Followbright

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

First American is a Fortune 500 title company. We have offices all over the world. I’m an executive in one of the divisions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

I’d inherited an ExpressionEngine CMS tool. I needed help with design, coding, and implementation, understanding the pros and cons and how to keep it working.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us reposition and rebrand the current website and they are currently working on a refresh. We’re doing some slow planning for long-term re-architecture and redevelopment of a future website, which we will start from scratch.

The website architecture was inherited, but they built most of it from scratch. We had to use the CMS company so we had the site converted into CMS templates and integrated into a big CMS system. They did all the design, HTML, and scripting.

We did a lot of work with architecture and wireframing before going into design. I call it a strategic refresh. They cleaned it up and made it a better and faster experience. We gave them input and they did the sitemap, flow, and wireframes. We’re currently in the mood studies and we’re selecting a direction for the color theme. Then we’ll go through to a final design and then to coding. Next, they’re going to help us build out a new blog system. I’m hoping we can start a complete redo toward the end of the year. We plan to keep working with them.

What is the team composition?

It’s a tight team. I interface with maybe four people. There’s a frontend developer, backend developer, a UX specialist, a UX designer, and there’s the principal of the company.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

I found them through recommendations on multiple websites. I interviewed them along with five other companies that knew ExpressionEngine. It was a good fit. They had the right blend of creativity and technical competence.

I started working with Followbright when they had a different name. They rebranded a couple of years ago. I enjoy working with Erin [Founder, Followbright] and her incredible team so much that I brought them along from my former company to this company. I have a lot of confidence in working with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2012 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new site is state of the art for a financial corporation. It is much easier to use, much faster, and much clearer. Everyone is excited about what they’re seeing as a result of the refresh project. They can hardly wait until it gets into coding and implementation.

We worked with them in a couple scenarios where we’ve been under extreme time crunches, and then we’ve also had the luxury of doing it the right way. This time we’re doing it methodically with all the traditional milestones. When we were under a time crunch, they were nimble enough to support us in all the difficulties of a big company moving really slowly for a long time and then all of a sudden moving really fast. They were great and very flexible.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is great and straightforward. We used Basecamp. Depending on the phase, we had weekly or bi-weekly meetings, either quick or hour-long meetings as needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re great people and they’re a pleasure to work with. They’re always positive and willing to listen. They’re very confident. They were able to adjust to our industry and to our needs very well. They’re a comprehensive web development company. A lot of times, design firms will try to push you into one theme, one style, or one set of technologies. Followbright services us to what our needs are. They’re nimble, smart, fast, clever, and nice. If I move on, I will take them with me.

They’re very full service. We don’t just tell them what to do. They have very good insight into what is appropriate for corporations or small companies and what they need to do to promote themselves, closing leads, or transactions for different levels and types of customers. They’re very good from the conceptual part all the way down to the coding and CMS platform integration and maintenance if needed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they were physically closer to us or in a big city that I travel to a lot so we could have face-to-face meetings on big projects.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Managing Online Content Editor at the Texas Law review, a legal journal.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

We had an unattractive website that didn’t compare well to our peer journals. We wanted a public face for the publication that better reflected the quality of scholarship we publish.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a new native WordPress site from scratch based on the aspirations we articulated during wireframe development. We spent several weeks on the design phase, but formatting footnotes to be readable and accessible was the priority.

As a law review, it’s common for us to have 300 footnotes per article. That project was imperative because many other journals have this feature. They formatted the footnotes in a scrolling sidebar that moves with the reader. Footnote popups that lead to external sites are consistent with the 2 – 4 different style books we use for legal citations. The team also accommodated style variations, such as italics and lowercase letters, in the coding.

The site launched December 2017, but we recently identified new pieces that we want. We’re contracting with them now for a couple more projects.

What is the team composition?

We worked primarily with three individuals: one person for developing the scope; a designer for the site’s aesthetics; and a coder that worked on wireframes, backgrounds, font, and the general appearance. There was also a team of people in the background.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

We did an online search of 30 – 40 different firms. They were among our top contenders because on phone calls their designers didn’t try to fit our vision into a prefigured service. Many other firms did that.

