10Clouds Financial Institutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technical project manager for an audit and tax advisory company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

Because we don’t have the necessary in-house developers, we needed a near shore development team to help us implement a novel B2B web application and platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We came to 10Clouds Financial Institutions with a concept of the product and a rough draft of the key features we wanted. It’s a B2B web application for tax professionals that helps large organizations establish and streamline their tax processes. Users keep track of deadlines, milestones, and delegate tasks across different tax offices.

We worked together to decide on the technology stack. 10Clouds Financial Institutions supported us during the development phase by using Angular on the frontend, and Node.js with a PostgreSQL database for the backend. Additionally, there were a few integration points, such as our email systems, that they had to authenticate against our existing active directory or user databases.

Currently, we are working on the second version of the application. They are providing coding and design work to help make the application more user-friendly.

What is the team composition?

Our team has three developers, one designer, one QA tester, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We were looking for Eastern or Central European companies to support us and used Clutch.co to help in the vendor selection process. We compared eight or nine competitors but ultimately went with 10Clouds because of their technical capabilities, reasonable pricing, and how easily we worked together during the proposal stage.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $150,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017, and are currently in the development phase for the second major release of the web app, which we expect to continue for the next few months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We don’t have quantifiable metrics, but the web application has been well received by our clients, and we have a strong pipeline of sales. We are continuing to improve the design and UX, but users have been satisfied so far. Most of the problems in coding came from minor bugs, and 10Clouds Financial Institutions fixed those quickly.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira to organize our projects with scrum-based project management methods, which have worked well for us. We have calls on at least a weekly basis, and use Slack for daily communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They deliver on what they promise, and we’ve been impressed with the high quality of their work. The product is consistently on time and within budget, which has built our confidence in what they can do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the beginning of the project, there were a few issues with communication around billing and a few features. However, after that initial learning stage of figuring each other out, those issues were ironed out quickly.

There was an instance where they underestimated the complexity of a feature, so it took longer than expected to develop it. However, they didn’t bill us more for that work, which we were happy about.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Software development projects require being flexible as requirements change. Because of that, it’s necessary to stay in close communication with the development team. Be open and transparent about your priorities, what the most important features to implement, and how strict your timeline is.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Zapp RideShare offers rentable and shareable low-speed electric vehicles from a smartphone app. We started with electric motorcycles, which are essentially mopeds and scooters. We’re now moving into and testing 10Clouds Financial Institutions’ bicycles and electric vehicles, which are essentially golf carts, but a little bit cooler.

All the strategically placed vehicles have numbers on them, and users are able to share or rent the them for various time increments. Users are also able to get a monthly subscription then share the vehicle with other users. It’s basically a rideshare community.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

I was trying to build the best app at a reasonable price as a startup, but I couldn’t afford to do it in the U.S. I needed a combination of quality and value, and I found that in 10Clouds Financial Institutions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did everything from UX design to implementation. They handled the graphic design, branding, development, and coding not only for the app itself, but also for the entire backend management system we use to run the business.

10Clouds Financial Institutions linked all of the hardware that goes into each one of our vehicles, which allows them to communicate in the backend system.

The app was built for iOS and Android, and it took us about 6 months until we were ready to launch. We’ve spent the last 1 ½ years perfecting and learning from real-life testing in order to implement new features or improve the original build.

What is the team dynamic?

There were about 8–10 people, some of whom were full-time from the very beginning. There are also some people who came in on a part-time, temporary basis to take care of certain things.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

