I had a very poor experience with FYC Labs and their owner Justin was very immature in handling it all. Justin was unprepared and clearly did no homework before our proposal meeting. Their written proposal had very little detail, but I trusted what they told me about their expertise, and unfortunately it didn't work out too well. I should have trusted my gut instead and requested a more formal/detailed proposal before investing a large deposit on blind faith.
During the design process, they did not handle criticism well, At All. I was trying to mix positives and negatives when I gave feedback and felt like I had to massage my responses as to not send them crying into a corner. Aren't web design/dev firms supposed to handle constructive criticism and make tweaks that are appealing to their customer's vision and not just do what They feel looks good? I was always clear & concise in what I wanted and showed so many reference examples, but still, they seemed to not know what was going on.
Overall, I felt the team lacks the attention to detail needed to really master something. If you're OK with 'almost' or 'close enough' then you might not have the same problems I did.
They won my favor with a low price, but it felt they didn't have the resources or experience to deliver the project with precision without having to do a lot of back and forths. Maybe they are good for a sole proprietor or micro startup who needs a real quick 2 or 3 page website from a template; but for a large or even small business website, they seem to not have the expertise or man power.
There was never any real strategic process laid out other than a very basic timeline (that was just a regurgitation of what I gave them) and it felt like they were just throwing darts hoping one of the designs would stick, and never really followed the vision laid out. Instead, they did what they felt was eye appealing (abstract lines, quirky layouts and diagonally shaped submit buttons, instead of good website standards) and it made my revision responses/critique very awkward as their design seemed forced.
They terminated the project because I was not happy with the work and they didn't want to make any more revisions. While sometimes heads will butt during projects, they made minimal effort to make this work and overcome the objections. I even suggested for me to meet with the design team in person to help alleviate any miscommunication, but they just kept down the revision path that was not working.
They kept $600 of my $1250 and now I have to deal with my credit card co for a dispute on that, which is another inconvenience to both me and FYC.
After they canceled the job, the owner Justin had the audacity to educate me via email on my communication and courtesy/etiquette (not once did I curse or get obnoxious with them). I was however always transparent and forward with what I wanted, but respectful and mindful of their very temperamental feelings. Apparently providing honest feedback and authentic criticism (with suggestions for revision) and saying you don't like aspects of what they deliver is considered poor business etiquette to him. Meanwhile, during our initial meeting, the owner and project manager were dropping F bombs left and right. Very classy.
I saw all of their 5 star Yelp reviews and realized the majority of them were all 2 days apart in February 2013, mostly with profiles that have no activity. It makes me wonder about those reviews' legitimacy.
I'd like to think these guys weren't out to get me and are probably nice people when it comes down to it, but after my payment was made, and after my initial rebuttal to their first mockup, everything went downhill and they got very feisty with me : (
I unfortunately cannot recommend FYC Labs due to their overstated capabilities/skills and unprofessional resolution of my dispute (they could have taken the high road and at least left the end of service amicably and provided a full refund, not partial) but instead they chose to 'stick it to me' and give me the 'read the contract' talk and chose to keep my money, because their feelings were hurt by my critique.
Further update:
Even after I wrote a very reasonable email to them seeking to meet in the middle on the refund, Justin got even more nasty and defensive with me. I never once insulted them but he had a lot of rude, obnoxious and uncalled for things to say about me. It's truly amazing that a business owner can't take criticism with poise, and instead lashes out on its customer and tries to make them feel like a weirdo just because they don't like the designs the company produced. Wow! Buyer beware. Very Unprofessional and Immature Owner. read more
