Vonnda

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. The Conservatory of Flowers is home to nearly 2,000 rare and unusual tropical plants. It is a national landmark.

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

Vonnda currently maintains and supports us on our website development. Our website is a hub of information for locals and tourists. It is also the biggest purchasing point of contact for many of our programs so it was really important for us to work with a partner that has experience in commerce, speed, and design.

How did you select Vonnda and what were the deciding factors?

When I spoke with Vonnda, I could tell that the team instantly understood our pain points and challenges. They take a partnership approach and help set up their clients for success. Many of their clients are much larger with complex backends so I felt we would be in good hands with Vonnda.

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

I received a statement of work which includes the number of hours we are allotted. Vonnda is very flexible and willing to reallocate hours if they're not spent within a quarter. For a nonprofit of our size, this is greatly appreciated and helps out on quieter months.

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

A project manager is our main point of contact and our day-to-day support. When a request gets technical or requires more investigation a developer or engineer is brought in. This helps so that simpler requests can be handled quickly.

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

Our page speed has doubled. Refreshed pages are easier to digest and we are seeing more users spend time on the site. Lastly, working with the Vonnda team is a pleasure. They work extremely efficiently!

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

I have a weekly check-in with the project manager. Most of our communications are over email and sometimes Slack.

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

They are passionate about the quality of their work and we can tell they care about keeping their clients happy.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the President of of a manufacturing retail confectionery company.

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

When the pandemic hit we needed to pivot from our walk in retail business to contactless curbside pickup and ecommerce. We had professionally designed website but needed fast and nimble action in order to navigate the new normal we found ourselves in.

How did you select Vonnda and what were the deciding factors?

After going through a few rounds of website modifications with my prefered graphic design firm, and the lack of responsive support from the website builder our website was built on we knew it was time to seek out a next level firm.

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

We had an initial meeting with Mark. Mark took a deep dive in to our ecommerce business . He came up a with a plan and sent over a SOW and NDA . Mark was able to use a lot of the images on the existing site and began building our our new site on the Magento2 platform

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

I worked directly with Mark,

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

After launching our site, we immediately saw an increase in registered customers, contactless curbside pickup sales and overall increase in traffic. Our business is seasonal in nature and we went with Vonnda during our slow season in anticipation of a busy fall and winter

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

We had daily communication with Mark during the build out and launch. Mark responded in a very timely manner to any question or concerns we had, set up zoom meetings to explain how he fixed any issue that arose as we got used to the new platform

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

The experience Vonnda has in building e-commerce sites actually blew my mind. They made changes that we would have never thought of doing on our own.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None, from start to finish i was impressed with Vonnda.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-owner and the CEO of SproutPeople. We’re a small business that sells seeds and supplies for growing crops at home.

We established a website in 1996 to share our knowledge as professional growers. At that point, we’d only been active for three years. However, we’d grown and felt that we had the knowledge to share. We’ve continued that as the internet has grown.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vonnda?

I managed the website for 12 years but it was difficult to keep up with the technology and perform in my role. A local web design company upgraded our shopping cart and introduced us to Magento, but they weren’t a long-term partner. We needed an agency to support our site on an ongoing basis.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vonnda redesigned our enormous website, which required a lot of work. The agency that moved us to Magento left a mess, so the Vonnda team had to clean up our site.

Their team rebuilt our site, which housed 400 pages of information. They stuck with Magento but changed the entire system to be more workable. Their team also developed visual plug-ins for Magento and made a much friendlier interface.

Their team organized our site’s data including text and pictures. Their team redesigned pages that required lots of scrolling. Vonnda cleaned up the pages using tabs, which made the site less daunting to visit.

Their team also moved our email to a new server and continues to manage our SEO efforts. Vonnda implemented Google Analytics, which their team monitors. They also continue to build out the website.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Mark (CEO) and Collin (Linux System Administrator). We also worked with Mark’s partner at the time on our SEO efforts.

How did you come to work with Vonnda?

I searched online for Magento companies and looked through directories. I thought it was important to meet in-person if necessary, so I was particularly interested in working with a local agency. I called Vonnda and talked with Mark for probably an hour.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $30,000 so far. Our business shrunk for a while. Mark took it upon himself to help us and didn’t charge us for certain work because he wanted us to succeed. That meant the world to us. We stabilized prior to the pandemic and started paying Vonnda a retainer. We prefer to pay because we get better service that way.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Vonnda in 2013, and our engagement’s ongoing

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

They put a significant amount of effort into helping us even though we had little technology behind us. Their team turned our site into a modern and clean platform, which was an incredible undertaking. They’re our only tech partner, so their team takes on many projects.

How did Vonnda perform from a project management standpoint?

Vonnda uses Google Docs and other sharing tools. They keep us up to date on their efforts. We’re small, so we have to wait for projects more than we want to. 

We can contact Mark at any time. On occasion, he’s helped us at midnight. He’ll spin up the computer and start spewing ideas. Before we know it, he’s taken care of the problem.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their problem-solving skills always strike me. In addition to redesigning our website, Vonnda has handled all of the crises that have come up such as breaks or hacks. Their team communicates the problems clearly and solves the problems quickly, which has been huge. It's been key to our relationship that they’ve prioritized our business over their income and don’t care what time it is when helping us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Over the last 12 months, they’ve become more accessible and communicative.  

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I don’t think there’s any way to get better service than what they offer. I don’t think I could actually give advice without context. Vonnda cares about our business. They’ve done more for us than they’ve been compensated for financially.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of e-commerce for Samuel Hubbard Shoe Co.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vonnda?

Vonnda was employed by our company as our main development team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vonnda helps with writing code for our B2C website. Their team maintains and develops the site. They provide frontend design services as well as manage frontend and backend development. 

Their team also completely re-platformed our website from Magento 1 to Magento 2.  Before we transitioned, their team did our server architecture too.

What is the team composition?

I work with an account manager and two developers. I’ve also worked with Mark (Founder & CEO) on development projects.  

How did you come to work with Vonnda?

Vonnda was hired by our company about 4–5 months before I came on board. My CEO wanted a local, smaller sized firm.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend anywhere between $15,000–$40,000 a month. When we switched to Magento 2, we spent about $250,000 over the course of a couple of months.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around November 2017 and the partnership’s ongoing.

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

We’re satisfied with their work. Magento 2 was a new platform for both of our teams. We were happy with their documentation as well as the speed at which they got the project done. Their efficiency is in part due to the fact that they know our business so well.

How did Vonnda perform from a project management standpoint?

We meet weekly depending on the project. Their project management’s good. We have a project manager from their team who manages their development schedule.

I don’t have to get into the details of sprints, which is nice. While I can access JIRA, our project manager creates reports in Google Sheets where we keep track of the project. It’s easier to navigate when I’m not concerned about the level of detail that goes into each ticket.

Their team’s really responsive, and that’s a big deal to me. We have a small e-commerce department, so they’re our developers basically.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication’s one of their best qualities. If I have an emergency, I can get a hold of their team at any time of the day. I appreciate their communication and personal touch.

They’re really great people, so I like working with them. It feels like more than a business partnership. At this point, their team feels like co-workers. I’ve been happy with them over the 2.5 years, which is great because I didn’t choose them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It's not a problem but it's important to be aware that a small boutique firm will have competing priorities from other clients. You have to plan well to make sure that your development’s done in a timely manner. They’re not a company that has 100 developers working on a project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know that you’re partnering with a smaller firm, not a company that enlists hundreds of resources. You get higher quality work because of that. I’ve worked with the same developers for two years. You also solve problems faster when people know the code in and out.