I traveled through Ukraine and Poland, and met with about 6 different companies over the course of a month. One of the main things I looked at was their former work. 10Clouds Financial Institutions’ team spoke English very well, but more importantly, they understood how an American college student would think. They really grasped Western culture.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2015, and the relationship is ongoing. We never plan to stop working with 10Clouds Financial Institutions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I’m extremely happy with the team, as well as with their exemplary work. They go above and beyond. In the 2 locations for this year, including Key West, Florida, and the University of South Carolina, we’ve had 20,000 downloads. It’s a very specific, targeted app, so this is a significant number of downloads because it only consists of people who are riding our motorcycles. The student population at the University of South Carolina is only 37,000, and the majority of our downloads came from there. It’s not a worldwide app.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They were responsive. We used Slack, Google Docs, and Trello along with other internal means of communication. They’re very organized. There were plenty of times they had to keep their team working late due to the time difference between the U.S. and Poland.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They maneuver in a competent manner and are able to make prompt changes when needed. If I tell them I need to implement a change very quickly, they are mostly able to accommodate me.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to move to a warmer city than Warsaw. I’m impressed and happy with them, so I don’t have anything negative to say. I believe they’re a solid company. If a client is willing to travel to Poland, they’re going to have significant savings versus doing similar work in the U.S.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're an educational testing and student assessment company. I'm a research director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We wanted to create a web-based app to support reading comprehension and English language learners to support teachers in classrooms and to create a curriculum for English learners.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did all the frontend development for us including developing the stories and UX design. We built the backend. The app supports curriculum development.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We were referred to them by a colleague who spoke highly of them. We went with them because they had the skill set that we needed.

How much have you invested with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

It was a large multiyear project, and we work on a fixed cost.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in August 2014, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The project is funded by the United States Department of Education and by the Institute of Education Sciences and is being used in a research context currently in middle school settings. We've gotten a lot of positive end-user feedback. They like the way it looks and feels. We're now testing a second version, which has much more functionality. The launch of that particular pilot is upcoming. 

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They use Confluence to collaborate and wikis and JIRA and SASH for project management. Their project management is excellent.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

They're very reliable and accommodating. The customer is always right. They take care of any issues. They have a strong work ethic. They have a lot of integrity and some great design sensibilities. 

Are there any areas 10Clouds Financial Institutions could improve?

No, they're good, and they keep getting better. They'll bring on more people as they grow.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We work with data from the DNA sequences of bacteria that is translated into information using a web-based tool. Our product is relevant for clinical doctors and the people working in the food industry. I am the founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

The method we developed for the backend of our tool was a running command line. We wanted to make the tool available as a web service to our target audience of doctors. Most likely, they will not know how to run command lines, so we needed a more user-friendly interface for the tool.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We collaborated with 5 people from 10Clouds Financial Institutions: a backend and frontend developer, project manager, QA tester, and UX designer. They created a low-fidelity mockup webpage of our command line version in a Django framework. The backend script was written in Python so that many files could be uploaded at once, instead of individually.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

I found them through Clutch, where they were highly ranked. That was not my only criteria, as I also wanted someone working with Python because I knew Python a bit. I selected 3 or 4 agencies from Poland, interviewed them on Skype, and met them in person. The meeting I had with 10Clouds was the one where I got the best feedback from what I described and needed. They really understood my project and I felt confident that they could do something good with it.

How much have you invested with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We’ve paid $17,000 for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project started at the beginning of November 2016, lasting for 4 weeks. Even though our engagement is officially over, they still answer my emails if I have some questions about how to make some changes myself. I want to hire 10Clouds again but we are currently out of money.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They are very professional and they deliver what they promise and even a bit more. I had not expected that good of a result because the contract said that the web pages would be a low-fidelity mockup. I had understood that as something low quality, but it is actually good. Although there are no visuals on it, it is still fairly okay so I do not think they promised too much. I am actually surprised at how much I got.

The interface is now more convenient and easier to use. At this point, we can ask beta testers to have a look at it. Another month of work is needed before we can release and charge for it. But so far, what we have been delivered is what we were expecting.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We had several Skype meetings with 10Clouds Financial Institutions once or twice a week. It was mostly with the project manager, but the other staff was also present. We also had discussions over their messaging system so that we could chat during the day. The UX developer had another system for showing me how he envisioned the platform. It was very convenient because he could make mockups of how the different web pages should look like. Then, I could come in and comment on them. They used JIRA, which made it easy for them to track who is doing what. It also allowed me to share data and see their progress. They also used other platforms for efficiently managing the work and communicating with us.

