strategy and design thinking early into the process rather than an after-thought and their ability to pace and pivot based on key data points was incredible. We highly appreciate everything they've put on the table in launching my product.

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

Not an improvement as such but it will be great if they can add application development skills into their team, that helps me as a vendor to work with a great design team like them and also get development done without any third party dependency

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Executive of NFT Mantra

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

At NFT Mantra, we created a marketing analytics SaaS for large animation studios that wanted to validate demand before deploying their assets on the Blockchain.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire UniKwan to accomplish?

• Validate market viability for a new product concept through an early-stage Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and collect valuable user feedback.

SOLUTION

How did you find UniKwan?

Referral

Why did you select UniKwan over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from UniKwan were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We partnered with Unikwan to help us build the product from the ground up. We shared our user research with them, and they helped us sift and analyse the information. They designed wireframes and UI/UX, which we iterated with them. They helped us focus on delivering an intuitive and smart product.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We were bootstrapping to prove our product market fit. Through our organic outreach 

• +Number of Users Acquired: We signed three animation studios who agreed to pilot our product 
• +User Acquisition Cost (UAC): minimal as we were doing this organically 
• +Time to Acquisition: over a 2 month period

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Once we shared our brief and hypothesis, they worked closely to meet our tight timelines. They provided good support and counsel to help build a strong MVP.

What was your primary form of communication with UniKwan?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The clarity that was achieved during wireframing was phenomenal. They raised many valid questions that prompted us to go back and validate with potential users. This was priceless as it helped save us a significant amount of time.

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

Unikwan should consider adding full-blown development services to its offerings. This would save clients time and money as they would only have to deal with one partner instead of multiple ones.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of MM Activ. We are India’s largest scientific and technological event management company. We work with both private companies and government agencies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UniKwan?

We have many industry partners and stakeholders to consider when creating design requirements. We had been working with another company for the last 8–9 years but wanted to find a partner that could offer more.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UniKwan has worked with us on several projects doing development, UI/UX, and collateral design work such as event logos and motion graphics. They also worked on web portals, mobile apps, and digital service integrations with other platforms.

What is the team composition?

We have worked with 10–12 of their members during our collaboration, with the typical team size being 4–5 people.

How did you come to work with UniKwan?

UniKwan was found through a reference. We had multiple meetings with them in order to get an idea of their skillsets and leadership. One of our selection criteria was finding an agency that could work with multiple stakeholders and deliver on schedule. They fit our criteria and had reasonable pricing, so we established a long-term contract.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their services has been around $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with UniKwan in December 2017 or January 2018. The collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

UniKwan has brought a lot of value to our events and company. We have continued to grow our relationship.

How did UniKwan perform from a project management standpoint?

We have worked under tight timeframes, but they’ve delivered on schedule 99% of the time. Project management is one of UniKwan’s best qualities.

They had been using their own tools for communication, but we preferred to use our own given that we are a large organization with multiple locations across the world. The team was hesitant at first, but they adapted to our request.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are able to understand our challenges and deliver what is expected. Not many people are able to put themselves in the client’s shoes and interpret requirements accordingly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

UniKwan has done a great job from a vendor perspective. On the organizational side, my suggestion would be for them to go global. They may have a couple of overseas projects already, but they should increase their overall efforts in this area.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We run a small boutique digital marketing agency, providing services related to online engagement, including social media marketing, search engine marketing, and email marketing. We provide strategy, content, and operations in terms of running clients’ online presences. I am a cofounder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UniKwan?

We have a relationship with UniKwan where, whenever a client needs something the other can provide, we utilize each other’s services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have collaborated with UniKwan on behalf of 2 clients, including one which was supposed to be an educational institution for design thinking. They wanted to build a website, but I don’t think that the project materialized, given that the opening of the school was postponed until 2018.

The other client was a company providing last-mile financial inclusivity solutions to rural India. UniKwan has helped them develop their online presence, in terms of a company website. We’ve worked with the client on their digital marketing outreach effort. We have also helped develop content for the websites on both projects.

App design is another component of our work. We have worked with client companies for Android and iOS app design, and creating an engagement model for them. UniKwan has also created video content, creating the corporate video for one of our clients. Their final area of service is animation.

