Warren Research Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the creator of the Service Professionals Network. SPN is a free social media website with a blogging platform, job board, and business directory.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Warren Research Inc., and what were your goals?

We have millions of pages on our website. These pages come from the nearly 100 active plugins. The backend has been a mess since almost day one as I did most of the building on my own. I put on and took off hundreds of plugins over the years, leading to excessive bloat and remnant code. Jacob Warren and the team at Warren Research weren't the first people that I went to for help. They definitely weren't in the list of the first 50 specialists that I contacted.

I doubt they were in the top 100 even. However, I had a very small budget, especially for the scale of work that needed to be done. I also had major trust issues due to being burned by other developers more times than I would ever admit to. The scale of this project is really insane as I'm pushing to make SPN one of the biggest sites in the world. There are so many countless pieces that have to work together flawlessly; it would be hard for me to ever accurately describe it to anyone.

I don't feel like there is any other team out there that would have had the patience to deal with the issues on the site or my issues as a frustrated entrepreneur. I'm very obtuse, when things don't go my way, and I handed Warren Research an impossible task. Well, they proved it wasn't impossible. I only use the word impossible because that is what everyone else told me.

SOLUTION

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

I could write a book on this subject and perhaps there will be a demand for it some day due to the work that was done on the site. My social media network is extensive. I may not be a household name, but a fair amount of people know who I am. I waited until at least a few people suggested a company or developer before I asked them to take a look at my project. I was making a lot of social media posts about my goals, issues, and opportunities. Jacob was someone that a few people had brought to my attention.

When we finally had the opportunity to speak together, I could tell that he listened better than anyone else that I had spoken with. He took the time to ask questions and listen for the entire answer, which anyone that follows me will tell you can take a very long time. One weekend, I gave quite a few developers (experts) limited access to my site, so they could take a look at a particular issue that I was having at the time. Jacob was the only one that told me what the issue was. I had already hired 3 different developers to fix the issue over two years too. I would have kicked myself for letting him get away at that point.

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

Millions of pages with broken code. We had to remove code and fix so many countless pages, it was insane. Jacob has probably helped 20 to 30 developers discover bugs in their plugins by investigating conflicts and errors in my site. Their work on our site has literally affected tens of thousands of other websites around the globe. If it is a WordPress plugin, there is a good chance we used it or took a strong look at it as some point. We have BuddyPress, a business directory, and a job board that all work thanks to the experts at Warren Research.

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

• content creator
• coder
• developer
• cyber-security specialist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Yea, the website was broken and no could use it. Now, it has hundreds (the pace is growing) of new sign ups and business listings a day. The rankings placed at about 55,000,000 out of all the websites in the world. Now, we are at about 1.7 and passing people daily. It doesn't seem to be a stretch of the imagination at this point to say that they built the next big thing on the internet.

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

Take a look at my social activity. I'll be the first one to tell you that I am a vexing, obtuse, handful at times. The website was broken, so I was a nightmare. Now, I am living the American dream because they fixed my site. I can't say enough positive things.

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

See my answer above. They put me and a mess that every other expert said was impossible to fix, proving them wrong. My ever rising domain authority and member count increase.

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

Yes, the could have delivered the impossible much sooner.