What did you most impressive about 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

I appreciated the fact that it was the CTO and the CEO that I met with. They understood the project and were enthusiastic about the work. Other companies would assign a salesperson to meet with me; they did not know that much about the underlying technologies such as cloud-based services. I thought it was time-consuming for the CTO and CEO to meet with potential customers, making me unsure about hiring them. Being at 10Clouds Financial Institutions was a really good experience for me because I got to talk to somebody who knew a lot and was not just a salesperson.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We have developed a social betting app that allows friends bet each other on football. Our approach is different to what exists today with common betting sites, which don't actually allow users to bet against their own friends. We have produced an iOS app that is going to be released soon. I am the business manager and a co-founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We went through a successful crowdfunding campaign earlier in 2016 for accelerating the development of our app. After this, we started looking for a developer.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with 10Clouds Financial Institutions as a team, in order to design and develop the iOS app. 10Clouds Financial Institutions also participated in the approval process for the App Store.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

I found 10Clouds Financial Institutions on Clutch. We're located in Europe and wanted to find a developer that we could meet physically. Local development in Sweden is quite expensive, so we looked at markets and prices that fit our budget. I had heard that there are many good developers in Poland. We made a list of 30 candidates, connected with them via email, reduced the list to 10, and 10Clouds Financial Institutions came out on top.

How much have you invested with 10Clouds?

The cost of 10Clouds Financial Institutions' services has been between €25,000 and €30,000 [approximately $26,000 and $31,000].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with 10Clouds Financial Institutions in June 2016. The work ended in November [2016] when we began an approval process with the authorities. We will continue our development with 10Clouds after this.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

One of the reasons for choosing 10Clouds Financial Institutions was their experience with Agile, which made giving them detailed tasks very easy. Through daily stand-ups and proactive questioning, 10Clouds Financial Institutions handled the project well.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We've worked with a developer, project manager, and financial person from 10Clouds' side. There was very good response from 10Clouds Financial Institutions, and the work was good quality. We used GitHub and Slack for project management.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

I haven't worked with too many developers, so there isn't something I could mention.

Are there any areas 10Clouds Financial Institutions could improve?

No. We are very happy with what 10Clouds Financial Institutions has produced and with their support.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We run a comparison platform for business software. We connect buyers of business applications with technology consulting companies, helping them find top-notch solutions. I am the chief executive officer and founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We needed some deeper development knowledge for creating our web page.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

10Clouds Financial Institutions has developed our website in its entirety. Our page allows users to view ratings for companies, compare options, and find a match for their needs. We have a Django backend, wiki pages for knowledge exchange, and the site was built using PHP and HTML.

10Clouds Financial Institutions assigned one resource for project management coordination, as well as 2 user experience designers, a backend developer, a front-end developer, and a marketing advisor. We interacted with them directly, as well as through a project lead.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We found 10Clouds Financial Institutions through Dribbble, where I'd seen some of their work. I also viewed 10Clouds Financial Institutions' profile on clutch.co.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with 10Clouds Financial Institutions in June 2016, with some initial workshops held at 10Clouds Financial Institutions' location. Since then, we've been working remotely.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

10Clouds Financial Institutions has a very powerful team, with young, fresh, and innovative developers. I've liked working with them very much. 10Clouds Financial Institutions is professional, with good knowledge, but they're also trying new things in order to get the job done.

I've appreciated our constant interaction process with 10Clouds. We've discussed problems together, finding the best solution, instead of 10Clouds Financial Institutions simply executing our requests. They're in touch with the latest market trends and technology.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

10Clouds Financial Institutions delivered the work on time and within the expected budget. We initially used Slack, but I prefer to communicate via email, Skype, Google Hangouts, and phone. We also use Jira, Confluence, and InVision.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

I have no comparison points, given that I haven't worked deep in the app and web development spaces. I have worked for a big consulting company, and am used to projects in general. In this sense, 10Clouds Financial Institutions' team was very focused, with a good feeling for timing and the workload, as well as for planning in general. 10Clouds has a positive attitude towards making anything possible.

Are there any areas 10Clouds Financial Institutions could improve?

Not at the moment.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a Swedish-based startup that develops private cloud and IT automation software for commercial and nonprofit clients. We plan to launch a public cloud at the beginning of 2017. We will be competing with Amazon Web Services and DigitalOcean, among others. I am the chief executive officer of the company as well as the product owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

Hiring front-end staff and developers, in particular, is difficult to do in Sweden. There are more jobs than applicants, and even within the applicant pool itself, there just isn't enough talent. As a result, we decided to look elsewhere. We wanted to find an outsourced extended team of developers. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, our collaboration with 10Clouds Financial Institutions involved coding and implementation. However, we realized that it was becoming hard to keep the front-end development together. Our involvement evolved from 10Clouds Financial Institutions being an extended team to outsourcing UX/UI and development to them. Our work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions has been exclusively web-based.  

