Viget

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the senior director of marketing at FiscalNote. I ran all of our marketing functions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Viget?

We had an old website that didn't work very well. It was inflexible, we wanted to do more internally, and we needed better tools. The more we built on top of the old site, the worse it looked. We were rebranding the company, so we also needed to rethink our visual brand and our design. We wanted a vendor who could do both the creative design and a custom CMS.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did everything for us. We had a lot of talent on our team, but we needed an external influence to win over all our internal stakeholders. They started with a brand strategy and a tactical build out of our website. They explored our mission and translated it into visual ideas and content, and then into a functional website.

They recommended Craft as a CMS. It's easy to build customized backends. We used to work with WordPress, but Craft eliminated a lot of the confusing, legacy options in WordPress. Everything is customized, and all the functionality is based on the work we do in the backend. They also did some custom JavaScript work for animations and other functions.

What is the team composition?

We had a full complement of people. The team consisted of a brand strategy lead, a visual designer, a project manager for brand strategy, another project manager for the site build, at least one technical lead, and a business development manager. I may be forgetting a few of the people we worked with, but I interfaced directly with six to eight people.

How did you come to work with Viget?

I first worked with them five or six years ago. They were recommended by the CTO at a startup I worked with, and they helped with the initial application development. It was a different project, but I really liked the way they thought and wanted to work with them again. When I started this project, they were the first firm I considered. I took bids from a few companies, but Viget put more effort into a unique proposal that fit our needs.

How much have you invested with them?

This project was about $220,000, but I hired them again to build out our mobile app, so our total cost was greater.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking in early 2018, and the project was close to completion around February 2019. We faced some snags on our side that held up our actual start date, so the actual work probably happened between summer 2018 and March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I left the company shortly after this project. The most important metrics within the project were delivery time and staying within our budget. They nailed both. I work with a lot of vendors, and I don't know of anyone who is better at staying on time and on budget. We had regular calls every week about hours and progress.

How did Viget perform from a project management standpoint?

They were awesome project managers. Their process is very clear, and we always knew where we stood.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Everyone that works for Viget has a shared appreciation for high-quality, tasteful work and design. The interest and excitement are consistent across their team, and they all share the same values. There is no B-team there, and they're all very good at this kind of project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They provided very good visibility into cost problems and tracking, but every firm can be more upfront about scope. We scoped well on this project, but it never hurts to be as transparent as possible about setting realistic goals.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

WealthEngine is a technology company based in Washington, D.C. We offer a data platform and data-driven marketing approach. We help clients prioritize their sales, marketing, and fundraising efforts better. We have more than 3,000 clients. These include universities, hospitals, financial services institutions, and luxury brands. We help identify customer segments with the most market potential, and our specialty is wealth intelligence. I am the lead for product management within WealthEngine. I became part of WealthEngine by virtue of the fact that WealthEngine had acquired my company. I was the CEO and founder of my prior company, a big data analytics company. After the acquisition, I joined the WealthEngine team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Viget?

We needed to update the design, visual elements, and user experience of our primary product. We enlisted Viget to provide a refresh to our SaaS [software-as-a-service]-based software solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Parts of our product are relatively intricate in terms of the user interactions. For example, Viget worked on a tool for creating prospect lists. A user would say, "I want to see everybody in this particular area that has these wealth attributes. They must also have these other attributes." We have hundreds of attributes. Things like your political party, the car you drive, interests, sports, and so on. We wanted to make it easy and intuitive for a user to build up a list by clicking through and selecting different attributes. It was a complex user experience challenge to do that really well. For that project, Viget's deliverable was a set of detailed wireframes. Our team then took those and did the implementation. Following a similar process, Viget also helped us with other parts of our system with key interaction. They helped us think through the UX [user experience] and have a workshop for ideas. They would then deliver high-fidelity wireframes that we then use as drivers for our development process.

Before the acquisition, we worked with Viget in a similar fashion for other products. Some of those were SaaS-based software products while others were more public-facing Internet products. Viget also assisted us with some technical work. They have very capable technologists on their team as well. During a prior chapter of my career, Viget had assisted us on our product efforts in a technical capacity.

How did you come to work with Viget?

Viget was working with us in our prior company, so they just continued working with us when we became part of WealthEngine. I've actually worked with them before. Prior to WealthEngine, I've founded, built, and sold a couple of companies. Viget has been quite instrumental with a couple of the companies that I've built.

How much have you invested with Viget?

We have spent $50,000 to $200,000 on our projects with Viget.

What is the status of this engagement?

WealthEngine started working with Viget at the end of the first quarter of 2014. The timeframe is a little more than two years. Our relationship with them is more of a ladder. We have an ongoing relationship with Viget. As things come up, we'll reach out to them and scope out a project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We definitely get very positive feedback on our user interface. That's anecdotal, but we consistently get high praise from customers as well as other industry professionals who look at it. The work that Viget did was transformative, so it's almost hard to compare the before and after. Many of the things that they were working on were relatively new, particularly that prospecting product I talked about. I think that it's flowing through to our sales, the product benefits. WealthEngine has continued to grow as a company and we're doing pretty well.

How did Viget perform from a project management standpoint?