We worked with them on a proposal and invited three designers to present to our board, which oversees large financial decisions. They won because it was evident to the board that the team invested more time than others to understand our needs.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $56,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started March 2017 and ended December 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were thrilled with the finished product. The site was beautiful and compares well with our peer journals. Footnote coding drastically reduced the work needed to upload an article properly. It was exactly what we wanted.

We also received positive user feedback from emails we sent announcing the launch. Some emails indicated preference for us over other online law reviews.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great. We used Basecamp, which helped each phase of the process clear to us. We hadn’t anticipated the amount of small decisions involved in web design. We were borderline perfectionists in choosing backgrounds, fonts, colors, etc. There were a lot of action items, but they kept everything moving well.

Everyone was organized. Our team was split between New York City and San Francisco while they’re located in Colorado. They integrated our emails into Basecamp, allowing everything to be recorded and maintained in the app. Overall, it was easier than expected to keep everyone up to date.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really liked them; their effort impressed me. They spent a lot of time on the phone with us and patiently followed-up on the many minor design adjustments. Although I felt bad after a while, they never pushed back on our requests. They were always happy to address concerns.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I felt that it was only a positive experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director for the Mindful Life Program, an organization that provides mindfulness courses, resources, and training to people all over the U.S. and internationally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

We had quite a few problems we needed to fix, but the main challenges were membership and subscription issues as well as the speed and functionality of our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Followbright did a thorough assessment of speed, performance, user experience, and all the plugins of the website, and they gave us a prioritized list of improvements we should make. We’ve done most of them ourselves, but Followbright has helped with the more technically-challenging ones.

They helped move our site to a different host and get us set up there. We have a WordPress site now, and Followbright did lots of troubleshooting, including small fixes and writing some custom code. We’d been having a lot of conflicts with our membership plugin, so they helped us transition to a completely new one so everything worked more seamlessly together.

What is the team composition?

We mainly work with two people, although we had three at the beginning. Now, I work with one person who knows our site well, and it’s a great relationship.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

We found Followbright on Clutch. We considered a variety of companies, but they seemed to fit best.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We hired them in January of 2017, and now we use them for maintenance and support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had fewer people reporting problems with the site. Followbright’s user experience recommendations were brilliant, and there are clear improvements with the site’s speed and performance.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

They were incredibly professional. They paid attention to what we said and presented proposals that focused on our concerns, which made me confident in their abilities.

Every time there's an adjustment or new development, I get an email notification. We mainly communicate via email, phone, and sometimes live web conferences.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The entire team is cheerful and encouraging. A positive attitude can make a big difference, and I never felt like we were bothering them with our problems. They’ve been an absolute delight.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be clear about the scope of work you want them to do, and be prepared, because they’ll get started right away.  Know when to put something aside and when to keep it an active task

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of Timely Testing. We do drug and alcohol testing for employers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright.

We needed website design and development, and it was really important to move to an open source platform from our Weebly site.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a full redevelopment of the website on Wordpress. They contributed across the board to both the coding and the design. They also assisted with content creation. We already have a logo created by another company and we had them redesign it once we started really delving into what we wanted our business to reflect. We had the colors down too, but Followbright made the website look a bit more edgy. They also incorporated several video components such as testimonials and infomercials telling about our business.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked with about 6 people.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

I looked at several companies on Clutch within our price point. Then, I interviewed about 5 and Followbright really stood out as someone that was going to go the extra mile. They were very personable and engaged when we spoked with them.

How much have you invested with them?

Approximately $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2017, and the engagement is ongoing. We have on a monthly retainer now, but our site went live in October.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website has been beautifully done. It's incredibly visually appealing and has led to improvements in both client experience and engagement. We have since connected with HubSpot as our CRM, so we'll be able to get more analytics in the future. It’s really well done. Everyone that has taken a look at the site has commented on the visual appeal of it.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well, and everybody stayed pretty much on target. We communicated primarily through Basecamp, and Erin [President, Followbright] was often engaged and checking in on the project. We also had phone calls and email communications, but Basecamp was a huge part of it. It allowed everyone from the design or coding teams to be involved at the appropriate different stages. It was really nice for me to have it all in one place so I could return and reflect on previous conversations and pick up the thread.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The personal touch they provided. They pushed when I needed something done and what’s really mattered. They balanced time constraints with quality well. They were as flexible as best can be with the client.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they did a really nice job. I was impressed and continued to be impressed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The project goes as fast as the client goes. If the client is not as responsive, then that project will lag - you need to do your part as well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Manager of a title search firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

We needed help maintaining our website and making sure it was up to date, secure and that all the updates were being downloaded.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a quarterly maintenance plan with Followbright. What that means is that they go in quarterly and make sure all the plug-ins and everything else is up to date . This way, our website continues to work the way it's supposed to and remains secure.

