10Clouds

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’ 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?

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.

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 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?

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’ 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.

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 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?

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?

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?

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 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?

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 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?

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: 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?

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?

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 perform from a project management standpoint?

We had several Skype meetings with 10Clouds 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?

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 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?

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 as a team, in order to design and develop the iOS app. 10Clouds also participated in the approval process for the App Store.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds?

I found 10Clouds 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 came out on top.

How much have you invested with 10Clouds?

The cost of 10Clouds' 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 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 was their experience with Agile, which made giving them detailed tasks very easy. Through daily stand-ups and proactive questioning, 10Clouds handled the project well.

How did 10Clouds 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, and the work was good quality. We used GitHub and Slack for project management.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds?

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

Are there any areas 10Clouds could improve?

No. We are very happy with what 10Clouds 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?

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

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

10Clouds 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 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?

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

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with 10Clouds in June 2016, with some initial workshops held at 10Clouds' 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 has a very powerful team, with young, fresh, and innovative developers. I've liked working with them very much. 10Clouds 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 simply executing our requests. They're in touch with the latest market trends and technology.

How did 10Clouds perform from a project management standpoint?

10Clouds 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?

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' 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 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?

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 involved coding and implementation. However, we realized that it was becoming hard to keep the front-end development together. Our involvement evolved from 10Clouds being an extended team to outsourcing UX/UI and development to them. Our work with 10Clouds 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?

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 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?

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 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, 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 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' 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?

10Clouds 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 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 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 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' 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?

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 developed almost everything in our project. They created a minimum viable product after which we received estimates for continuing the work. 10Clouds handled back-end and front-end development for our applications using Django. The technology was decided upon by 10Clouds, 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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?

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?

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 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?

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. 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?

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 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?

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 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

Please describe your organization.

I am a professor of computer science at an accredited research university.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds?

Even though I haven't taken part in many development projects, we occasionally have the need for a development component for certain products, which we're trying to support. In this case, we wanted to develop a website for public health researchers. We did some initial research and put together some ideas for it before going out to have it built. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

10Clouds has been involved in all of the actual building, including design and implementation of the system. 10Clouds built a media aggregation and monitoring platform. We can use it to input many news stories daily, which are relevant to the public health issues that we want to track. After that, the news stories are downloaded and sent to an analysis pipeline, which does things like identifying the topic of the story and its language, translating it into English, as well as retrieving information like the global focus of the story. The analyzed story is thrown into a search engine database, and the website itself is where content is displayed. It allows us to make complex searches for any structured fields as well as keyword searches. The website also allows us to create alerts and count how many stories have been published about a topic in a certain language. There is also an analytics component: we can see how many news stories were published in a given topic, over a period of time, compared to another topic, and broken down by language.

There is a pipeline of decisions within the system. Some of these modules were developed in our lab while 10Clouds only integrated them and others were developed by them. 

Our team from 10Clouds has changed in time, but we've consistently had two full-stack Python developers and a program manager assigned to us. In addition to them, we've also worked with a website developer in charge of JavaScript and HTML coding, depending on what we needed on the site. 10Clouds has been very good at finding people, which can be rotated as our needs grew and changed. We've also used a DevOps person who worked on our servers. Whenever we go through a design phase, we will use a designer from 10Clouds.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds?

I have a colleague who is a professor at another university. I was very unhappy with the developers that we were using at the time, so we started by trying to hire our own developer. I interviewed a dozen people, but only one person was even remotely qualified. We came to hire another company, but I wasn't very happy with them, either. I looked around for other options, and my colleague recommended that I try 10Clouds. I'm glad that he made the suggestion.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The cost varies quite a bit, but we have typically spent between $10,000 and $15,000 per month during the last three years with 10Clouds, depending on how many people are working with us at any given time.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with 10Clouds for three years [since 2013].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our project is research-funded, so our budget is renewed on a yearly basis. The fact that we've had our funding renewed year after year means that the funder is pleased with what we're producing. This is the best measure of success, in my opinion.

I've come to default to 10Clouds for any project that requires development work, whether it's a large-scale one or we just need to throw up a website. 10Clouds is very fast, responsive and easy to work with. They have many in-house members who can cover a full range of things so, whenever we need to do a lot of back-end Python, Django, HTML or CSS development, 10Clouds will assign us resources who are experienced with the various tools that we are using. Whenever we needed to rethink a prototype from a design perspective, 10Clouds gave us a designer. There's been much flexibility on their part.