We have other projects in the pipeline, but nothing concrete, as of now.

How did you come to work with UniKwan?

I found them through a relationship with one of their founders. A client of UniKwan was looking for digital marketing services. Since UniKwan doesn’t provide this in-house, they have synergistic relationships with partners. It was proposed that we take over the digital marketing for this client, and from that point onward, we have engaged with UniKwan whenever one of our clients required the services of the other company.

How much have you invested with UniKwan?

They work with us as a partner, and represent themselves in an individual capacity, so we have not paid UniKwan directly. Overall, in terms of our joint venture, the business they’ve brought onboard for us, and the business we got for them, our total business has amounted to 200,000 Indian Rupees. [$3,100]

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with UniKwan in November 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The main skillsets which UniKwan has brought to the table are UI and UX design, in terms of motion design and designing the look and feel of the website itself. They have also provided testing for the products. We don’t work directly with them on this, but these are the services for which we refer UniKwan to our onboarded clients.

A website we’ve designed for one of our clients went live in June. I don’t have exact metrics in terms of number of hits, but in terms of my expertise on digital engagement, the website is highly-optimized for the user experience.

How did UniKwan perform from a project management standpoint?

I have no direct say on this matter, given that UniKwan participates in all our joint ventures in an individual capacity. They represent themselves as a unique company, and not a part of our group. I am not aware of how they actually work with the clients.

What did you find most impressive about UniKwan?

The UI/UX design is very good. I had seen what was present with our client company before. What UniKwan has done to that website is amazing; they have taken a mediocre product, which was probably not optimized in terms of loading time and other aspects, and changed it into an A+ website, not only in terms of aesthetics, but also in performance standards, like page loading times and optimization for multiple devices. They’ve done a wonderful job, and the client has told us that they look-and-feel of the website completely reflects their corporate branding.

Are there any areas UniKwan could improve?

I’ve only worked with them on 2 projects, which is not an adequate scope for me to say what needs to be improved. If anything, I would say that UniKwan lacks in-house language skillsets, but this is probably not a service they’re considering, and it’s why they go to companies like ours for content.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are working on a location-based mobile product called Whatpoz. We are mostly working on the location technologies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UniKwan is helping us with the UX design, overall data collection, and media creation for our product. Our first focus was on the Android app, and they’re also working on the iOS.

How did you come to work with UniKwan?

I went onto their portfolio and looked at their work with previous clients. They had worked for some big companies, and based on that, I found them reliable. That was my main selection criteria.

How much have you invested with UniKwan?

The overall cost of their work will be around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together September 2016. They have completed phase one and we’re working on the next phase. I want further help in defining some of the things for the next phase.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

UniKwan has been helpful in setting up the customer UX, and they’ve helped us save a lot of money from this perspective. They are really adding value to our product. We are doing beta testing and we’ve received some end-user feedback. Overall, they’ve found the UI simple to understand. I’m really happy with that. We’ll take the feedback we get back to UniKwan. The interface and overall product experience are generally easy to understand and market.

How did UniKwan perform from a project management standpoint?

From a product-management point of view, based on timing and other factors, although it was a challenge to understand the overall concept of our user experience, the screens provided by UniKwan helped me get an idea of the completed UI and UX. This helped define these elements for our product. I am generally happy with UniKwan’s management. It has helped us get to market faster.

What did you find most impressive about UniKwan?

They have been able to understand many aspects of our product, once we started working with them. UniKwan has enabled us to interface with users and understand who our customer selection was. This has made a difference in filtering our exact target, as well as get a sense of our budget and other project details.

Are there any areas UniKwan could improve?

They can work from a user experience, development, and technology point of view, but providing full-scope development services would really help us.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with UniKwan?

They could market the skills they have more. I only found out about some services later on. I actually wanted to assign the media and UX work to another company, but eventually used UniKwan for this as well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

NAGRA is a software developer for pay TV companies. Our Bangalore office has around 400 employees. 

What is your position?

I am the director of our customer engineering team in Bangalore.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with UniKwan?