They'll also help us with other maintenance items on our site, or other things we need here and there. For example, they're helping us with some Google ads stuff now. If there is ever a crisis we can most definitely call them as well. Anytime we have a question we will reach out, but so far, everything they’ve been updating has been great and we really haven’t had any issues.

What is the team dynamic?

We have one contact we mostly communicate with.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

We actually found them in an internet search. We then had several conversations with them to see if we thought they would be a good fit for us and decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

This is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything's been great and they're very on top of it. Anytime we have a question they get right on it. It seems that most things we need help with fall within our maintenance plan which is good because it’s covered by what we're already paying. We're very happy with them.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

Followbright does a great job and is always very on top of everything! They're very good at communicating what they’ve done and what they plan to do.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We like that they are on top of all tasks and they follow through on everything they say. They respond quickly, which isn't always easy to find. Ever since they've taken over updating our website we've had no problems and everything's working great!

Are there any areas they could improve?

I'm very happy with them I can't say that they need to improve on things.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

IQ Wired is a company that helps enterprise businesses buy and manage technology and telecommunications. We’re headquartered in Denver, Colorado. I’m the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

We were undergoing a branding refresh and wanted to also revamp our website. The website was built on WordPress Theme so it was simplistic and not flexible. We knew that we needed a completely different look, but we also needed to stay within our budget. We wanted to work on our messaging, so we were trying to do a lot of marketing related work at the same time. We needed someone to help us figure out what was essential and what was a luxury item.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first thing they did, which was probably the most critical, was they helped us rethink our requirements. Since we don’t deal with websites on a daily basis, we had a hard time understanding how graphic design, content optimization, and the actual programming of backend and frontend all fit together. We didn’t know how investing in each of those would impact the final deliverable. They helped us rebuild our requirements in the way that was most optimal.

After they helped us do that, we selected them as the vendor to implement it. The work consisted of building us a brand-new website from scratch. We did the design work on a minimal budget. They suggested using a prefabricated graphics theme that we selected together. They incorporated that into building the site, which saved us a lot of money.

Are there any features and functionalities they added?

The biggest thing they did was on the content side. Our content originally had no rhyme or reason to it. It wasn’t made to convert users from readers to actually contacting us. They have an amazing content writer who translated all the messaging into a way that looked good on the page and promoted clicks.

How many resources were assigned to your project?

There were four people assigned to our project.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

I met their founder at a conference right around the time we were looking for a vendor. What was helpful to me was how Followbright’s own website is laid out. When I met the founder, I didn’t share with her that we were doing the project because I didn’t think we were interested in another opinion.

I went to their website, and saw how they are really good at explaining how they’re unique. I saw that they are extremely results driven and that their approach was different from everyone else we were looking at. We reached back out to them and that’s when they helped us recraft our requirements into something much more meaningful to us than the path we were originally on.

How much have you invested with Followbright?

The site cost somewhere in the mid-teens.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2017, and the site was launched in July 2017. It was really impressive how quickly the site was built considering how much work needed to be done. We were writing content and doing graphics from scratch, but they still turned it around in 60 days. It was a tight deadline and they were really diligent about meeting it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We did an overall branding certification for the company. Everyone in the company had to go online and take a quiz on being able to find stuff on the website and look for things that needed to be improved. We’ve been getting really great feedback from everyone internally. This is particularly impressive because most of my internal staff are salespeople and the target person is an IT person. Those are very different personalities, so we had to build the site targeting very data driven analytical people. The fact that we managed to build it in a way that even the conceptual and creative people were able to like it is that much more impressive.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

They are one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with. We communicated through conference calls and also used Basecamp, which was super effective.

What did you find most impressive about Followbright?

