Originally named Honouring A Life, sisters Elsbeth and Alexandrea were inspired by their Dad, who wanted to make it possible for people to plant a tree in honour of the deceased and pay tribute to their life. A lasting and affordable alternative to sending flowers, the idea was popular in their family-owned funeral home. After losing their Dad in late 2017, the sisters were motivated to actualize his dream of making the small family business more user-friendly, and expanding beyond the funeral industry. Honouring his legacy, H.A.L is a sustainable and universal way to reach the people who are important to you; marking big moments with a gift that serves the planet.
The sisters had a vision to put a modern spin on the business, turning it into a digital-first experience that could plant a tree in honour of any life’s occasions. Elsbeth, an experienced e-commerce manager and Drea, a talented designer, had a clear vision for the project: customers would be able to purchase a gift (in the form of planting a tree) for a loved one, and send a digital personalized card and message detailing the gift via email. Their end goal was wanted to reach a wider audience and plant even more trees for our planet.
The unique requirements of the project called for a tailored and creative solution. First and foremost, the digital gift card needed to be personalized, with a product page showing a live preview of the personalization. Then, the card then needed to be embedded into a custom email, and sent to the recipient of the gift. Early Riser mapped out all the functionality with user stories, completed extensive research into existing Shopify apps, and quickly discovered that it was necessary to build a ground-up solution (using Javascript and Shopify's Liquid) to create the functionality and behaviour necessary to fulfill the H.A.L vision. To send an additional email to the gift recipient, Early Riser utilized Zapier and Sendgrid. An automated email pipeline was then built, triggered by a purchase in Shopify, where the data needed for the gift recipient email was parsed out and injected into a custom email template. Finally, the email template was built out with the personalized card and downloadable Instagram asset - crucial in creating engagement and awareness for the new brand. Brand assets and designs, supplied to Early Riser at the onset of the project, were seamlessly integrated throughout the website and customizations. After extensive quality assurance, including email testing on all clients such as IOS mail, Gmail, and Outlook, and product page testing across all device sizes and browsers, H.A.L was ready to launch. Early Riser provided day-of launch support, 14 day post-launch bug support, as well as detailed training videos, so the H.A.L team could feel comfortable and confident growing and managing their unique website as they launched their family’s vision.
“It was an absolute joy working with Kim. I felt so confident along the way, and it allowed me to work on other things because I had total trust that she was handling everything on her end. The final result of our project is so great, and I would 110% work with her again.”
