Finding a partner to help with your digital product development can be a daunting task. You have plenty of options to choose from – and most of them sound exactly the same.
How to pick a product agency that will realize your vision without burning your budget?
In this article, we’ve picked the top digital product agencies to help you compare and contrast different options available in the market.
These agencies excel in collaborating with their clients to meet both the vision of their brands and their customers’ needs.
TL;DR:
| Agency | Strengths | Approach | Notable Clients | Getting Started | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VeryCreatives | Technical expertise (SaaS growth agency and development), strong focus on MVP development, collaborative process | Strategic planning, product design and development, adaptable to project needs | Reachbird, JamDoughnut | Book a no-obligation call | Non-technical SaaS founders. Early stage SaaS products |
| Beyond | Market research, user-centric focus | Customer experience audit, adapts to diverse sectors | Snap, Google | Fill out an online form | Developed products looking to optimize CX |
| Clay | Brand-user relationship, iterative development | Emphasizes consistency and adaptability over time | Joe and the Juice | Email inquiry | Fortune 100 companies |
| IDEO | Design thinking methodology, company culture transformation | Helps brands develop their own design processes | IKEA, Levi’s | Submit a design challenge form | Products in need of strong branding |
| Muchi | Aesthetic approach, emphasis on beauty and deeper user connection | Brand Ideal DNA system | VISA, Chanel | Fill out an online form | Companies looking for a strong brand strategy |
Your primary goal:
- Strong MVP and Technical implementation? The best contender is VeryCreatives.
- Optimizing your customer experience? Beyond could be a great fit.
- Refreshing your brand identity? Consider Clay or Mucho.
- Developing internal design innovation? IDEO’s focus on processes might be ideal.
Criteria for Selecting Top Digital Product Agencies
Before we get to the agencies themselves, it’s important to pause a moment and explain our selection criteria. Rather than using a purely quantitative method that focuses on the size or revenue, we consider the following qualities:
- Quality and diversity of client base: The top companies should have been able to attract reputable companies across a variety of platforms, industries, and sizes. This demonstrates their ability to adapt to the unique needs of their customers. If, for example, a SaaS branding agency is purely a mobile design agency, they may struggle to help you achieve consistency in other settings.
- Team members and talent: Companies are only as good as the teams that run them. Examining the staff at each digital product consultancy can help determine whether the SaaS agency has the skill and expertise to meet diverse needs.
- Testimonials and case studies: A great way to evaluate a digital product design agency’s reliability and effectiveness is to hear directly from its customers. Also, examining some of its previous work can reveal how its approach yielded positive results.
- Clear project management: Digital product agencies should have clearly articulated standards for communication and collaboration in goal setting, scheduling, budgeting, and development. This ensures an efficient and effective product launch.
- Design philosophy: A great digital product agency should be able to clearly explain its process and approach to designing a product. This ensures a predictable level of quality and efficiency and demystifies the creative process.
5 Top Digital Product Agencies
Below are the top five digital product agencies. For each agency we’ll discuss what makes them stand out from the others and explain some of their methods to achieve a successful result.
VeryCreatives
VeryCreatives is a digital product agency that offers a diverse set of services that fall into three main categories: strategic planning, product design, and development.
VeryCreatives stands out from the rest in terms of their technical expertise. Their staff is largely composed of engineers and developers with competencies that include:
- Ruby on Rails
- Elixir & Phoenix
- React.js
- Vue.js
- iOS Swift
- Android Kotlin
This technical expertise has led them to be recognized as the go-to for SaaS (software as a service) digital product development.
But technical expertise alone, does not necessarily guarantee an excellent partnership. VeryCreatives also shines in their process of collaboration. With each client, they take the following steps:
- Onboarding: A team member systematically reviews all of the information about your firm, product, and goals to form a deep understanding of your needs.
- Wireframing: The team mocks up a prototype of the design that covers the minimum viable product (MVP) and the basic set of features needed to be functional.
- User Interface Design: The UI designer will shape the basic prototype visually, identifying the most effective layout, color scheme, typography, and other interactive elements.
- Designing for different devices: The prototype will be made adaptable for mobile, desktop, internet, or other platforms depending on client needs.
- Design system creation: The decisions made in the previous steps are codified into a system or philosophy that can guide further iterations or prepare for scaling the project in the future.
You can see this process in action in their work with World of Gyms, an application designed to link personal trainers with clients. VeryCreatives helped the platform achieve an intuitive, visually pleasing design that simultaneously allows trainers to schedule their availability, clients to book and pay for training sessions, and videoconferencing to be set up all within a single application.
