We Are Pixel

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Chief Technology Officer of Cannabis Warehouse

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide our customers the tools they need to supply, order and dispense medicinal cannabis, reduce operational costs, streamline automated reporting and scale their businesses.
 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire We Are Pixel to accomplish?

• Develop custom ordering platform
• Connect sponsors to pharmacies and practitioners
• Develop a platform that provides compliance reporting of products/transactions

SOLUTION

How did you find We Are Pixel?

Referral

Why did you select We Are Pixel over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from We Are Pixel were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

We originally reached out to We Are Pixel because we required a custom built e-commerce platform that can facilitate the sale of medicinal cannabis between brands (sponsors) and customers (pharmacies). This platform needed to be able to collect important and required government documents to ensure safe/secure distribution of scheduled medicine.

Because of the nature of the industry, we wanted to work with a developer who has the flexibility to adapt as required. We Are Pixel met all those criterias.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since inception, the platform and functionality requested have all been built the way we requested. Although we were out of scope many times, We Are Pixel has been able to accomodate for the changes to ensure the objective was met.

We have also experience YOY growth and there is data and evidence collected in the platform to demonstrate our growth in revenue and sales. This wouldn't have been possible if the platform wasn't developed as required to meet industry standards and compliance.

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

Project management was good -- alhought it could be better, we understand that communication and project managment is a two way street. 

There were many scenarios where the scope would have to change and evolve in the middle of development and instead of saying "no", the team at We Are Pixel accomodated to these changes to ensure projects are complete.

What was your primary form of communication with We Are Pixel?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting

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

They're all local and australian based. One of their brand pillars is that they guarantee locally based employees. This means no off-shore team members. The cost may be a bit more, but having local team members has helped improve the flow of communication.

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

Yes. To grow the team so that we can continue to work on more high level strategies together to develop the technology further.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner and manager of a review platform in the health care space. It allows patient reviews of different products and services and is a digital hub to connect patients with specialist providers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire We Are Pixel, and what were your goals?

Our platform is 2 years old and had gone through multiple developers during this time. The exponential growth in traffic and users stressed the quickly put together codebase and infrastructure and it was time to find more capable and knowledgeable hands to make sure the systems could handle what is to come. Our goals were to partner with an agency that took you along the process, gave technical insights and appropriate advice and a roadmap forward to cater for future growth.

SOLUTION

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

We found We Are Pixel after investigating dozens of development firms and had a great feeling from the very first meeting. Being a developer in a past career, We Are Pixel showed that they were knowledgeable and didn't have the usual sales pitch. Our goals were to partner with an agency that took you along the process, gave technical insights and appropriate advice and a roadmap forward to cater for future growth. These were the main deciding factors apart from having reasonable rates for a local firm. Excellent communication was another key point of differentiation.

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

We had a project initiation meeting to discuss intentions and broader deliverables. First up was a full site and code audit of the previous codebase and build. Next was discussing findings from this audit and requirements and priorities for fixes and an infrastructure migration to a more robust service provider. Previously was on Digital Ocean and we planned a migration to AWS with deployments through Forge. This along with bringing the old out of date Laravel build up to date was the plan of attack.

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

We have worked with the owner and CEO (also the lead developer) from the get go.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After the codebase updates, moving some components to Livewire and Tailwind as well as the migration to better infrastructure resulted in some pages loading up to 80x faster (>40s to <0.5s). An amazing achievement!

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

We communicate daily on Slack, use Clickup for task and management and response times to comms is always within the hour. Updates on progress are frequent and there is barely any chasing up for anything. Bugs are looked at immediately and rectified asap. Impressive!

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

What is most impressive about We Are Pixel is they are willing to work with you and get things done that are best for the end user and your business. I don't have to hand hold the developers through every little detail and explain things over and over. They just get it and make sure it is done. Over all a joy to work with them and always look forward to interactions

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

There is always room for continuous improvement in life but so far nothing really needs to be done differently with We Are Pixel

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing head of a pre-made meal delivery company called Nourish’d. Our meals are 100% gluten- and preservative-free, and we specialize in meals that are dietary-specific.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with We Are Pixel?

We engaged with them to redesign our old website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a website built by our previous agency on the Shopify platform. Unfortunately, it did not do what we needed it to do. We've got a very complex subscription-based business, and we needed to provide a solution that would be able to hold the level of customization we needed for our systems.

Since Shopify did not work for us, Joel (Managing Director) has created a specific, custom-built website on Laravel. Also, he has implemented a checkout cart design and rebuilt the reporting system and everything that enables users to do something on the website. He has added multiple payment options on the site as well.

What is the team composition?

We only work with Joel.

How did you come to work with We Are Pixel?

We knew Joel around the industry, and he was known for being a man of his words.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $40,000 AUD (approximately $28,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February of 2022, and the partnership is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new website has seen an increase in active subscribers — we’ve gotten over 50 subscriptions within a month since launching it.

How did We Are Pixel perform from a project management standpoint?

Joel makes himself available to us every Thursday and almost all the time, which really puts our team at ease because he fixes issues that arise very quickly. Additionally, Joel is always on top of everything and delivers tasks on time. For communication, we use Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Joel’s responsiveness is very impressive. Whenever we leave him a message, he gets back to us within 2–10 minutes. We pretty much never have to wait on him for anything. Another thing that stands out to us is his ability to engage with potential opportunities for our business. We’ve got a lot of partnership opportunities with other like-minded businesses, and he makes it easy for other businesses to work with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I think Joel is doing really well.

Any advice for potential customers?

Let Joel delve into the problems that you're experiencing within your current platform, and let him share his opinion on the UX and the different ways to solve your problem.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director at a ready-to-eat meal delivery service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixel?

We needed a new website with a subscription system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pixel provides us with custom web development. Our in-house designer created the scope, and Pixel designed the UI/UX of the site and developed it using PHP and Laravel. They handled the migration of our SEO from our old site to the new one. The team has also built a custom subscription system. 

What is the team composition?

I only work with Joel (Managing Director). 

How did you come to work with Pixel?

We found them through word of mouth; we met Joel through another business, and he reached out to us when he started Pixel. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent upwards of $70,000–$80,000 AUD (approximately $49,000–$56,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around January 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're very happy with Pixel's work; the website and the subscription system are working well. Additionally, our customers have given us great feedback on the new site's look. We didn't have a benchmark because our old site was backward, so we don't know exactly how much the performance has improved. 

How did Pixel perform from a project management standpoint?

They've been a bit slow on the deadlines. However, we had a design change throughout the process, which added a week to the launch date. Overall, the process has gone pretty smoothly. Our communication is through email. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Pixel is proactive. When there are little glitches here and there, they spend the time to make sure those are getting sorted. Likewise, they don't leave any hiccups hanging — they get to things straight away.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We'd like to have a project management tool where we could see their progress. That way, there would be transparency about where we're at. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Scope out your project and make sure you've really thought about everything. Write down exactly what the flows need to be so that when Pixel builds them, they'll be what you need, so you won't need to go back and forth halfway through development.