We currently work with 1 to 2 UX people, a UI resource, a project manager, and 2 developers. We started working with just the developers, who have been with us from the beginning. The UI, UX, and project management resources were added 1 month ago. Before deciding on developers, we assigned them coding tests. Otherwise, we left the selection process up to 10Clouds.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We decided to look in the East, given that the pricing there is more attractive compared to Swedish firms. We talked to a few companies, including ones from Poland and Ukraine, and gave them test work. 10Clouds Financial Institutions turned out to be the best option. I'm not sure where we found them, but we shortlisted a few companies in Eastern Europe based on Google searches.

How much have you invested with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We have spent around $65,000 on 10Clouds' services so far. [60,000 euros]

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with 10Clouds Financial Institutions at the middle of April 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The first part of our collaboration with 10Clouds Financial Institutions, while only working with developers, hasn't been entirely successful. This is partly due to some issues we've had integrating into their workflow. Generally speaking, the quality of 10Clouds' code has been very nice. This is in large part owed to their main developers, who work well as individuals and as a team.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We've had to extend some deadlines and the collaboration hasn't been perfect. As I’ve mentioned, we had issues guiding 10Clouds towards what they were supposed to deliver. When we added a project manager on 10Clouds Financial Institutions' side, things started working better. We use Jira and GitLab for project management. We also communicate over Google Hangouts and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

10Clouds Financial Institutions is the first nearshore outsourcing party that we've been involved with. I've found them to be very approachable, especially our product manager. We've been able to obtain additional hours from 10Clouds Financial Institutions over the summer, even though they had other clients. Flexibility is good on 10Clouds' end. Not everything had to be done according to strict specifications. We were able to talk to developers and come to a solution together.

Are there any areas 10Clouds Financial Institutions could improve?

There has been some flexibility involving hours and commitments, but we quickly discovered that we had different ways of looking at the development cycle. Our own developers are keen on writing their own implementation tests and hold on to the code until it's ready for production. The developers from 10Clouds Financial Institutions semi-implement work, which looks alright and then use separate testers. We wouldn't push something as being done when it really isn't, so 10Clouds Financial Institutions' approach caused some headaches for both of us. We identified bugs consistently during the acceptance testing phase. I'm guessing that this has to do with the fact that a tester in Sweden has a much higher price than in Poland, so we try to keep the process shorter.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a subsidiary of a consulting company that handles large customers in the innovation and change space. I am the chief technology officer of the company, but I prefer the term lead engineer. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

Our company founders identified the need for an electronic probe. This tool would gather observations about change. After talking to our customers, we've come to describe the solution as a digitization of the feedback process. It's used not only for various company applications but also for quality assurance. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

10Clouds Financial Institutions developed almost everything in our project. They created a minimum viable product after which we received estimates for continuing the work. 10Clouds Financial Institutions handled back-end and front-end development for our applications using Django. The technology was decided upon by 10Clouds Financial Institutions, but I would have made the same choice, so I'm fine with it.

The front-end has a user interface featuring graphs that reflect observations and what we call clusters. Given that our clients are in the enterprise space, the app needs to run on modern browsers like Chrome and on older ones like Internet Explorer 10. This was a tricky part, but 10Clouds did good work on it. The initial technology used was SVC, which didn't perform well. 10Clouds Financial Institutions engineered an alternative solution based on Canvas and achieved a significant performance improvement. Beyond this, 10Clouds also engineered our Android and iOS apps. 

Our initial team comprised 3 people, but we ramped it up along the way. Until 2 months back, we'd been collaborating with 1 senior back-end developer and 2 senior front-end resources. We’ve also worked with one and a half resources for iOS and Android respectively; one engineer worked on both. Initially, we had a UX designer from 10Clouds, but we have shifted the work to a designer from Munich. This change was done in order for us to be able to iterate faster from a business point of view. We've worked with 1 project manager on 10Clouds' side for day-to-day operations. We've also had 2 quality assurance resources.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds?