Perhaps their greatest strength is the ease with which you can get started. Without any commitments (or payments!) you can book a call with VeryCreatives to discuss your product and what role it can play in its development and launch.
Beyond
Beyond’s secret to success is their focus on the user, above all else. Rather than trying to help your company find your online identity and design philosophy, they focus on finding out what your customers need and want.
In other words, Beyond shines when it comes to market research.
Specifically, Beyond conducts what they call a “customer experience audit.” This means they thoroughly study your customers’ experiences on your platform and compare them with their experiences on your competitors’ platforms.
These insights inform everything from design choices like typography, color, and layout to the development of features and support for platforms. Understanding when and why a user spends time on your platform can help you decide what information to include and where to put it.
Because these needs differ based on the type of product being offered, Beyond is accustomed to customizing and collaborating with businesses across all sectors.
Beyond has worked with an impressive client list, including large clients like Snap (Snapchat), Google, and Apple, and mid-sized clients such as Brompton, Royal College of Art, and the California Tobacco Control Program.
With the watch company Montblanc, for example, Beyond started with the insight that customers wanted a design that would allow different styles for different settings. They helped to create a watch that would allow customers to change the design of the watch face with a simple gesture.
To hire Beyond to work with your products, you can start by filling out a simple form on their website.
Clay
Clay’s approach emphasizes developing a close relationship between your brand’s identity and the user’s experience. They strive to develop and maintain a consistent identity across platforms and media in order to strengthen this relationship, and this often results in functional designs and improved customer loyalty.
Clay particularly excels at following an iterative design process. Rather than an extended period of research and development, Clay works with their clients over the years to develop and refine the initial product.
They develop these new features and iterations in collaboration with you and your customers. Because the market and the needs of users are constantly changing, they emphasize adaptability.
For example, Clay worked with a coffee shop chain called Joe and the Juice to develop a mobile app for customers. Over the years, this app evolved to incorporate a loyalty program, pickup and delivery, and even animations that track the progress of your beverage as it is being made.
Their adaptive process was especially useful during the pandemic when they needed to develop solutions for contactless delivery.
Reach out to Clay via email to get started.
IDEO
Unlike Clay’s focus on the brand-user relationship and Beyond’s focus on the user, IDEO focuses on the brand itself.
IDEO aims to equip companies with the tools to develop their own design and foster a company culture that emphasizes innovative design and development.
IDEO accomplishes this by teaching firms their “design thinking” process. A successful design can be achieved using the following steps:
- Frame a Question — What is the driving question behind your product design
- Gather Inspiration — What is missing? What are your users’ needs?
- Generate Ideas — What are some ideas you have beyond the obvious?
- Make Ideas Tangible — Build mock-ups or prototypes in order to perceive the idea more clearly
- Test to Learn — Gather feedback on the prototypes, and continue to test and improve until you’ve reached your goal
- Share the Story — Show how the idea operates within a human story to inspire engagement.
Having been in the industry for over forty years, IDEO has been able to work with a diverse, international client base, including companies like IKEA, Levi’s, and Willow.
For example, IDEO collaborated with Google to help Levi’s design Bluetooth-enabled denim jackets that allow you to control GPS, music, and call controls on your mobile phone simply by interacting with your sleeve.
To partner with IDEO, you can explain your vision or design challenge using a simple form on their website.
MUCHO
Mucho, like the rest of the top digital product design agencies, strives for an effective partnership with each of their clients. Unlike the others, however, Mucho takes a much more aesthetic approach to its digital product design.
Mucho’s methodology for creative design involves a system called “Brand Ideal DNA.”
This involves using market and consumer research, interviews with stakeholders, and industry insights to articulate three main values: current brand assets, key performance indicators, and vision.
These values are the foundation for achieving a product that users and companies will find beautiful and meet their needs.
More importantly, Mucho strives to cultivate a deeper connection between users and their experiences of their products. This profound connection results in higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
For this reason, they are trusted by companies like Visa, Chanel, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales to deliver digital products that are both effective and enjoyable to use.
For example, Mucho’s San Francisco office works with Visa to transform the customer perception that Visa is just for credit card transactions. With the right design and branding, Visa could evolve to be a natural, simple way to exchange money from person to person and across borders, like Paypal or Venmo.
Summary
There are several excellent options for digital product agencies. Some focus on cultivating a deeper understanding of your customer, while others develop a robust and aesthetic brand identity.
SaaS product development agencies like VeryCreatives adapt to suit your needs, helping you complete your project. If that’s what you’re looking for – book a free consultation.
