Fueled

I’m the executive director of brand technology for a cosmetics company.

We hired Fueled to help elevate our services online and replicate our selling ceremony with our in-store consultants. The team was brought in to help improve the UX of our website around seven focus areas, including product concept, customer journey mapping, user testing, observations, and data blueprint.

Fueled helped us with our digital and e-commerce marketing strategies. Their work focused more on the concept of the strategies, which we used to implement their recommendations. Google Analytics and social media components were a part of that but Fueled mainly helped us lay the groundwork for supporting our focus areas.

We worked with at least 7–8 resources, ranging from digital strategists, online specialists, project managers, and data specialists.

We’d done some work with Fueled in the past, and for this project, they went through our RFP process. They won the business based on their proposal, knowledge of the industry and our company, and understanding of our goals.

The project lasted from September 2020–May 2021.

Fueled delivered everything they signed up to deliver, so they had 100% compliance with us from that perspective. They also understood our business needs, which we measured by a signoff of our senior stakeholders. Simply put, the team fulfilled everything in their SOW as intended.

Their project management was excellent and hit top marks. The team was highly organized and provided comprehensive documentation. They did a lot of due diligence in terms of follow-ups, too. To manage the project, we used Microsoft Office tools like Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams.

Fueled had excellent and top-quality resources that were highly experienced and sharp. Overall, the team was highly dynamic, engaged, and professional.

They could improve a little bit in knowing our internal challenges as a company and as a brand. The team could also be a little more flexible in some of their recommendations.

We’re a technology startup that’s building a mobile-first platform for the property, construction, and real estate industry. I’m the CTO and one of the founders of the company.

We spent three months formalizing a business plan and the idea that our CEO spent a year developing and vetting. Once he felt like he had a product that was needed in the market, we then spent time trying to flush out the business requirements.

Fueled started the initial development for us and helped us with the architecture of the software. They assisted our UX/UI designer with design assistance. We originally set the tone for the design, but when you’re developing screens across three interfaces, it’s too much for one person to do.

We had a project manager, two product managers, two UX/UI designers, two backend developers, three iOS developers, two Android developers, two web developers, 4 QA members, and oversight from senior management for architectural purposes. We had quite a large team.

When we decided to outsource, we interviewed about five companies, and selected Fueled.

We invested just a little over $2 million.

The engagement ran from February 2020–March 2021.

When you do software development that lasts longer than a year, not everything goes exactly as planned. You’re going to have changes and challenges along the way, but I will say that every time we identified the challenges, we sat down as a team, talked about them, looked at them, and addressed them.

We implemented JIRA and Confluence throughout the course of the project to measure our sprints, and did sprint reviews to check the velocity of what was being developed. We also originally set up a timeline of when all the features should be developed. It was easy for me to have a rough outline of where we should be, and what milestones, since I’ve got 15 years of software development experience managing large teams.

Because this was such a large project, Fueled made an exception and embedded me in the team due to my background. I was part of the daily stand-ups and got to hear what was going on. I participated with the QA and product team, wrote up the story, reviewed every single detail before pre- and post-development, and had direct access to the developers — which wasn’t common at all.

Not everything was easy or went smoothly. We had challenges along the way that I saw quicker than they did. It took me a little bit of time to help them understand where we were going, but once they got it, they listened to what I had to say.

That’s a little hard to answer because I don’t know what level of experience somebody else would walk into the engagement with. Agencies are a little different than staffing, so it’s really more about working with agencies than it is about the Fueled team. However, their team really knows their tools and processes. They work well as a group because they know each other and click together.

I’m the director of design and brand strategy at a US-based online eyewear retail company. I oversee our UX design and creative teams.

We needed them to help us update our tech stack by creating a mobile application for us.

As we’re trying to get into the mobile app space, we’ve thought of bridging the gap between a customer’s experience with an eye doctor and the e-commerce experience. We’ve come up with a solution to create a more personalized way of highlighting our services while providing the various needs of our customers. Fueled has helped us bring this idea to life by creating an iOS and Android app that mirrors the functionalities of an e-commerce site.

We’ve worked with at least 15 resources from their team — this includes designers, researchers, and developers. We rely on their different team members depending on the project’s stages.

I did thorough research on different agencies that provide app design and development services. We then interviewed over 10 groups and figured that Fueled was the best fit for us, having garnered multiple awards for their work experience. They built a renowned application, which really proved that they possess reliable industry knowledge.

We’ve spent over $1,000,000 so far.

We started in August 2020, and our collaboration is ongoing.

They’ve really pushed us towards understanding and delivering our industry’s best practices. Our company is built on a monolithic tech stack, so our team has relied heavily on that without making room for industrial change. Fueled has been a great partner to us — they’ve helped us evolve forward by working on what’s really best for us.

