Zudu

What was the scope of their involvement?

I gave them my initial idea and they built my iOS and Android app prototype from scratch. It’s a mobile app that allows users to connect with lawn care industry vendors. The user interface is really good. Users will experience lawn care in a completely different way than what currently exists. It’s new, exciting, and innovative.

Now I’m trying to raise money to build the app. I will use Zudu for development.

What is the team composition?

I spoke to James (Managing Director, Zudu) and Richard (Co-Founder, Zudu). James built a lot of the app, but they were both instrumental.

How did you come to work with Zudu?

I looked at a few companies and did a test of one idea. They were my first choice in terms of budget, efficiency, and product quality.

Zudu is great because they can get stuff together for a really competitive price. I spoke to them before I actually got a grant to build the prototype. They had already given me a price to submit for the grant. Once the grant was approved, I gave them the go-ahead.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent £5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2017 until January 2018.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Zudu’s remit was a complete redesign of the website, giving it a fresher, more modern and progressive look and feel, aligned with what the firm was trying to be. It allowed us to help clients in the future, and also gave us the capability to upload and edit our own content, generally managing the easy bits, like staff changes. Our social media feeds are coming through and are pulled together on the website.

Since completing the website, we’ve engaged them on SEO and web development, expanding our web presence past what we originally envisaged. We’ve always been delighted with what Zudu has produced.

We currently have a monthly subscription for the SEO work, packaged to exactly what we want. This provides us with value for money, and Zudu has made sure that they’re giving us a good return on investment. We always make more money than we’re paying them. We’re accountants, so we don’t deal with digital and web to any great extent, so Zudu has showed us the value, and have delivered on it.

They also made sure that we weren’t infringing any copyright with the images on our site. For some of them, we contacted the originator and received the permission to place them on our site. These were not stock images.

I cannot comment on technical details, but I think that the site is predominantly WordPress. I do have access to a dashboard, and I’ve generally deferred to Zudu’s experience and knowledge in this area. They’ve been more than happy to help us achieve what we were trying to achieve.

What is the team dynamic?

Most of the interactions were done through Zudu’s 2 main directors, and the developers involved. The continuity of a key team like ours meant that we were always pushing forward, and the deliverables were met on the timelines we agreed to.

How did you come to work with Zudu?

We had a competitive tender situation, and they were the ones who actually understood what we were trying to achieve, and what challenges we faced. It was a combination of searching online, and extending the tender to 4 companies. Zudu was the only one which actually came back clearly understanding what our agreement and driver was. We went with them because of that. They weren’t the cheapest, but they were the best by quite a margin. The rest were simply regurgitating old content, and didn’t understand what we were trying to achieve. Zudu took the time to get it and deliver what we wanted, both at the presentations, and subsequently.

How much have you invested with them?

[Confidential]

What is the status of this engagement?

The process took around 6 months from start to finish. We started working together in September 2015, and the site went live on March 2016. We had a 2-month pre-work period before the start of the project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The procurement process that we go through is very corporate. It’s a public service, so you have to justify a lot on what you’re spending, and the procurement process didn’t allow for innovation. It didn’t allow a company to see that you’re looking for the best app, but what you really need is best. That was what Zudu offered. We put out the idea of a condom-themed app, which was not new by any means. There is one in New York that came before. That one doesn’t copy ours, but it’s just a very similar idea. All of that was a map, and then they find stuff. What the guys were saying is this is a great idea, and you need to get that information out there, but how are you going to be engaged with people? We’ve read services about getting business out of your service or market; now, how do you get your service out there so that people understand who they’re going to be speaking to through the phone or the website?

The app was for Android and iOS. They suggested ways of getting people back and engaging them by using polls and making the app more interactive. It was a process. It wasn’t even so much like we had a big problem. The big problem was that our area has had, up until the past couple of years, the highest teen pregnancy rate in Western Europe. That was an issue. It wasn’t even half of it. It’s old stuff. It was a way of tackling it, and Zudu certainly offered the best solution for a person in a particular problem of getting information about condoms.

Not only was that a way of engaging people in the app, there’s also the chance for us to put out our attitude about condoms and sexual health. For the young people, that’s really important. It is aimed at 13- to 25-year-olds. Getting some connected to your market and some who are going to understand that you’re not doing anything wrong and we’re able to help you—that was really important.

Zudu suggested that we do polls, but then we also went to colleges to find out what types of questions should they be asking or would they like to see. The students expect humor. You need to have a sense of humor, so that took us down a path where we didn’t have to be a boring health promotion agency. Even if it’s not successful, there’s something in there for a health worker to start a conversation with.

We worked with three people in total: Richard, James, and David. The main contact was James. I suppose he was our representative. He was the person on the end of the phone if we had any questions. He was the person who was giving us updates on Basecamp. Richard was around at the beginning. He explained what the process was going be, and what Zudu was about. He gave us the best of their company and what they could offer. James then followed through and delivered all that. We didn’t speak to David much, only when he had questions about things that we had written. My impression was that David was the coder behind the scenes. He was the guy that was developing the content.

How did you come to work with Zudu?

We put it out to tender. There were four companies we were considering, shortlisted to three, and Zudu came back with the best tender not just on price but in their innovation of how the digital world works, how people interact with apps, and how we can get people to come back to our app. We were seeing if it was a good idea, so we got information. We know, from an evidence-based perspective, that if people have the information, they’ll use it. What they were saying was you’ve got a struggle to keep this app on somebody’s phone because it’s a new thing. 

How much have you invested with Zudu?

It was a little over $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started about a year ago. Honestly, it was my end that held it up. We had to put together a database of all the different places across the area that were giving out condoms. It wasn’t the only thing we were working on at the time. I would say it came out in February of this year, the procurement process was April last year, and we started it in June. I have since worked with Zudu on another project, and they managed to get it done in two weeks. That was because we had the content ready to go.