Visual Craft

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the technical lead of a web development firm. We build custom websites and apps for companies of varying disciplines.

For what projects/services did your company hire Visual Craft, and what were your goals?

We needed help with an AngularJS progressive web app that displayed US real estate MLS listings. Our main goal was to make the listings appear on a map.

How did you select Visual Craft and what were the deciding factors?

Visual Craft was recommended to us by one of the MLS listing data providers. We took their recommendation seriously and reached out. We got a great feeling from a video call with them and hired them on a trial basis, which became a permanent basis until the project was over.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had many video calls to discuss the project. We created tickets/tasks in GitHub for deliverables. We worked through many phases and bugs and scope changes with ease.

How many people from the Visual Craft team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with two people from Visual Craft. A project manager and a developer. We mainly worked with the developer, except when we needed scheduling & planning permission etc.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The map was exactly what we asked for and performed well in all browsers and devices. Our clients love it.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Communication was always great and laid back. Communication was always through email or Slack.

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

Their web developer was extremely smart, talented, and thorough. The team's work is top-notch. I very rarely found a bug in his work, unless it was something I overlooked in describing the work we needed done. He made himself available in overlapping hours of our time zones with his.

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

If we could have known about vacation time off for the web developer with a little more advanced notice, that would have been helpful for planning/expectations.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner and proprietor of a courier business that focuses on transporting products in water, like flowers.  

What challenge were you trying to address with Visual Craft?

Visual Craft developed my first website in 2008, and we hired them again in 2019 to update it. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Visual Craft has designed and developed a new website from scratch that is accessible on mobile devices. Visual Craft added several visual components to the website, including photos of my vans and staff that I provided. Those photos feature local landmarks so customers can see where my company is located. They also optimized my content to improve my Google rankings.

Now, they serve as my ISP and perform routine web maintenance. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with Andrey (Founder & CEO) and his development partner. 

How did you come to work with Visual Craft?

I initially began working with Visual Craft after seeing another website they developed. I hired them to build my first website and then brought them on board for the new development project. 

How much have you invested with them?

I spent £1,300 (approximately $1,700 USD) with Visual Craft. Additionally, I pay £150–£200 (approximately $200–$260 USD) every two years for maintenance services. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The web development project with Visual Craft was from October–December 2019, but our partnership is still ongoing. 

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

Visual Craft’s work has facilitated the creation of profitable, long-lasting relationships between my customers and me. I’ve had many customers come to me after seeing my website — we appear very high in Google search ranking. Since it is tough to be in the courier service industry, I am impressed with the clients I’ve gotten through my website. I am 100% satisfied with the website Visual Craft developed for me. 

How did Visual Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

Visual Craft ran the project well — they were very clear about when they needed visual and written content for me. Because we were not located in the same country, we generally communicated through emails and had a few phone calls. They responded quickly to my messages. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Visual Craft’s price really set them apart from their competitors. Not only that, but they were able to find a website host that was the best value for my money. Their team is very professional, friendly, and helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would tell any customer to immediately get a price quote from Visual Craft. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Videojet Technologies, a company that makes industrial marking products like printers, laser markers, and other types of technology that mark information on bottles, cans, boxes, and the like. My team does software development on embedded devices and cloud applications that support our marking products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Visual Craft?

We engaged Visual Craft to implement a cloud portal where we could store software upgrade packages for our products. We needed to be able to install those upgrades onto our printers either via files on USB sticks or over the cloud directly through the internet. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided Visual Craft with a PowerPoint presentation of our requirements, which was prepared by our software architect at the time. Their team made use of Symfony, which is a web development platform that they had already developed other products and applications on in the past. We didn’t know much about it, but they gave us demos, overviews, and examples of websites that they had done over Symfony. They’ve since been supporting and extending the features of the platform they developed for us. 

Last year, we started a new project with them, which is an implementation of a web server application on our embedded printers. 

What is the team composition?

There were initially three people on the team, but over the years we’ve expanded their roles. At one point we had 5–7 people from Visual Craft working with us. 

How did you come to work with Visual Craft?

We didn’t have any internal expertise to do the cloud implementation side of the development, so we search around for agencies that could help us. Visual Craft was introduced to us through one of our employees in Duluth, and they came out on top of our selection process.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September 2016. Our engagement is ongoing. 