We had used other companies in the past, but 10Clouds was much better in terms of communication, and they produced good work. 10Clouds has actually rewritten a lot of the code produced by other people because it simply wasn't very good. It's not just that I've been happy with their work on our current projects, but they've done a better job than the people who worked on our previous projects.

How did 10Clouds perform from a project management standpoint?

Being a professor of computer science, I'm probably different to most customers. I had no problems managing the team from 10Clouds. I am very hands-on with them and probably know the code base as well, if not better than 10Clouds. I've been involved in the project since conception, whereas new developers from 10Clouds will come in every year. We don't work with 10Clouds based on estimates that they're supposed to stick to. We have a collaborative process. If anything takes longer to complete, it won't be a huge surprise because I understand why it's taking longer. For what we've been able to build, 10Clouds has been a very cost-effective solution. They do good work quickly and aren't very expensive.

We use JIRA for project tracking. We also have weekly calls using Google Hangouts, and we use Slack for communication.

What distinguishes 10Clouds from other providers?

I have frequent contact with 10Clouds's CEO [Maciej Cielecki], who reaches out to me just to see how things are going. Whenever I have a problem, I can contact him. He's been hands-on whenever we needed it and left us alone for the rest of the time. With any software project that goes on for this long, not everything will turn out right. I've always felt that we were able to sit down with 10Clouds and work any problems out, which gave me a lot of confidence in their judgment and abilities. When a developer says that a certain approach is the right way to do it, I will trust them. This is something that took a long time to develop.

Is there anything 10Clouds could have improved or done differently?

Through the years, there have been improvements that I've pushed to 10Clouds, including being more communicative with me about what's going on. This was because I was treated the same as most clients, who don't necessarily care about what library was being used, or what the right way or restructuring code was. I'm very involved, so I've encouraged 10Clouds to keep me in the loop about those things, and they have. There have been around half a dozen developers assigned to our projects through the years. The people working with us now are the best ones since the project started, so I'm very happy with 10Clouds at this moment. A new developer has been assigned to us today, and I'm excited about this. She seems to be very good. I think that we will continue to improve our efficiency.

I manage research labs and am looking for new funding. When I find it, I intend to give it to 10Clouds for them to do the work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a startup in the health tech field, building a digital therapeutic system for gestational diabetes. Our company is focused on connecting women and technology for a healthier future.

I am the founder and Chief Executive Officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 10Clouds?

We are working with10Clouds to build a digital therapeutic system for gestational diabetes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

10Clouds designed and built a minimum viable product for GlucoseMama. They also created a series of wireframe screens to demonstrate how the system could potentially work. We're currently developing the backend, and will soon reach Version 1.0. We will be able to use Version 1 for pilot studies. Feedback from pilot and human factor studies will help guide us as we build Version 2 for larger clinical trials.

10Clouds provided two UX/UI [user experience/user interface] designers in charge of all visual and functional elements, an iOS developer, and a backend developer. We work closely with the project manager from 10Clouds, having weekly calls to plan sprints with his team. He is in charge of coordinating the 10Clouds team with the GlucoseMama team.

How did you come to work with 10Clouds?

I spend a lot of time in Poland and wanted to find a good development company that I could work with locally. I found 10Clouds through their website. They are a full service company with a high level of talent in all departments.

How much have you invested with 10Clouds?

10Clouds offers very competitive rates in the global app development market. They offer high quality for a very good price.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have an ongoing relationship with 10Clouds.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

10Clouds' quality of work has been excellent. The designs we received were far beyond what we expected. 10Clouds is a highly professional company that gets the job done and does it well. They're also very pleasant to work with, so I consider myself lucky.

How did 10Clouds perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a great job of communicating, both by Slack and e-mail.

What did you find most impressive about 10Clouds?

10Clouds is user focused. In my particular field, the users are patients, so it's extremely important to look at everything from their point of view and to satisfy their medical and nutritional needs. We also have to fit into the provider’s workflow without creating more work for them. We consult with doctors, nurses, diabetes educators, and nutritionists to figure out what they need from their patients’ records and how to deliver it to them securely and in a timely manner. Our system is HIPAA-compliant [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act]. 10Clouds has been incredible in providing great ideas for this project, both for patients and providers.

Are there any areas 10Clouds could improve?

It's hard to say. We'd like things to move faster, but that usually amounts to more mistakes. Building safe and effective technology takes a lot of time, energy, and most of all, thought. Doing it well also takes skill. The build-out should be based on studies and feedback from intended users and healthcare providers.