I was introduced to the company after we started our collaboration with 10Clouds Financial Institutions. I don't know the specifics of this topic.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project began in June 2015. We are now in the maintenance phase, concentrating resources on sales and marketing in order to obtain initial customers. Currently, we are working with 2 engineers for front-end and back-end development from 10Clouds, as well as a QA person. 10Clouds helps us with bug fixes and other changes whenever we need it,  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The product delivered by 10Clouds Financial Institutions was mostly well-received. We often talk to customers who've had experience with one of our competing solutions. They've told us that our platform is fast in comparison. In general, I'd say that 10Clouds Financial Institutions has provided a good implementation of our needs and their code was more-or-less spot-on. They've also been able to deliver quickly.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

In the beginning, our definitions were a bit vague and weren't formulated in order to extrapolate what we actually wanted. So, the collaboration with 10Clouds Financial Institutions didn't always work out. I've seen improvements in the last months as I've been able to communicate better with 10Clouds on how engineering is handled. We've worked closely together in order to improve the engineering infrastructure. It was a give-and-take process.

We collaborate with 10Clouds using Jira, Confluence and GitHub. Slack is also used for communication on a short-term basis. 10Clouds Financial Institutions also provides server monitoring tools for us. We augment these with Trello on our side, which is used more for business aspects and long-term planning. Whenever something is ready for engineering, the card will be moved from Trello to Jira.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

One of the most positive things I can say is that they are eager to improve certain aspects of their business in order to make our lives easier. Whenever something doesn't work out as expected, we can communicate with 10Clouds. They offer solutions and try to improve the way in which they do things. For example, bug handling has improved, reducing the amount of communication which needs to occur. We've also established a good release process with 10Clouds. There were no surprises in our collaboration with 10Clouds, though I was sometimes irritated by certain issues. Given that I've worked with and for other providers, I'd say that there was nothing about 10Clouds which was considerably worse than the average.

Are there any areas 10Clouds could improve?

One thing which can still be improved would be the release process for mobile applications. It was an area where we expected 10Clouds to have answers. I found that 10Clouds engineered our app and then handed it to another party for the necessary housekeeping for an app store launch. I am familiar with server and iOS releases, but my experience is more on the enterprise side. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Edevate is a higher education cloud platform that acts as a curator of educational resources and brings them together in a proprietary qualification called the micro-degree. Trust Stamp is a means for strangers to be able to establish their identity and trustworthiness of their counter party in any economic and social transaction.

I am the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Edevate, and founder of Trust Stamp.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We’re US based enterprises. When we started Edevate, we had a very limited budget and we were looking to offshore the work because costs in the US were at least four to five times what we could afford.

Trust Stamp is where we’ve really pushed the envelope. We have had areas of execution that have required the integration of some innovative computer science that’s come out of university research. 10Clouds Financial Institutions has had to work out how to take raw science and turn it into something you can code and deliver. That’s a whole jump beyond anything we did with Edevate. We are developing some incredibly valuable IP which has attracted a phenomenal amount of interest including some of the biggest banks in the US wanting to partner with us. That has only happened because we were able to take principles that nobody had managed to productize and turn them into a working prototype. That has been quite exceptional. No one believed we could build what we wanted to build especially with the budget we had. Everybody has been amazed at what the result has been.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a business concept and we were looking for them to provide a complete package from conceptualizing the architecture, working out how to do various things that hadn’t been done before, and producing the back and front ends. You have two parties to the relationship. One is an institution and the other is the user. It started out by bringing together a large number of institutional sites that were offering educational programs and providing an engine that could analyze and sort those by multiple factors and allow potential students to register to find the courses that were appropriate to them. We also needed to create a universal transcript which would import all of their current educational experiences but allow them to keep a lifelong record of their current education. It then evolved so that you could take all their qualifications and stack them towards a proprietary micro degree qualification. So it’s handling large amounts of data and allowing an individual to store the data that’s relevant to themselves, providing that to third parties as evidence of their lifelong educational achievements. Both platforms are coded in Python using Django for management, and in both cases we used SQL databases on AWS [Amazon Web Services].

