Fountain City, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Panoptic Media is a video production facility in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. This is our 25th year. We primarily do corporate sales marketing, but we also do some training and nonprofit work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fountain City?

We needed help with sales and wanted a better presence on the internet. Fountain City has helped me with two iterations on our website. We had an existing website before I reached out to Fountain City. That was back in 2002 or 2003. We scrapped it and came up with a new design.

The first one was fine for several years, but with changes in technology, we needed something that was responsive and looked the same whether people viewed it on tablets, desktops, or phones. Last year, we started working on a new site just to do a better job on encouraging people to work with us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fountain City had three people work with us: Sebastian [Creative Director, Fountain City] and two folks that he regularly used. There may have been somebody else that popped in along the way. I know he’s got a bigger team than that, but it was primarily the three, with Sebastian as the lead. The old site was on Drupal, and the new one is a WordPress theme called Avia. With the way that we developed the site, I found the WordPress template I wanted to use. Sebastian and his team did most of the backend, and then I filled in most of the content.

How did you come to work with Fountain City?

I was looking for a website designer, and the ISP [internet service provider] I used recommended a couple of resources, one of which was Fountain City. Out of the two, I felt I had more rapport with Fountain City, so I went with them. I have great faith in Sebastian and Fountain City. Our relationship has been going on for ten years now, and Fountain City has treated me well over these years.

How much have you invested with Fountain City?

I’m going to say $4,000 or $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The recent project started in July 2016, and we went live in November 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There’s been a little bit of increase in traffic. The biggest improvement we’ve seen is our Google rankings going up consistently. As opposed to being between the eight and 10th position, we are now between third and fifth. We’ve also gotten good feedback from people regarding the website.

How did Fountain City perform from a project management standpoint?

Fountain City did well. There were a couple of issues with the email migration. That took maybe two weeks instead of a few days, which Sebastian had initially suggested. There was one other little thing with responsiveness on phones, where the infographic was sliding off the screen a little bit. But those were pretty minor. Both issues were cleaned up in a timely fashion.

What did you find most impressive about Fountain City?

Sebastian and I both share a little bit of trying to make the world a better place. He’s also worked on a couple of websites for a nonprofit that I’m involved with.

Fountain City has a pretty good team. They’re always trying to find out what I want to do and work from there, as opposed to telling me what I need to do or not to. Fountain City doesn't try to take over.

Are there any areas Fountain City could improve?}

No, I can’t think of any big issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder and Director of Black Gazelle

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Leadership and organization development

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Fountain City, Inc. to accomplish?

• Development of a AI augmented Action Learning Model

SOLUTION

How did you find Fountain City, Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select Fountain City, Inc. over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Fountain City, Inc. were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Development of an AI Agent to be intergrated in Virtual Action Learning.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

An AI Agent asking the right questions and developing the right hypotheses and summaries in interactive groups.

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

Sebastian was very result oriented as well as flexible and pragmatic in his approach. He always delivered on time and to my full satisfaction. He was very good at developing a robust shared understanding of our needs and expectations before starting the work. His communication skills are excellent.

What was your primary form of communication with Fountain City, Inc.?

Virtual Meeting

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

The speed at which Sebastian understood our somehow complex needs and his ability to communicate in a simple way.  The quality of his work was excellent, and his dedication was impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Fountain City, Inc. could have done differently?

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of The Great Green March

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The Great Green March was a non profit marching for global environmental sustainability.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Fountain City, Inc. to accomplish?

• Leadership and Vision
• AI Consulting
• Automation Solutions
• Website Building

SOLUTION

How did you find Fountain City, Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select Fountain City, Inc. over others?

• Great culture fit
• Really resonated with our mission.

How many teammates from Fountain City, Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Fountain City helped us with leadership and consulting work and got our website going from the ground up. Lately things have slowed down but we still go to Sebastian (Fountain City) for AI expertise, consulting and guidance. While things were more active in the past Fountain City was the team that kept our website active and helped us with the operational strategy and know-how to build and effectively manage and coordiante a team of 35+ people in our non-profit.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They helped us scale up rapidly, coordinated what we needed for outreach events, built our website and all the technical systems related to it (like newsletter email automation systems), and really took all the burden off our plate with everything technical and operation-related. Lately their insights into AI have been really helpful as we consider our next steps to further the objectives of our non profit and our goals. We are looking now to do proof of concepts related to installing our own private AI systems.

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

While it didn't start this way, after a short amount of time Fountain City was the driving force that helped us manage and organize our events, our volunteer crews and put together our non-profit until things had to slow down and we shifted gears. Like any non profit, things are sometimes slow with the paperwork and board review processes so it was refreshing to have their energy fueling our objectives. The website went up quickly and we never had any issues getting the features we needed built and active on time. Their automation systems also worked great and we got all the reports related to their activities delivered to us as expected. Things got really crazy towards the end right before things had to slow down and now in a more consulting fashion we are having good meetings with them around our AI needs and future plans.