Viget is very strong in project management. They also excel in visual design, user experience design, technical work, and strategy. I have a lot of faith when they estimate or scope something and then say, "This is the deadline we're shooting for." In the time I've worked with them, they have rarely missed a deadline, if ever. They are extremely professional in their project communications, project expectations management, and project status. I would give them very high marks.

What did you find most impressive about Viget?

Viget's just great overall. They excel in many places. I consider their visual design and user experience design skills to be second to none. Whenever we have sensitive products or high visibility projects – something where a marginal difference can have a big business impact – we'll bring in Viget. If you have a very strategic project where you need a partner that you can trust, I would recommend them. Viget can deliver very high-quality digital products, media properties, apps, or user experience. They are just about as the best you can find. I'm sure there are others out there that are as good. I've worked with a wide array of different user experience professionals and firms both as a client as well as inside. But, I would say that Viget is right at the top. At some level, what they do is timeless. I think they do a good job of staying on top of forward-looking trends. Viget continues to innovate and adapt as the market does. Like all firms, they need to stay true to their values while still evolving over time. They're good at doing that.

Culturally, Viget is extremely good at hiring. Their team members are very high quality and very skilled. At the same time, they are very friendly and are just very good to work with. There's this consistency in the caliber and the vibe of the team at Viget. It's a positive vibe. It's interesting. Their culture is very creative but laid back and not too full of itself. They are extremely skilled, extremely creative, and performance-oriented.

Are there any areas Viget could improve?

No, I think that they are good at what they do, across all the disciplines. I don't see a real weak point. It's a firm that's been around 15 or 16 years, and it's grown organically. The leaders of the firm are very vested and very engaged in making a truly great company, and I think they've been quite successful at it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

At the time, I was working with ID.me, a company that enables customers to produce verified ID cards for various organizations.

What is your position?

I was Vice President of Product Development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Viget?

We had a need to build an e-commerce platform. We brought Viget in to do the product launch of the platform, as well as help out with user experience, design, and the full development of the platform itself.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Viget is a full solution organization. They handled the project management aspect of the engagement as well as the design, user experience, and wire framing. Their development team of front-end and back-end engineers worked alongside ours to build out the initial launch of the product. The platform was built on Ruby On Rails.

They were involved in every aspect of the project. They had a technical project manager that worked with me to flesh out requirements on the UX and technical sides, and then they managed the entire process through to the end.

How did you come to work with Viget?

I have known Brian Williams, the Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of Viget, for many years. We kept in touch over the years, and when it was time for my company to look for outside resources to launch this platform, Brian was one of the first people that I called. We brought them in, vetted them, and had them meet the team as well as our CEO and Chief Operating Officer [COO]. They put forth the proposal to do the work, and we ultimately selected them to engage with and build out our platform.

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

We spent $200,000-plus. It was a large engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement started around January of 2014 and lasted about nine months from start to finish. The first couple of months were the user experience and design phase, and then we rolled into the actual development phase. We got to the launch phase in September of that year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

It’s been a while, so I don’t have any hard metrics.

How did Viget perform from a project management standpoint?

We had an incredibly aggressive timeline that was almost unrealistic, and we had a lot of pressure from our CEO to get the platform released. We were also building some backend systems at the time that needed to be integrated into Viget’s platform, and they were able to deliver their piece of the overall product before our own internal engineering team.

We had regular ongoing demos and internal releases of the product. Viget didn’t waiver from their schedule much at all, which was really impressive given the ambiguity of the beginning phases of our project. They were able to take a high level concept, draw out the requirements, and deliver. It was impressive how well they were able to manage the whole process.

What distinguishes Viget from other providers?

Viget is very good at putting the right team together for their client. Their project managers were able to work with us to determine exactly what we wanted to build because we hadn’t defined everything on our end at that point. Within a two hour working session, they were able to really grasp what we were trying to build, and then they developed user experiences and requirements around that. You don’t typically find that skill in other agencies.

Another strength of theirs is that they have a group of awesome designers, developers, technical project managers, and client engagement managers. They are able to pull levers and put the right people together in order to be most successful. Viget really understands the business that their clients are in, and as a result of that, they are able to deliver that next level of product that other agencies cannot.

Is there anything Viget could have improved or done differently?

It’s not necessarily something to improve upon, but one of the things I would have liked would have been to have the engineers on site with us. I understand that they don’t typically work that way, and at the end of the day it all worked out fine.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Product leader at tech startup

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Viget?

The first project we hired Viget for was to create a complementary mobile app to our web experience. They were efficient and effective, so when I moved companies, I hired them again to lead the design of 3 apps in 6 months (2 web, 1 mobile). Most recently, I engaged Viget a third time to support a redesign of our flagship product.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Our first engagement was the result of an RFP process. They came in enthusiastic and thoughtful.

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

In all cases, they came in with a learning mindset. We kicked off with research and moved into UX and design. Along the way we tested with users for validation. The design team collaborated with engineering during design and build, as well as supported design QA.

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

Varied, anywhere from 1-5 at a given time. I have worked with UX research, UX design, designers, engineers, project managers, and accessibility advisors.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Feedback from testers and actual users is consistently positive. Our in-house teams love working with Viget too.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Great. The Viget team is collaborating and willing to adapt to our process/style, while making recommendations for improvement.

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

Non-hierarchical structure. How easily they embed with in-house teams. The high quality of their UX deliverables.

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

Can't think of any right now