Introducing ingenero Creativo v9, what happened in 2020 and whats new in 2021

Hello to everybody and specially our old, current and future clients. I want to introduce the most recent evolution of this our main web presence: Creativo.io v9 and what it took to arrive to 2021, soon to celebrate 14 years of services.

Approximately 2 years ago, in early 2019, we decided to turn our web format from portfolio into an eShop but practically all eCommerce platforms are focused on products, here I needed to sell services, and no pre-packaged services but a natural extension of our flexible work model that has to take into account several different markets.

Other limiting factor was the payment processing channels due to ingenero not being a company (for now) and back then the access was more limited for independent consultants with my local providers.

Researching business formalization and testing components for this shop I updated our original web @ ingenero.com.co.

Various projects in 2019 took time from developing v9 and only by year’s end everything seemed right to project a launch by April 2020. Correct, everybody had plans for 2020.

Our 2020 super summarized

Fortunately or unfortunately, the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, the quarantine, and everything that brought, weren’t the main protagonist of 2020 for me. It was both my parent’s health, starting with the late diagnosis of cancer on my dad in early March and being with him daily in his hospitalization until late July when he was released for palliative care at home. But then, in mid August my mother had a cerebral stroke and was hospitalized until late September.

Working from home has always given me freedom in my schedule to be on top of the health of my parents and helping them on things that for their age they should not do. And in this case, was the difference for getting them both through 2 critical health issues in the mid of an already modest health system now in chaos.

Both my parents are well now, compared to their prognosis, the recoveries have been incredible. My dad was left paraplegic but he could get back on his feet and walk with help. My mother only lost less than 5% functionality due to being able to diagnose her correctly in the moment it happened and getting her to an hospital before the 1 hour window.

Obviously of all the things I’ve lived through in this last year I could write a book, a thick one. But for the purposes of this blog this is a simple summary to contextualize.

It was unfortunate to reject several interesting projects simply for not having the time; But it was even more sad to lose the opportunity to share my long experience of working from home with those who needed back then.

The good thing is that we got to see the 2021 together, as I had promised them, and those things really are worth more than anything.

What’s new in ingenero Creativo model 2021

While we were hospitalized, I could only dedicate 1 or 2 hours max between keeping the ship running and working on v9, the progress was piecemeal and only by October 2020 we could restart works at half availability to get on processing 6 months of backlogs. What left us December to finish visually and functionally this eShop.

This is the first time I release any site incomplete, in regards to content. Having new services and new organization, we are missing a lot of support images and English translations, but being an eCommerce web development, there are critical things that are done better with the site published in it’s final domain and hosting.

I’m in Function > Form mode due to the web stopping being just a promotional channel, and now it is the sales channel beyond the contact forms and estimate apps.

Some of the most significant changes in v9 and the work flow in general are:

• Visual and functional redesign in an eCommerce specialized format.
• Full eShop implementation with Paypal and Payu global payments.
• I kept and integrated XOOM as alternative global payment channel.
• Added cryptocurrencies (officially) as P2P payment method.
• 2 more work modes for a total of 4: Gigs, Campaigns, Creative Capital and Ghosting.
• Symbolic flat rate updated and adjustable with generous public and private coupons, to level it with our usual rates, awarding legacy clients that hung around in the hard times.
• 4 service categories condensed in 3: All printing services were eliminated (still available on-demand) and the catalog is focused on digital marketing and eCommerce, opening space for future lines of work.
• New portfolios and updated blogs both integrated with the product pages.
• Implementation of the most recent technologies in analytics and re-marketing.

My vision mid-term is to turn Creativo.io into a marketplace of specialist talent in different areas of design and development post 2020.

This requires a platform that goes beyond the data model of an eShop and so it is probable that it must be developed or abstracted into another platform, probably in other spaces like blockchain or federated systems, we don’t know yet, but our experience developing v9 left us with the impression that there’s a big hole in the market for a system like this.

Acknowledgments

We take the opportunity to thank all our clients that stayed with us in this complicated period while they themselves were going through difficult times. I could not be with them in several occasions but they understood my situation and continued believing in me.

And is inspiring to know the reason they have me in their minds and consult me is because, in uncertain economic times, the only thing to justify a promotional expense is knowing that it is going to be an investment.

To all of them lots of thanks, and as always, let me know if you have any questions.