All Front

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Product of Dealstack

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Dealstack simplifies the process of managing private equity deals, in particular by allowing investment professionals, lawyers, specialist teams and employee investors to handle investment programmes more efficiently.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire All Front to accomplish?

• Enable the collection, organisation and review of data and documents relating to historic investment activity
• Publish a complete and approved data set to the company's core platform, for ongoing management

SOLUTION

How did you find All Front?

Referral

Why did you select All Front over others?

Great culture fit, Good value for cost, Referred to me

What was the size of All Front’s team?

2-5 Employees

What was your primary form of communication with All Front?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Dealstack wanted to efficiently onboard the details of existing ‘in flight’ private equity deals. this involves the secure aggregation, ingest and qc of records associated with large numbers of investments. Association and management of contracts with investor and transaction records was a particular challenge.

The solution allowed for the ingest, normalisation and management of a set of data files and associated archives of contractual documentation. Approved datasets can then be published to the core Dealstack platform API. The key deliverables included a full-stack javascript application, employing React, Redux, TypeScript, Nest.js, NodeJS, PostGreSQL & Prisma

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Enabled dealstack to engage with a new type of customer project - onboarding new customers within weeks of project delivery
• Engaging with legacy data at a scale that would not be possible without the software delivered

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

All Front's communications were excellent throughout the project. Requirements were captured in Jira, and design docs were managed via Confluence. Slack, Google Docs and Google Meet were used throughout the engagement on a daily basis with a weekly show & tell to track progress and resolve issues.

I was particularly impressed with the ways in which they really tried to understand the business and suggest improvements to the design to maximise our overall efficiency

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed by both the quality of the deliverables (which have been very well received by the target user group) and the smoothness of the engagement.

Are there any areas for improvement or something {provider_name} could have done differently?

There was nothing they needed to improve on.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a business services start-up called Moblox. Moblox offers a range of services and tools to small businesses

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire All Front, and what were your goals?

We rely on All Front to support the development and delivery of an e-commerce platform that will deliver a range of content, community support and complex tools to our customers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

All Front were recommended to us by our lead front-end developer. That recommendation has proved to be an absolutely accurate reflection of the professionalism, technical abilities and productivity of their entire team.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The site is built using React and Next.js - exploiting a GraphQL API. All Front have been instrumental in developing our component library and improving our development standards and approach.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We have worked with five different All Front consultants - ranging from senior to mid-level experienced developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We haven't launched our initial range of services yet - but All Front have enabled us to significantly improve our development velocity and reduce the overall delivery risk of the programme

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

All the All Front consultants that we have worked with have proved to offer a strong combination of technical ability and clear communication. We use a range of communication tools including Teams, Slack, Zulip and requirement management software including Jira and Zeplin. The All Front team have adapted to and embraced our methods and tools.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The most impressive aspect of the All Front team is their ability to become highly productive very quickly (with a complex set of business requirements) and to pro-actively engage with the prioritised backlog.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None - they have exceeded my expectations. I hope that they will continue to work with Moblox over the medium to long term and I don't hesitate to recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with All Front?

It wasn't easy to source developers, especially on short notice,  so we needed someone to outsource us with professionals.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

All Front is doing staff augmentation for us; they’ve provided two developers that got quickly onboard to develop an e-commerce platform for a customer, including the frontend.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working directly with three members of their team.

How did you come to work with All Front?

They were referred to us by an internal employee. After speaking with them on the phone and looking at their previous work, it was an easy decision to give them a shot.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We use Scrum to track their metrics and see how many tasks they delivered at the end of each sprint. They’ve doubled the output on the frontend side since they got onboard, which is a great success, and we’re delighted with that.

How did All Front perform from a project management standpoint?

The two developers they provided have completely integrated into our organizational structure, and the team effort enables them to meet their personal goals. In terms of tools, we use GitLab to visualize the team’s progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have the same mindsets and qualifications as us regarding knowledge and the guts to speak up if there’s a problem with the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to involve their team in the whole process to get their professional opinions. Introducing and integrating them into our team was the right thing because they’ve identified with our goals and now see our success as their own.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and CEO of a fintech startup, Fyorin. We provide financial platform, that provides businesses with tailored financial products, through a curated network of financial providers integrated on its network. So that businesses can scale faster without having to increase their financial operation team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire All Front, and what were your goals?

We hired them to build an extension to our current product. The goal was to create something simple and easy to use but at the same time, not shifting away from the current theme of the project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We spoke to a number of vendors before Allfront. However they either lacked experience or the methodology of how they work did not fit with ours. Allfront have an experience team in our field - Fintech, so they can understand us immediately. Besides that, the level of response and professionalism provided in the early stage is something that we liked and helped.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We wanted to expand our current product of offering currency IBANS through the introduction of sub-accounts. The first step was to provide them with user stories which we created and they analysed it. We had a discussion on these user stories and we also together agreed to amend or update certain flow. Once that has been done, a mock-up was developed.