What was your primary form of communication with Fountain City, Inc.?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The breadth of their knowledge and ability to tackle anything was what stood the most out to us. We were lucky to have them working with us on our non-profit. If you get a chance to work with Sebastian (their owner) you will be lucky! But their entire team is really great to work with and they show their care through the way they work, and the sincere care they show their customers.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Fountain City, Inc. could have done differently?

Our biggest challenge was the financing, we were able to grow a large team quickly but lacked the revenue to sustain the non-profit through to fruition. As a result we had to stop everything much sooner than we would have liked. Some of the costs were a bit high for website work, but we understood also the steps that were being taken with security and how agressive website attackers are these days with their AI bots.

We had trust though that these costs were necessary and they were always quick to respond to issues. I am not sure if they could package their sescurity protection plans into some kind of flat-rate fee, but if that is possible that might be helpful to minimize surprises with those costs. Pretty minor though, overall my experience was very possitive.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Lead Scientist of (a/an) Publishing

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Bleeding Edge Development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Fountain City, Inc. to accomplish?

• Develop black box components for a larger existing project
• Manage offshore teams

SOLUTION

How did you find Fountain City, Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select Fountain City, Inc. over others?

• Pricing first our budget
• Referred to me
• Other

What was the size of Fountain City, Inc.’s team?

11+

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

Working with Offshore 3rd developers. developing new UX for Mobile and website. Project Management. Documentation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• On time
• Reasonable costs

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

Very responsive.

What was your primary form of communication with Fountain City, Inc.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Personable. They were eager to please their client.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Fountain City, Inc. could have done differently?

As Fountain City grows, dedicated account management, and more team members will make them able to fit the right people with the right client.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the IT manager for Mitchell Industrial Tire Company (MITCO). MITCO has been in business since 1953 and serves the industrial tire market both as a manufacturer and as an importer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our core business functions are serviced by custom software that was originally developed in the late 1980s and continues to be enhanced to this day. Several years ago it was decided that the transition from this legacy system needs to be investigated as there are few developers available to continue supporting the legacy system. Technological advancements are also making it worrisome that procuring hardware to run the legacy system may become problematic.

SOLUTION

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

Fountain City came highly recommended from a highly respected vendor that I have done business with for many years.

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

Python / Django / Rest Framework / Swaggar Proof of concepts for accessing multiple distrubted MS SQL server based databases via restful API calls. Endpoints for inventory and track information. Extensive custom user rights managment to control access to API end points with authenication via tokens Fountain City and our linux support vendor created a self hosted GitLab CI/CD DevOps platform that includes local development, deploying to a testing server, and deploying to a production server.

Both companies provided training for staff on using the system. Fountain City collaborated with staff on documenting the use of the DevOps system. Swagger for API documentation and developer support. DataDogHQ integration (still a work in progress) Documentation, training, and code examples provided by Fountain City allowed inhouse staff to implement API endpoints to support a large customer in there needs for pricing, inventory availabilty, orders and credits.

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

Ive worked with the CEO, several different project managers, and several Tech Leads.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We currently have one customer using the system as they are very pleased with the results. We hope to expand this as the need arises.

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

Fountain City has been very good at providing the desired results without a lot of hand-holding by MITCO staff. They have achieved impressive results within the budgetary and time constraints place on them.

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

Eveyone I have come into contact from Fountain City has been very professional and measured in their responses to the challenges of this project of which there are many.

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

I can't imagine them doing a better job then they have given the budgetary restaints that they are working under.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the owner of a health and nutrition coaching company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I hired Fountain City, Inc. to help me build a subscription based meal planning website. My goal was to have a very user-friendly platform to deliver weekly meal plans.

SOLUTION

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

This company came highly recommended by a good friend of mine.

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

The development team helped customize the dashboard, customize registration process and created my downloadable for my weekly meal plan delivery.

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

The project manager was my main point of contact throughout the process. There was two developers and I worked with a marketing expert from the team as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website was stunning. It was a beautiful design, very user-friendly and high quality.

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

The project manager was always very attentive, very methodical. He always explained in detail over the phone what was happening and often shared ways to make improvements to the project. We used a ticket system as main communication tool.

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

I was absolutely impressed with the level of professionalism and responsiveness of all the team members.

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

No, I was very satisfied with the end result. Great team!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a startup with multiple brands and websites

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We worked with Fountain City to develop websites for our company and brands

SOLUTION

How did you select Fountain City, Inc., and what were the deciding factors?

We chose them for their size and since their workforce was based in the US

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

They developed websites for us in Wordpress, though some additional coding was used

How many people from the Fountain City, Inc. team worked with you, and what were their positions?

About 3 developers, 2 PMs and manager, which varied by project

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They stayed on budget, delivered quality work and kept our websites well maintained and updated

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

They used a ticket system to keep track of the projects, in crunch times we had weekly calls for updates and they were timely with deliverables

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

The team's knowledge about options and execution was impressive.

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

For small tasks, it'd be good to have had a more structured completion timeline