My team develops user interfaces for set-top boxes and multiscreen devices. We needed help with layout and user-experience design. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

UniKwan has worked on user interfaces across a variety of our set-top boxes. Our low-end models only have functionalities like channel surfing and reminders. They're on the low end in terms of complexity, but we have also worked with UniKwan on higher-end models, which are richer, are higher-definition, and have more user-experience aspects built in. There is one person from UniKwan's team working directly from our office.

How did you come to work with UniKwan?

UniKwan was already a contractor for my company when I started working for them three and a half years ago. I was not involved in the decision process, but we have continued working with them across multiple teams in the company because of their competitive prices and ability to design proof-of-concepts in collaboration with clients.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The average cost of UniKwan's work has been between $4,000 and $8,000 per month over the past years.

What is the status of this engagement?

I personally started working with UniKwan in August 2012, so their collaboration with my company has been even longer. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We have a big customer in India for which we've used UniKwan's services over the past four or five years. The revenue we've generated from this engagement is significant, amounting to between $4 and $6 million per year. I cannot say how much of this revenue has been directly attributable to UniKwan's work, but they are important enablers in the equation.

How did UniKwan perform from a project management standpoint?

We don't typically involve UniKwan in project management tasks. This is an internal function of our company. Once we have identified what needs to happen within our UI, we will involve their team for design work.

UniKwan works on-site with us when the engagement requires a high degree of interaction with our team. They also work remotely, delivering the results to our site.

In the past five years, we have switched two to three resources because of attrition. Otherwise, UniKwan has been reasonably consistent.

What distinguishes UniKwan from other providers?

Having an agile team and delivering to our expectations are some of the main reasons we've gone back to UniKwan consistently.

Is there anything UniKwan could have improved or done differently?

In terms of product management aspects, since UniKwan doesn't specialize in the set-top box domain, their team has less of an understanding in this area than we would like. Typically, we need to have a higher involvement from our side in order to make them understand implications around user experience. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a company that develops ways to automatically pick out interesting moments in home videos. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UniKwan?

We have AI that recognizes various scenarios in a video, such as laughter, interactions, or one person walking around. It uses video and audio features to select the most interesting moments on the video. We needed to package this technology in an app that could be marketed to consumers. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UniKwan designed an iPhone app that integrates the technology we already had to collect and display selected moments from a video. When the camera is recording, the app will show the best moments to the users. In addition, they created promotional videos for us to show to customers on our website. We had one person working full-time on our project. They added more resources as needed when we got closer to our launch date.

How did you come to work with UniKwan?

I came across them through common contacts. A friend had recommended them. We saw their work, and we found them to be creative people. We thought their work was among the best, and the cost was also a factor.

How much have you invested with UniKwan?

I think it was around $5,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with UniKwan in April of 2014, and the project was completed in April of 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

We got around 1,200 orders for our device. The promotional video was a very important part of our marketing strategy. UniKwan did a fantastic job on that. The UI and UX were good. We won two innovation awards in 2016.

We did a number of pilots, allowing people to use and experiment with the system. We got a very positive response from that.

How did UniKwan perform from a project management standpoint?

They were timely in their delivery. We had no complaints. The launch happened on time. We had a good experience working with UniKwan. We used email and phone calls for communication, which worked well. Their deliverables were on time, and they were very professional.

What did you find most impressive about UniKwan?

I think the promotional video they made is very good. They had a very good person working on that. His work is exceptional.

Are there any areas UniKwan could improve?

Our project went well, and we didn’t have any feedback for them. The only improvement could be if we were in the same location; then, we could have done more things together. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the UX Design Manager of an ecommerce company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Fashion and Apparel

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire UniKwan to accomplish?

• Elevated User Experience Design

SOLUTION

How did you find UniKwan?

• Online Search
• Referral

Why did you select UniKwan over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from UniKwan were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Discovery, User Research, Stakeholder Research, Information Architecture, User Flow, Task Flow, Lo-fi Wireframes, Hi-fi Wireframes, Design System, Mockups, User testing, Documentation and Reports.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Better project planning, better estimations, competition on deadlines, better quality of deliverables.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

All projects were planned and delivered on time. Fluctuating requirements were comfortably handled and deadlines were effected.

What was your primary form of communication with UniKwan?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Talented designer, at par with the latest in industry knowledge,

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

I found them perfectly aligned with our requirements.