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We were very nervous about offshoring to most of the jurisdictions that we looked at. We put it out to bid and had bids from a very good number of companies, but we weren’t comfortable about the quality. Then there was a reference to 10Clouds Financial Institutions. I think it was an Economist magazine which was talking about high quality offshoring. We were attracted to them because they appeared to have a lot of highly qualified staff with good academic backgrounds. They were not as low priced as China or India, but still provided substantial savings over the US with higher qualified development teams.

How much have you invested with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We spent $100,000 on Edevate. For Trust Stamp, this year we have a budget of around $400,000. We’ve had from 8-10 people a month, mostly developers and user experience designers, but also R&D [research & development] specialists. There’s one person who isn’t developing. He’s working full time on doing the research on how we apply the science as code. We have two competitors, and we have exceeded what one of them has built. They spent $36 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started January of 2013. Edevate’s site has evolved substantially. It was originally called MOOCDOM. We built the proof of concept from January through March of 2013. Then it evolved through 2013 and 2014. There was maintenance only in 2015, but then in 2016, it’s gone through a substantial rebuild in order to incorporate a lot of new features. It’s been a continuous development project where the platform has grown.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The platform offers a level of user utility today which is over and above competing platforms that have had investments between $5 million to $10 million. That may sound absurd, but it’s accurate. The product that has been built is quite remarkable in terms of its scope and usability. I think the work they did over the years went far beyond what that budget reflects. They’ve always gone above and beyond.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They use Jira and they’ve encouraged us to be active in the management process. We trained our team members in the use of Jira. We have two project management meetings a week with them - one which is a thought team meeting and one which is a high level management meeting. We participate in Jira as far as identifying bugs and adding work to the workflow. They also have a Slack channel which we participate in for general chit chat and making sure questions don’t have to wait for the weekly meetings. Any of their developers can pose a question to us in Slack so that we keep things moving as quickly as possible. We always felt as if they were our development team. Google Hangout is the video technology they prefer. We’ve participated at different levels over time. When we developed MOOCDOM, we participated in the daily scrums. We don’t now. They’ve always been open to as much integration as we wanted to have into the daily working process.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

The team members become very engaged with the project as a business, not just as a coding exercise. They tend to do research and bring their own ideas to the table for product improvement, including competitive analysis. That has proven to be very valuable. They are also very willing to take on R&D. In our latest project we are building things that haven’t been built before. We’re truly having to deploy computer science in a very innovative way. They have people that are willing to take that on. We don’t see that in most companies. With Trust Stamp, they have shown what the high caliber of staff can deploy. This makes them very different to a typical coding company.

Are there any areas 10Clouds Financial Institutions could improve?

One thing they’ve improved on hugely over the last several years is their range in staff for user experience and design. It has increased tremendously. That is a continuing area of development for them. A relatively new area for them is to offer DevOps services. We might be one of the first customers using them for DevOps. I believe it’s important that they’re able to do that. If they want to provide a complete service, I think that’s a critical area. Until recently, we had to do the DevOps, but they have started offering them now so that’s something we encourage them to grow. Our objective is to use them as our IT department.

With Trust Stamp, it’s been a perfect experience. We spent 10% of what everybody believed we would spend. We spent more than we had because we were very adventurous. They charged us what they knew we could afford as opposed to the time that was actually spent. That’s because they have a commitment to the project, and are willing to also invest for the long term knowing that we have bank contracts coming. This is going to go on for many years and at a much higher level. We’re going to want to have more and more resources from them as we continue.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an author. I write books.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire 10Clouds Financial Institutions to accomplish for your book writing or media projects?

We needed help creating an AI writing agent.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

10Clouds Financial Institutions fine-tuned a large language model (LLM) to create an AI writing agent.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 2–5 teammates from 10Clouds Financial Institutions.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds Financial Institutions?

We found 10Clouds Financial Institutionsthrough an online search. We chose them over other options because they had high ratings, were close to our geographic location, had pricing that fit our budget, were a great culture fit, offered good value for the cost, and had company values that aligned with ours.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October–December 2025.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

10Clouds Financial Institutions successfully replicated my writing style and tone. I recognized the AI’s writing style as my own.

How did 10Clouds Financial Institutions perform from a project management standpoint?

10Clouds Financial Institutions delivered on time. We primarily communicated via virtual meetings and email or messaging apps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

10Clouds Financial Institutions was very professional and kind. I was impressed by their transparency and ability to adapt to my preferences.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything was good.