Please describe your company and your position there.
I'm the Founder of Ridge - a web application that provides tools and tips across the startup fundraising experience – spanning pitch development, investor identification, fundraise tracking, and legal support. Inspired by VC and startup experience, the product increases efficiency and transparency for entrepreneurs throughout the process of raising private funding, thereby increasing access to capital across industries and founding teams
For what projects/services did your company hire Iron Forge Development, and what were your goals?
Our team had the business background and experience to develop a relevant solution to this problem, but needed help with design and development of an initial product. We contracted Iron Forge to develop an MVP of the Ridge product - to get something out into the market that could demonstrate ROI for entrepreneurs and the supporting ecosystem.
How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?
We found them via word of mouth and selected them after talking with 3-4 vendors. Our main deciding factors were location, price, and capability to support ad hoc as needed following the MVP release. The team was willing to solution around the scope provided and come up with reasonable compromises for a first version that fit within our price point.
Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.
We went through a full process of project scoping, design, and development. First, we met to discuss and refine project scope - we conducted discovery workshopping to narrow on the key features for the 1.0 product. Once aligned on the feature set and key deliverables, we executed a contract and moved along to the design phase. In the design phase, we worked in Figma to review design mockups - the design process as a whole took roughly 4-6 weeks. Then, we moved onto the development phase of the project. For each development milestone we reviewed, tested, and debugged. Development of the web application consisted of an onboarding flow/sign up, then module-specific landing pages - including database elements tied to a super admin account, direct downloads of content, pop-up modules, and Trello-like movement of cards across a CRM flow. Overall, this development timeline consisted of a few months, along with a review period to check for bugs.
How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?
I predominantly worked with a project manager, then interfaced with a designer via Figma/email and a few developers via Marker.io and bug comments. I largely used the project manager as the point of contact to flag, sort, and prioritize key items. On a few occasions, I interfaced with the team's COO and CEO.
Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?
We are about to launch the product publicly, so we will have more results in the coming months. However, we did conduct a smaller private beta for the solution in early summer and ran in-person/live beta tests. Feedback from this was largely positive - users were impressed with the design and pieces of the functionality. We had a relatively high initial conversion / signup rate from the beta. We also have had positive responses when talking with corporate and VC partners.
Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.
The project management system was such that we would hold weekly calls to review progress, and then we would hop on the phone as needed outside of this. The project manager was very responsive over email and typically responded back the day of (or within an hour or two). We would collaborate over Google Docs for information sharing, then Figma/Marker.io, Zoom/email/phone, etc. for other things.
What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?
I thought the team did a good job at working with us on scoping up front and thinking creatively across the project on how we could achieve our desired outcome on this MVP. When we needed to amend or add on various elements, it was fairly easy to get to a reasonable solution.
Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?
We are happy with this MVP and what was developed; however, in terms of learnings, we could have spent more time between the design and development phases thinking about user interaction and edge cases. There were some requirements that could have been more extensively considered that we then had to solution for later in development.