They have a very high degree of commitment. We are very picky with vendors. As an organization, we are hyper-organized, hyper-sense-of-urgency, and have a very high sense of customer service. We’re used to being disappointed in vendors because they rarely share the same degree of caring. What differentiates Followbright is you can truly sense that they are willing and ready to go above and beyond to make everything work. They truly care about the whole experience. This is true about their entire team. Their content resource spent twice as much time with us as than we had written in our agreement, because he felt that he needed more information. The project manager was amazing at keeping everyone on track. Their programmer was super responsive. We would get a response to everything we would send them within two hours.

Are there any areas Followbright could improve?

No. They’ve done awesome.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Summit Resort Group is a property management company. We do short- and long-term rentals, homeowner association management, and real estate sales. I’m the president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

The short-term rental industry is evolving at the speed of light. In order to be competitive today, you really have to have a very good website. It’s got to look great, be super functional and easy to work through, and mobile-friendly. If you’re going to book a room (or buy anything online), you want it to be super seamless from either your desktop or your smartphone. Our goal was to increase short-term rental sales with this new website, and Followbright accomplished that for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They had done our previous website seven years ago—or at least Erin (the owner of Followbright) did. I think she was under a different company name then, but it was still her company. We scrapped the old one and started all over from scratch. They did everything from designing the site to implementing it. I don’t know what CMS they used.

Our old website was not very friendly when you were trying to look at it from your smartphone, so they made it mobile-friendly. The website integrates with our reservation software, which I think is pretty neat. If somebody books a room on the website, it goes and tells our rental software that the room is off the market for those days so that somebody else couldn’t come through and book the same room for the same night, because that wouldn’t be very good.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

We’ve done some previous things with Erin before, and she’s always been really responsive and good to work with. I don’t know how we first found Erin since that was before my time here, probably 10 years ago.

Now, we did interview a few other companies that were bigger and across the nation. However, we preferred to work with the local hometown feel of Erin and the guys at Followbright.

How much have you invested with Followbright?

It was $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It all started in 2017. We gave her the go-ahead around April 1st, and it was done and ready for launch mid-May. It was a pretty quick turnaround of 6-8 weeks. In addition to building the site and stuff for us, they continue to host it, so the relationship continues on.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

There’s another gal in our company that’s closer to this project than me, and she says it’s working great. I do know that website bookings have increased from where they were last year, even in just the past couple weeks. I don’t know the specific numbers of it, but that’s the result that we’re seeing, so that’s good. However, it’s also a little early to see because we’re in vacation rental management, so a lot of it hinges on when people are looking to book.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

Great. They’ve got this program where I was able to follow all the conversation and updates between my marketing manager and Followbright the whole way. I saw step by step where we were at. I didn’t even have to ask—I just saw it. That was cool.

What did you find most impressive about Followbright?

Individual care and the hometown feel. You’re not dealing with some huge company that doesn’t remember who you are.

Are there any areas Followbright could improve?

Not really. We’re really happy with the way it came out. You can always say it could be cheaper. But then if you talk to the other guys, they’re right about the same cost.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

budget4cast was developed in the past year as a cloud application for project managers to manage their project budgets. I’m one of the co-founders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

We wanted a web development company to work with us on building our entire internet presence, including coding, design, and implementation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did everything: coding, design, and implementation of our business requirements. They partnered really well with us to bring our vision to the internet. We had a very clear vision of what we wanted this product to do, and Followbright took our vision and used their core competencies to bring that vision to life. They did it on a tight schedule, they stuck to the original budget, and they kept us informed along the way, giving us plenty of opportunity for feedback.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

I’ve played the role of IT consultant as well, so I’m familiar with a variety of web development companies across the country as well as here in Colorado. We took a look at Followbright and two other good web development companies. After our analysis, Followbright came out on top. Our other co-founder had a previous relationship with them as well, but we did fully vet them against well-qualified competitors. We chose Followbright over their competitors because we liked that they proposed PHP as the language, and we trusted their ability to deliver what we wanted on time, on budget, and with a high degree of quality. Their team consisted of a project manager, a primary developer, a junior developer, and a designer.

How much have you invested with Followbright?