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

One of our main success metrics is on-time delivery, and Visual Craft has never missed any requirement or been on a critical path. They’ve always delivered on time, and it could be owed to how good they are at asking questions and getting as much detail at the beginning to avoid a lot of rework in the end. 

The quality of their work has also been very high. We’ve seen only a few issues in the field defects. Their team has a good process of delivering and testing code before they release it to us and to the field. 

How did Visual Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is very good. The project managers are very good about managing the tasks and getting them done. We did struggle with one of them when it came to committing and taking risks, but I don’t believe that was an issue with Visual Craft. It was just a matter of a person taking on a new role. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can trust that anything Visual Craft does will be functional and of high quality. We only do testing prior to release and not really to verify what they’ve done, so we have a high level of confidence in their work. They’re also great at pushing us for answers; they don’t just sit and wait for us to get back to them. Their aggressiveness to get the work done helps us meet all of our target dates. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think so. Everything we’ve wanted to improve upon, we’ve provided feedback for, and they’ve taken it up. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you can, have a face-to-face meeting early on with Visual Craft to map out the project. This is vital to getting things going and making sure that everyone is on the same page. It’s also very helpful in establishing a personal relationship with who you’re going to work with. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Videojet is a company with about $2 billion in revenue. We’re part of the greater umbrella of the Danaher Corporation and we make industrial inkjet-style printers and lasers for the coding and marking industry. I’m an engineering manager and have been in that position since the mid-2000s.

What challenge were you trying to address with Visual Craft?

We wanted to create a central website where we could post information about our printing devices. We also wanted to enable our customers and service people to interact with each other and download and upload maintenance software through the website. For this, we hired Visual Craft.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The primary deliverable was a functioning website for our video service team, which, apart from the overseas members, comprises over 400 people in the US alone. Visual Craft used a number of different technologies, including MySQL for the database and PHP for the programming. The site itself is hosted through AWS.

The experience was a critical driving factor in the development of the project, and Visual Craft worked to develop on-site functionalities that allowed customers and stakeholders to enter information about their printing device and receive any available software update for it. They created a system whereby device owners could determine if their printer was eligible for certain software and applications, which we sell on an as-needed basis. 

We turned to Visual Craft for a second time to code a special application for our industrial printers. This app allows the devices to be accessed directly from the internet and is coming very close to fruition. We continue to turn to their team for some website maintenance and updates as well. 

What is the team composition?

Andrey (CEO & Founder) was heavily involved in the beginning. Yuri (Project Manager) was our initial project manager, but we have switched to Andrew (Project Manager) for the second engagement. We also worked with Yaroslav (Web Developer).

How did you come to work with Visual Craft?

My direct supervisor was the one who brought in the US representative of Visual Craft. Coincidentally, they used to be next-door neighbors.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested something around $500,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The web development project began in 2015, but I personally did not become heavily involved until May 2016. Our partnership is ongoing. 

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

As someone who works with the product on a day-to-day basis, I can say that the quality of the work is high. The website we developed is the first to ever allow our printing devices to receive updates through local downloads, on-site installations, or online. This self-updating function is something that we have yet to achieve with any of our past equipment. 

We continue to make improvements and changes based on the customer feedback that we receive, but Visual Craft has successfully achieved our initial objectives. 

How did Visual Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

Our first project lead was very knowledgeable not only about what we were doing but also about the rationale behind it. He always found a way to either improve or maintain certain pieces and features that we asked for. The web developer was also fantastic. He provided us with numerous instances where we could really examine the look and feel of the product prior to its launch. 

We initially had meetings twice or thrice a week, but we eventually worked our way to meeting every other week or once every month when the development matured. Our primary tools for communicating were Skype and email. We also used the Atlassian suite to manage the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have highly engaged, informative, and responsible project managers. That was the most impressive aspect of Visual Craft’s services.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We developed on an older platform, which resulted in us needing to perform updates after the launch. It’s okay, though, because I believe Visual Craft was most familiar with the older platform at the time of development. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be sure to constantly communicate with the team. Have a clear project direction and collaborate closely with Visual Craft to get the best out of the engagement. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Groupe Les Echos-Le Parisien, a subdivision of the Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) group. I manage the team working on our advertising platform along with Visual Craft.

What challenge were you trying to address with Visual Craft?

