Plank AI

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital officer of a food distributor. We have an app, a website, online courses, and recipe books.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Plank AI?

We have a lot of in-house expertise with nutrition for babies. We wanted to create an online course to help mums in the UK introduce food to their babies and hold their hand through the weaning experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built the platform on Kajabi. The team did a lot of custom code since Kajabi is quite limited. They accommodated anything we needed, including imbedding a video. The team also helped resolve bugs on our app and connect APIs with our digital offerings.

What is the team composition?

I work with Greg (Founder) and one developer.

How did you come to work with Plank AI?

My sister has a social media agency and she’s worked with them before. She highly recommended them to us and they pitched their services to us. They won the pitch out of all the other agencies and we decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent £45,000 (approximately $63,300 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019, and we launched in March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There’s only a small pool of people who are interested in the course because it’s for mums with babies that are 6–12 months old. That being said, everyone who’s bought the course loves it and gives us amazing feedback. They even share it with their friends. The course has won awards and it works perfectly. I highly recommend Plank AI. Greg is an absolute pleasure to work with.

How did Plank AI perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Slack and Jira to keep in touch and manage the project. Most of the changes were implemented directly on Kajabi and we could also leave notes there.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We had a video created by a different agency that wasn’t able to be embedded on Kajabi at first. Plank AI created custom code to help us include that video and delivered it within half a day. It was a huge help because we spent quite a lot of money on that video.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re really very happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to listen to them. They really are experts in their field. It’s best if you come to them with a clear idea and pitch for what you want. That way, you can work with them more as a partner than an agency.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Footy Addicts is a web platform that helps users organize football games. It’s both a B2C and B2B company, where users can look for local soccer games and organizers can use the platform to manage their teams. I’m one of the directors there.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Plank AI?

We were looking to automate data and figure collection. We’re preparing documents for investment prospects, for which we need to collect KPI information. Because we’re an operation-heavy business that lacks the technical expertise to optimize information flows, we were manually inputting all of the data. We needed a more efficient means to gather information.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before, we would use our own system to generate the KPIs, which was largely subject to human error. We're using Google Sheets because it was a collaborative way for our managers to manually input the data.

We met them on a Friday to discuss the project plan, and they started working on the following Monday. They finished the project within two days. Plank AI integrated the platform database with our Google Sheets via an API. This allowed for the automatic, real-time input of data, and negated the need to create our own analytics platform.

What is the team composition?

Greg (Founder, Plank AI) is our account manager. He translates our requirements to the head of technology there. Greg—who isn’t super tech-oriented—actually uses our platform, so he can understand our problems. He effectively conveys goals and deliverables to his team, who comes up with specific tech solutions.  

How did you come to work with Plank AI?

We’d previously worked with Greg because he was originally a creative photographer and videographer who helped produce our ads. He was someone we could trust.

He approached us with news of his new business in case we wanted to take advantage of their tech expertise. Greg offered to help us save time by automating some of our workloads.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe this automation project cost around $1500. We’ve previously paid them for consulting work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Plank AI in September 2019, and the project is complete. We were on a tight deadline because we quickly needed the data for our investment round. While the work is done, revisions are still ongoing. We’ve been monitoring it over the last month in case anything goes wrong.

We plan on eventually switching from Google Sheets to our own analytics platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve successfully automated data collection. This improved the accuracy of the data input and actively saves us a significant amount of time. Plank AI’s work has saved us 3–4 hours a week, because we no longer have to manually input data.

I estimate that it’ll only be a couple months before we earn back what we spent on this project. We’ve been monitoring the data over the last month, and nothing has gone wrong so far.

How did Plank AI perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re quite unique as a company—in that our three directors are all in different locations—so we’re often disorganized. Greg understands this, and despite being outside of their usual protocol, they used our communication channel of Facebook Messenger.

This was a custom solution they adapted to, which we really appreciated. It was far more convenient for us to just use Messenger since we could answer questions as they came and didn’t need to download any other task-management software. We gave them access to our database and API.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It was stellar working with Greg because he already knew what the platform was about; we didn’t have to waste any time explaining our company to them. They immediately understood why we needed the software and accommodated our existing structures.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I know they’re keen for more work—and while I think that this is a good sign, the current investment run is our priority. We’re going to be asking them for advice for it, and it’ll be an ongoing relationship.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’d advise investing an hour’s time to meet the team and to explain what’s needed. They’ll quickly understand your challenge and request. Clients should invest the time into explaining the product and why they need it, and Plank AI will deliver.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of MightyLink, MightyLink allows users to promote multiple links on their Instagram profile, all under one link.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what project/services did you hire plank for?

I hired Plank for the full stack development of MightyLink as well as working on the UX/UI.

What were your goals for this project?

To create a link sharing solution for Instagram users. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I spoke to a few vendors before awarding the build to Plank AI. They quoted competitively as well as offering superior functionality to other vendors I spoke too. They worked on some initial designs before awarding the job which I think we're excellent which was also a large factor in my choice to work with them. 

Describe the project and the services they offered in detail.

They offered to design, build and maintain the whole project for 6 months. 

During the design phase, they offered up unlimited amendments to the design until I was happy. I was very happy with their initial designs and only asked for a couple of small alterations. It's worth noting they also designed the MightyLink logo too. 

During the build they created the entire framework quickly and gave me build feedback throughout, they also implemented a payment system (Which we have decided to take down for the time being whilst we increase our user base).

In terms of the maintenance, they were on hand to fix some small bugs early on with our log-in portal which they said were issues with calling the Instagram API, they fixed it within a couple of hours. 

What was the team composition?

Most of my communication was with Jack who headed up the project. I also had a few calls with Greg in regards to design choices, privacy and GDPR. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project had on your business?

MightyLink is a new and stand alone business so of course the build is key. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project was managed well. I spoke to Jack often at the beginning of the project. Once they had confirmed the design with me they just built it. They would give me updates as and when new functions were added and would give me run through a of new features as and when they were complete. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The thing I found most impressive about Plank AI was their speed. The whole project was completed in a couple of months and I know they worked very hard to get it completed quickly. 

Are there areas for improvement?

I don't really have any improvements for them, they completed the work on time and within budget so I’m happy.