Retail platform enabling sales to grow by 300%

Gallery

Client Review

Background

Introduce your business and what you do there.

First Crush Tastings, Inc. is an in-store tasting company operating in Texas. We provide marketing services specific to spirits. We also operate a platform-based business for the same industry, called Palatera, connecting suppliers of beers, wines, and spirits and tasting agencies like ours. The aim is to provide better insights into the tasting process, track performance, and better analyze the data. Businesses can thus spend smarter and increase their ROI [return on investment].

I am the chief executive officer and owner of both companies.

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Opportunity / Challenge

What challenge were you trying to address with Praxent?

Our company was in a growth mode and had reached a maximum output possible from just using Excel sheets and other tracking forms. We needed a platform that could help us communicate with the teams and manage the incoming jobs.

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Solution

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praxent was initially hired in order to build an internal platform that would help us manage the level of business coming in. A reporting function was eventually added, too. 

The platform has allowed our company to grow threefold in size, and we were able to handle the additional volume seamlessly.

The size of our team will depend on our budget for a particular month. At a minimum, we will work with 2–3 developers but have used up to 5 people from Praxent. We interact with them directly, on a weekly basis, talking about and demoing what was built the week prior, as well as planning for the upcoming week.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

We interviewed several local companies, but Praxent was the only group which was engaged from the beginning. They came in and took the time to learn why we were needing what we needed, how our business operated, what our pain points were, what was causing them, and how the software could solve that. The level of questions and involvement from Praxent was one of the main reasons for choosing them.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of Praxent’s services has been close to $1,000,000. We have a time-and-materials engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with Praxent for 6 years, and have an ongoing development process.

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Results & Feedback

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

We’ve built a best-in-class platform. Suppliers can generate reports from tastings and gain insights into the results. I’ve regularly been told that we have the best reporting system on the market.

One of our brand managers launched a product nationally, starting in Austin. Through our reporting, they were able to gain insights on how to market the brand nationally: if it needed any tweaking, or could be launched as-is.

How did Praxent perform from a project management standpoint?

Especially after working with someone for 6 years, it’s rare to say that we’ve been on budget and on time every time, hitting our goals at every stage of the development. Praxent has provided a tracker that helps me visualize the team’s performance, what stage we’re in, and what our budget is. I can see our budget broken down for an 8-week period. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Praxent is very easy to work and communicate with. Whenever I’ve presented my ideas around what the next stage of development should be, Praxent was keen in providing further insight, taking my vision to the next level. If Praxent’s team sees an opportunity to expand on my vision, they’ll communicate it. On most cases, we move forward with the recommendations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that Praxent could do better, from my experience.