Used MVP approach to successfully rebrand The Codest

In this short entry, we present step by step the course of activities that allowed us to create a completely new website and brand communication. We called it our own MVP.

1st stage of rebranding: The Codest’s vision and values

We started the rebranding process by defining our internal vision, i.e., establishing exactly what kind of a company we want The Codest to become. For this purpose, we had to specify the values with which we identify, clarify the vision and set the goals.

Analyzing our competition and benchmarking undoubtedly helped us in this process. The vision of The Codest quickly clarified in our minds, with its overriding value being the care for high-quality code. It is our way of distinguishing ourselves from other software houses. We wondered how to prevent our clients from perceiving these words as mere slogans and achieve the contrary – make them felt the real value and quality that The Codest team can bring to each project.

Okay, so how did we develop our rebranding vision? A few months ago, we gathered all the key employees of our company at one table (C-levels, developers, PMs, designers, salespeople). We wanted to talk about our future together. Everyone could comment and say “no” if they didn’t like an idea. We strived to make the entire rebranding process transparent and in line with our corporate beliefs and values from start to finish. It was an important stage because we noticed that before each person perceived our brand differently. It was inconsistent, so we had to develop this concept for the rebranding process.

Initial work was carried out using the workshop method. We used a typical UX approach, in which we obtained information through workshops and moderated discussions. We tried to understand the perception of our brand in our target groups. Thanks to the analysis of the competition, we have developed values that are consistent with our beliefs and can present our brand in an attractive way.

Customer opinions were undoubtedly an important point in these analyzes. We asked our partners how they evaluate our company and what they perceive as our strengths and weaknesses. Their feedback was really interesting! The conclusions, in a sense, strengthened our belief that clients strongly appreciate our commitment to the projects, expertise and knowledge, as well as the Agile approach. Our respondents also emphasized the importance of experience in specific market segments – for example, in the development of software products for fintech, e-commerce, or SaaS companies.

The final result of our research, discussions, analyzes and benchmarks was the achievement of a unified vision of The Codest with which each of us can identify. We consulted the entire process with the IBRA Branding Institute. In the case of design and choice of the language of visual communication, our friendly design studio – Leniva – helped us. Let’s talk about it right now!

2nd stage of rebranding: Design and key visuals

At this stage, our product designers team entered the stage as their task was to develop key visuals that formed a basis for our website design. It began with the analysis of the language of visual communication of our competition – from color palettes, through shapes, to the vocabulary we use. 

We tried to spot interesting tricks that helped us to even the values with which The Codest identifies better reflect. We were looking for something that could make us different. After all, a brand must have its own hallmark, right?

Our key visual was iterative. Interestingly, only the seventh presented project was the right one. In the meantime, various ideas appeared that we either rejected or verified in order to get the desired effect.

As part of the second stage, we also determined the flow of our website in terms of the conversion path and information architecture that we wanted to convey. Among other things, this is how the concept of creating two playbooks was born. We wanted to present The Codest in a form that is accessible to target groups – clients and potential co-workers – hence the business and technical playbooks.

We have also defined specific conversion paths on which the flow of the website is currently based. Of course, it was necessary for the designers to cooperate with copywriters to create content which is consistent with our new brand identity.

The second stage ended with the finalization of the website design. I must admit that we are very satisfied with the results. We spent many hours on the process, but it was worth it!

3rd stage of rebranding: Implementation 

We chose a technology stack on which we founded the construction of our website. We decided that the combination of Nuxt and Netlify would suit our needs best. Of course, we had to take care of data migration, redirects and SEO. 

The whole process was done in accordance with the Agile approach. We implemented the new website in stages. It is worth adding here that the rebranding of the website is only a part of the implementation stage. 

We were also preparing ourselves in terms of communication to refresh our profiles in social media, extend our identification within the new media and develop proper materials. We worked intensively on creating a promo video, which is our promotional showcase. You can see the effects here. We hope you like it! 🙂

This is just the beginning of the road!

Thanks to many weeks of hard work, we have successfully completed the rebranding process. We call it our little MVP 🙂 

But now, more challenges ahead! We intend to develop our brand in every area – from the website through better exposure of our values and recognition of The Codest brand. We have everything planned and our team is ready! 

There is no doubt that the entire rebranding process gave us a lot of satisfaction. We brought the project to the final stage, but we are still developing it to make it even better.

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