The first problem was that our platform was very old. In fact, it was built more than 10 years ago; Visual Craft created our old platform in 2010, and we bought it from its previous owner. During that time, we had to implement modifications in order to ensure the site would work well inside our IT infrastructure, which was quite huge, given that we were part of LVMH. 

As a result, we had a lot of challenges, including a technical debt. Overall, we hired Visual Craft to refactor our website to ensure that it would meet our new SEO guidelines.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Visual Craft built our new platform. They started the refactoring process by creating a white paper. Since the site was intended for a niche market, they enabled the clients to publish legal ads in newspapers across France. They used Symfony for the frontend as well as React and Vue.js components. We also had microservices written in Go, which were done by another party and taken over by Visual Craft. We had a MySQL database, too.

On the UX part, we had an internal UX designer. We needed to create this part internally because we had legal obligations which made it difficult to explain the business part to a non-French native. However, the UX designs we made didn't always meet Visual Craft’s technical standards so they came up with counter-proposals that meet best practices.

By December 2019, they were able to deliver the new website and it’s now in maintenance mode. The team is also building additional features and adjustments such as color and graphic changes and adding newspaper partners. We’re continually challenging them to rebuild the website because they know our business and our requirements.  We’re starting another project with them, possibly in 2022, related to a different ad platform.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a team of 10 people from Visual Craft. We’re in direct contact with Andrey (Founder & CEO), a project manager, two technical leads, and a developer. Their senior members are always present in our meetings. If someone isn’t fluent in English, it’s easier for us to communicate what we want to their senior members.

How did you come to work with Visual Craft?

We decided to work with them again because they already built our previous website.

How much have you invested with them?

Visual Craft’s part was around €800,000 (approximately $910,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in October 2018, and it’s ongoing.

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

We’re the leaders in our market, making around €100,000 (approximately $110,000 USD) per day with the new platform. With their support, we’ve been able to publish a legal ad from seven days to an hour. We consider that a technical achievement because we have 600 newspaper partners. The team has also been able to unify our customer database for our B2C and B2B platforms.

On top of that, we’ve managed to increase our SEO budget from €800,000 (approximately $910,000 USD)  to around €5 million (approximately $5.7 million USD). Above all, our turnover increased from €10 million (approximately $11.4 million USD) to €25 million ($28 million USD) per year.

How did Visual Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

Visual Craft is a great partner to work with because they’re familiar with our processes and methods. If we have another project to run, I know that we can just sign a contract and ask them to do it.

Despite us facing some difficulties in making the frontend communicate with the backend, we knew that it was a normal occurrence when building APIs. It was good that they were able to do that because that was a large part of our project, accounting for about 50%. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they have no areas to improve.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Visual Craft is a great team with a lot of senior developers, but there needs to be someone on the client’s side to manage them and make sure they don’t go too deeply into the tech side. They’re technical people and they love what they do. However, sometimes you need to make them focus on the business goal and not the technological beauty of what they’re doing.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a non-profit ministry serving widows and orphans in Ukraine. I am the President and sole operator.

For what projects/services did your company hire Visual Craft, and what were your goals?

VC revamped our logo, web site and look. Visual Craft did a great job.

How did you select Visual Craft and what were the deciding factors?

We wanted to use a reputable and knowledgable firm in Ukraine, so they could really understand our mission to serve Ukraine widows and orphans.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a meeting to discuss our objectives and ideas with the key people who would be working on our project.

How many people from the Visual Craft team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had a project manager, coordinator, copy writer, designer and developers working on our project. Everyone from the president to the coffee lady were wonderful to work with.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

After launching our site, we saw a large increase in traffic, and we were consistently in the top 5 Google search fields.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Monthly, weekly or even daily meetings could be arranged. After working together for so long, we now have monthly status reports. Everything is done in a timely manner with good communication.

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

The VC team is very easy to work with. They listened to our needs, and delivered a product we could use.

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

Every time small technical issues come up, VC is very quick to fix them quickly and effectively.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a tech startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Visual Craft?

We needed help building a B2B marketplace where retailers and manufacturers can buy products and transact with each other.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Visual Craft helped us build our MVP. They customized a basic and off-the-shelf website to allow e-commerce transactions to take place between B2B companies. We launched this version in 2019.