We’ve spent approximately $100,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

This is an ongoing project. We’re continuing to use them for fixes and future features, and I’d say the total development time took approximately six months, from May to October 2016. That’s when our launch took place, and the relationship continues today.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Since launching in October, we’re now are managing nearly a billion dollars across 100 projects. The feedback we’ve been receiving has been excellent, so I would say we got 95% right out of the gate, which is excellent. Followbright has been quick to implement any new features and improvements to continue to hone in on exactly what our customers are looking for. What sets Followbright apart, quite frankly, was their business acumen on what works and what doesn’t. We were pretty steadfast in what we thought we wanted, and for the most part, we were right, but they contributed some great insights on improvements we could make.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management has been very easy. They established a Basecamp project to keep us updated on the project, and they’ve been very responsive. To give you a sense of how responsive they are, the lead developer has been on vacation and we have his cell number, and if we had anything come up that was an emergency, he was more than happy to take a look at it. Wireframes were put on a development server that we were able to access. We could actually go to them and provide feedback. Choosing the right web development team mitigates half of the risk when developing a web application, and when you choose Followbright, you don’t need to worry about that half of the risk.

What did you find most impressive about Followbright?

One of the unique things about them is that they developed a detailed project blueprint at the outset that both parties agreed to, and they do an excellent job of sticking to it.

Are there any areas Followbright could improve?

This is difficult to quantify, but the cadence during the development was uneven at times. There’s nothing for three weeks and then everything all in one week. I don’t think that’s uncommon in development, but it might have been better to have a steady stream instead of a trickle and then a waterfall. That’s a very minor complaint, though, because I don’t really care as long as it’s delivered. Other than that, they’re great communicators and amongst the best teams I’ve ever worked with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a government agency that is focused on getting people to visit our county—Morgan County, Colorado. I am the tourism marketing manager for the county. We receive funding from the county lodging tax and that is how my department is funded.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

We have our own website hosted separately from the main county's informational site. Our specific website hadn’t been touched in 12 years and it was extremely outdated, so we were looking for a complete overhaul. We don't have technical folks working here, so it was necessary to find a vendor capable of handling that work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Quite honestly, I delegated everything to them. We discussed verbally some of the ideas and things I was looking for. They asked for other sites that I liked or were visually appealing to me and had some of the things I was looking for. From there, I gave them our logo, colors, and branding. They put together a mood board. They overhauled every single bit of our website. The website was custom-built on a WordPress platform. They took widgets and pieces and then customized them to us so that nobody else out there has a site like ours. I worked with three different key individuals from Followbright.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

I did a lot of research finding an organization that had a background with tourism industries as well as working with government agencies. We also wanted somebody who had a fresh perspective on websites. I initially googled web designers in Colorado. I reviewed their websites and saw who they had recommendations from. We got bids from a range of $2,000–$20,000. Based on money, we were looking at a $10,000 budget which, quite honestly, is minuscule when you look at what Followbright did for us. Because we are a government agency, we recognized that we needed things to be ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] compliant and made sure they were done correctly. That jumped the price up additionally, but that also jumped all the prices up on all quotes.

I did an initial phone interview, calling Followbright to see what their perspective on things was. I immediately hit it off with Erin at Followbright. She had this wonderful personality that made us click personally. She saw the vision I was looking for and was as excited about the project as I was. A lot of the other places I talked to, I was just another job to them and it was not as personal. It was like she had a goal just as much as I had a goal, so it was fantastic working with her.

How much have you invested with Followbright?

We’ve spent less than $15,000 on their services. It was worth every single penny; I wouldn’t have chosen anybody else.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started looking for people and spoke to Erin for the first time in February or March 2016. We finalized in late March or April 2016. The work is ongoing as we have decided to have them host our site. If at any point I need something—in addition to what I can’t handle or if there need to be larger changes—I have them as a backup where they will step in and make that happen.

It was supposed to be a six months’ process, but by no fault of Followbright, I had to put it on hold. It was completely my department—we have a board that governs what we do and they were dragging their feet and making changes. Followbright were so great about that. They worked with us on our timeline. When we started to get into the nitty-gritty, it flowed seamlessly. Ultimately, we needed it out by the end of the year due to budgeting and fiscal arrangements within the county. It came out perfectly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It’s very user-friendly. I’m able to go in and make changes within minutes. I was scared to death that I would get in there, screw things up, and then I’d have to call them and have them fix it. But because of how they put it together, it’s extremely easy for me to go in and make those changes. What the site looks like now is absolutely nothing like what the other site looked like before. I handed her my baby and said, “Please take care of it and fix this for us,” and they did. It’s amazing. So in that capacity, it was above my expectations.