Fueled is a very honest team — they clearly determine what the next project steps are based on their progress. Their project management approach has always been top-notch.

We have a very complicated product coupled with a difficult design challenge, but Fueled has been amazing in understanding what we’re trying to achieve. Their team works quickly and efficiently to drive our business in a positive direction.

I don’t really think there are specific areas that need major improvement. At the beginning of the project, we might’ve had over-scoped, but that’s not entirely their team’s fault. We’ve decided to resolve that by meeting halfway in terms of setting our goals and timelines. Additionally, we’ve had difficulties with our timezone differences. The majority of them are from the UK, and they also have a few developers in India, so it’s been quite a challenge to keep working at 8 a.m. regardless of our various commitments.

It’s important to fully understand how the scope of your work with their team will be. The clearer the goals you set, the more likely you are to achieve all of those.

I run a real-estate business in south Florida.

I hired Fueled to design and develop a real-estate app for iOS

To have an iOS app to help my clients to have quick access to the available homes for sale in a specific market in Florida.

They were recommended by a family member.

We created an app for iOS where users can clearly and easily search for houses in Boca Raton and Palm Beach. The app allows users to immediately jump into listings and view vital information about them. User's can also filter to help narrow down listing options as well as save listings to a favorites section. We also integrated Open Weather API in order to track the weather in the areas and give clients and understanding of the current climate.

We worked with 4 people, including an iOS engineer, a product designer, a quality assurance expert, and a project manager.

Launching this app has improved the experience for both me and my buyers. It has given me a more effective way to access and manage new listings within the Boca Raton and Palm Beach regions and communicate my client's preferences. The app has been a great way for me to communicate directly with my clients which has improved their experience with purchasing a home 10 fold.

Integrating with the MLS was not simple, due to the technology providers in the mix, so we worked hand-in-hand with Fueled. They were always on top of letting me know of progress and development updates while troubleshooting technical issues directly with the MLS provider.

I can tell Fueled truly cares about my business making sure not only I, but my customers were satisfied with the experience as well. They were quickly able to understand the industry and its current landscape in order to help make recommendations for features and user flows that really helped make the app stand out and out-perform my competitors.

There were not any major issues I had with the team. We were extremely satisfied with their work and the app they delivered. The only down side I would say is that they are a more expensive than other agencies, but it shows with the quality of work they deliver.

I am a consultant working for comfort tech company to deliver an app / front end to an IOT product. The company hasn't built a technology-focused product before so this is a brand new endeavor and capability.

We had no app capabilities and so we set about finding an agency that would be able to build an app from top to bottom. We wanted a full service, complete team to build both an iOS and an Android app. In many ways, we were creating the product while onboarding Fueled so they were very much a part of conceptualizing the project. Many areas (IOT connectivity, app design, theories of how technology can interact with the sleep process) were being created simultaneously.

Our goal was the create a best in class, elegant app that would take the new and potentially confusing concept of a multi-device sleep system and build an intuitive, easy to use interface to control it. This product will be a very new offering for us so it will be a big statement of intent for the company. Getting right on day one is incredibly important.

We created an RFP and highlighted three areas that were important to us: design wow factor, IOT experience and ability deliver on a tight timeline. We then interviewed a few agencies and had them pitch to an internal team, including our CEO.

We had a fairly defined scope for the project (controls for the sleep system, a way to show data on quality of sleep, voice controls and easy connectivity. We switched technology partners last year so the scope has been reduced to mostly controls and onboarding now. The tricky part about the project is combing all three areas (electric, adjustable base; adjustable firmness mattress with 3 zones and climate control) into an interface that makes sense to the user.

We looked to Fueled to provide a full app team: design, UX, project, dev, QA and product. We have internal advisors but Fueled is the app team.

Still very much a work in progress so not data yet. We really are about to put the first build in front of an internal audience.

The workflow has been great on the Fueled side. There is a lot of communication around budget, staffing and timelines. We have had some start and stop based on switching technology partners and some internal shifting on who wants to be involved in the project. All in all, I think Fueled has rolled with our changes pretty well.

There are two things that really stand out to me: I think the designs are beautiful. The response internally for the designs is always that they are beautiful. The second is the technical know how that runs through the team. Not just devs, but product and project leads have a solid understanding of how to deliver this product and and are able to share that with us.

Honestly, this form should be an every two to three month conversation with Fueled leadership. In my agency days, we usually had one of the founders (not someone on the day-to-day team) do a check in every two or three months with the client to find out how things are going. I've also had other agency founders (companies in the same world as Fueled) do the same as the project progressed when I was the client. I was surprised that didn't happen here. The day to day team is great but I do think some element exec check in would be a good touch.