Since then, we’ve continued working with Visual Craft, and we’re now moving to a full-fledged version of the site. They are helping us in further developing more sophisticated features on the platform.

What is the team composition?

At any given time, we have 2–3 resources working with us. 

How did you come to work with Visual Craft?

Visual Craft was referred to us. They gave us a reasonable quote, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019, and it’s ongoing. 

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

Our product is just in the MVP stage, and it’s very controlled. Many users haven’t used it at the moment, so I can’t give an accurate assessment of Visual Craft’s work. 

How did Visual Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

Visual Craft performed very well in project management — they’re very prompt and easily accessible. They’re also excellent in communications, and we’ve never had an issue talking to them or getting them on a call. Additionally, they’re good with their turnaround times. We usually communicate on Skype.

The speed of their delivery is good, but it can be better. I think they’re slightly under-resourced; our platform uses a particular language, and they only have one teammate who’s proficient with it. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Visual Craft is quite professional and very responsive — they tend to do a good job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They can have more varied resources so that projects can go faster.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CenterStaging has 12 rehearsal studios for musical performances and rents backline (musical instruments).

For what projects/services did your company hire Visual Craft, and what were your goals?

We hired Visual Craft to design and build our website. Goal was to have a call to action on our website and drive more traffic/sales through it. Visual Craft has also performed some SEO work for us.

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

This vendor was referred to us through a close contact of ours, Jay Bojan.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had many meetings to determine the design and direction we wanted to go in. Visual Craft delivered on a stunningly visual website while making it easy for the customer to work in. We continue to meet and improve the website as our company grows.

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

We had a project manager plus a couple other guys helping us before COVID. Post-COVID we have a different project manager that has been extremely nice and helpful. We meet regularly and he is very professional.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

After launching our website, we began to receive orders via online, which was not a revenue driver before. SEO work done by Visual Craft increased those results.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

On average, we meet once or twice a month. Sometimes once a week if we're pushing something. Our project manager is always timely and professional.

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

I think the design of the website that they came up with was brilliant. We get compliments from our customers regularly.

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

In hindsight, we wish the website would have been built on WordPress. Our IT guy gets very frustrated when we can't get into the sight ourselves to make simple changes like employee position updates, new specs, etc.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an e-learning startup company. We try to enhance people’s ability to enquire employability skills.

What challenge were you trying to address with Visual Craft?

We needed someone who could help me build custom software for my company.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Visual Craft developed a site where students and teachers could sign up and interact through a chat function. The platform also has a payment system implemented via Stripe. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with Andre (CEO), and he assigned us a project manager. In addition to that, there was a team of developers who received instructions.

How did you come to work with Visual Craft?

They were referred to us by the business accelerator I was in. I chose them because we heard positive things about their work, and several people backed them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $15,000 with them on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–July 2021.

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

Our platform is accessible, and people have been signing up for it. The performance of the product they delivered is great, and it does everything we need with high quality.

How did Visual Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent in that area; we had a dedicated project manager, and she reached out to me every time a decision had to be made to ensure that their work met my preferences, and if there were something I didn’t like, she’d fix it. During our online meetings, they also shared their screen to show me exactly what they were doing, even in terms of estimates — they never did something without my approval.

In terms of communication, all of our interaction was via Zoom, Google Meets, and email — we had regular meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

I was impressed by their customer service and responsiveness. Their project management was also a strength; I’m not tech-savvy at all, and they always bridged the gap for me and explained terms I couldn’t understand to get me through the whole process of building a tech platform without a tech background.

Are there any areas they could improve? 

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — the site does everything I need.

Any advice for potential customers?

Have a budget in mind from the beginning and stick to it. Also, be specific about the features that you want on your software.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of residential real estate company in USA, New York

For what projects/services did your company hire Visual Craft, and what were your goals?

Complete development of site with with real time interactive client portals

How did you select Visual Craft and what were the deciding factors?

Extremely communicative and attention to detail.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Complete development from wire frame to completed functioning site and maintenance

How many people from the Visual Craft team worked with you, and what were their positions?

5 + or more including project manager,developers,design team and more.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Excellent experience timely and very thorough

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Excellent with constant communication throughout every stage of the project.

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

Value and level of work from all involved. Creative and solving problems in advance finding solutions you any obstacles that would presented itself.

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

No, a great company.