The change that we did made a huge impact. We have had great feedback on how the website is user-friendly, more visually appealing, and mobile friendly. We have had great phone calls from people. People have come in saying, “We saw your new website and it’s fantastic.” It’s amazing because our community was used to the old website. I’m excited to see where we are in six months and by the end of the year with the data that we will be receiving.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

Erin was in communication with me every step of the way, saying “What do you think of this? Does this work with what you’re looking for?” If we were running behind or got caught up on things, we always got that follow-up email or call of, “How are you doing and is there anything I can help you with?” At one point, I ended up having to go to a funeral. Erin was like “How’s your family? Are you okay? What’s going on?” I’ve never physically met her but I feel that she’s this great friend that I have now.

They used Basecamp where all three of us communicated with each other. As we got through different projects, we would make sure that the key people were in that conversation or that it only went to a specific person. It was very easy to communicate with them about concerns or changes. We also used email. They worked it out prior that I would have a two-hour training session on how to go through Basecamp. It was so easy that our session ended up being about 20–30 minutes just because of how simple it is to use the program. Because we have that relationship, I know I am able to call them and get ahold of them immediately for anything that I might need help with. We were so lucky that we found a company that we gelled with so easily. They were so respectful of our time and our opinions that we didn’t have any go-between. If anything, Followbright had an issue with us because we kept stalling things.

What did you most impressive about Followbright?

One absolutely unique thing about them came in the mail. Shortly after we had contracted with them and decided to move forward together in this partnership, we received a package of cake truffles and a personalized note that they were really excited to work with us. It’s something that Erin does for her clients. It was very odd because earlier she had asked what my favorite kind of cake was. I answered it and didn’t think anything of it. For me, that’s pretty big. When you come from a small town where customer service and taking care of who you’re working with is so key, getting that said a lot about them and how they really wanted to take care of their customers.

Are there any areas Followbright could improve?

I would have to say none. That’s unusual because you usually have some things come up, but not a single time did that happen. They were great, and there isn’t a thing I can say badly about them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We provide a cloud-based project budget management tool.

What is your position?

I am one of the venture's three founders. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Followbright?

We needed to take our concept for the software, which had been implemented in a spreadsheet form until that point, and turn it into a full web application. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Followbright provided PHP, CodeIgniter, and frontend web work. We had a detailed spec in terms of what functionalities we wanted to accomplish, and Followbright was able to work with us, turning our solution into a true web-based platform. Followbright has provided clarity on some user-interface functions which were more open-ended when we started the collaboration, but we had detailed specs otherwise.

Our solution is specifically focused on managing project budgets. There are many other tools available which have taken on the communication piece, but we identified that there wasn't one primarily focused on setting and tracking budgets as contracts and commitments are set.

I don't know exactly how many people from Followbright's side worked on our project. We primarily worked with two resources—one for programming, and one for design—but they may have had additional support.

How did you come to work with Followbright?

We talked to several firms, exploring whether PHP was the best approach or if we could use Node.js or Ruby on Rails. We had some lengthy conversations with Followbright's principals on how PHP would be able to handle the volume of data in our system. We had had a previous positive experience with Followbright and knew they'd be able to translate our requirements into an application while not losing sight of the big picture.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The base effort for our MVP was around $84,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We engaged Followbright for an initial blueprint session in April of 2016. The development started in June. Our application has been launched, and we use Followbright for maintenance and support, as well as for post-MVP development efforts. We want to create a couple of additional functionalities based on user feedback. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The day after launch, we had a signup for a paying customer. This was a pretty good turnaround. The real reflection on Followbright's work comes from the general feedback we've received, stating how intuitive and clean the application is. It's clear what its functionalities are, and there isn't a lot of unnecessary clutter. This was critical for our platform's success.

How did Followbright perform from a project management standpoint?

Followbright used Basecamp for project tracking.

Is there anything Followbright could have improved or done differently?

We've had a fairly aggressive timeline, starting the work in June and launching in October. Wireframes progressed quickly and led to a gap during which no backend coding was taking place. Followbright could have been more systematic in rolling out deliverables for us to review. Much of the work came out near the tail-end and felt a bit rushed. We were able to hit deadlines but didn't spread out the work as much as it could have been.