The good thing is that during the development of this mock-up, we were updated all the same. So when we first saw the mock-up it was a not a surprise for us. After that stage was done, development work started. Their tech team was in continuous discussions with ours. Once the final product was finished, we had a demo and everything was working smoothly.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We were worked with 2 people, designer and frontend developer. In the beginning of the project we were also working with one of the founders to scope up the solution.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

With the solution that they developed, we should expect an increase in our customer acquisition by 50%

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The project management style was good, They use Slack as communication channel. What is most impressive is that their estimates are spot-on. They delivered on time.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The level of professionalism and dedication. They really feel as an extension of the team. They also have an eye for detail.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not really.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder and CEO of new travel startup SoloTrvlr. We deliver an online platform with resources, tools and insider advice for women travelling independently.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire All Front, and what were your goals?

Full-stack development of our online platform (web app), which launched in Beta in the Fall 2021. Goals were to develop a scalable product that we could get to market quickly to enable us to test and validate hypotheses as well as gather critical feedback from users.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I explored a range of options, from large traditional agencies, to bringing on a technical co-founder. From my background working at small agencies early in my career I knew that finding the right people is key -- and that means a combination of skill-set, price, working style, and commitment to understanding and meeting the goals set out.

For me, AllFront met all of these criteria, but most importantly the last one -- I felt they truly understood what we were trying to achieve and were dedicated to being a partner in making it happen.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They provided UX based on guidance from brand and design work that we had completed with another agency. At the same time they delivered a plan for overall architecture which gave me the confidence in their abilities to deliver, and framework for how we would work together.

From there we scoped the project into two phases -- an initial phase with the minimum functionality needed to launch a private beta and start testing / iterating on content. And the second phase which got us to a fully functional product that we could release to external Beta.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Senior developer, developer, QA and UX.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We were able to launch on time and on budget, getting to market quickly so that we take advantage of the post-pandemic return to travel and gather valuable insights about users and the market overall.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We communicated largely over Slack, and used Jira to manage and track bugs as we got into launch. Both were great for responsiveness and organisation.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their commitment to being a partner in delivering a successful product is great. When issues arose -- as they will in any sizeable engagement -- they were proactive, transparent, and collaborative in finding creative solutions. I also very much appreciated their ability to provide technical recommendations through multiple lenses -- scalability, cost, effort, and impact.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Having a more structured view of the overall UX patterns, grid and systems up front would have allowed us to scale the UX more easily rather than tackle problems one-off later on. As we were moving quickly there were a few areas where inconsistencies came up, and having a clear system/rules would have helped maintain consistency.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Partner at B2B Bandits

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire All Front?

UX / UI audit, layout and design support and assistance developing effective conversion optimization tests.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Referral from another client in Europe.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

One of our sister companies was transitioning from a consulting / retainer style model to a more "service packaged as a product" style. Our in-house efforts - and previous efforts to hire other UX, UI, designers and CRO experts - had failed completely. Inbound and referral traffic to that site "tripped at the finish line" and we needed a workflow and design that could walk staggering variety of prospects through a "build your own package" tool. AllFront took all of the data, our input and their insights from working with other clients like me, to replace the process and workflows, clean up the design and drive the conversion of visitor to buyer 3x.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

3 Founder / CEO Lead Designer / UX Account / Project Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Their layouts and workflows were pixel perfect, and their user experiments were smart *and* structured.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Flawless. Working with them revealed ways we can do better with team communication and coordination.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Getting developer and designer inputs while brainstorming on live screen-share calls, then seeing real-time layout adjustments, made the whole process easier.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not that I can think of ... they should probably charge more 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Weave, a marketplace formed between brands and social media influencers. We have integrated solutions such as Shopify, mobile apps, video games, and restaurants. We also have an app plugin that gives you the ability to create orders, ship out products, create discount codes, and track sales.

Influencers in our network can request to work with brands in our platform, and safely automate the process of sending the person the product — once it’s sent, we can track it when it goes live on Instagram, YouTube, and then report the results and successes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with All Front?

I’ve been developing this platform for four and a half years myself, so I was looking to expand our development capabilities with a cost-effective solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

All Front has mostly been working on the frontend of our platform, but they’ve actually taken on a lot of the backend stuff as well. They’ve also been more focused on developing new features like maintaining code and expanding longer functionality.

We’ve been developing this product for such a long time, and I feel like some of my knowledge on current development technologies is a little outdated — I’m more focused on building the company, rather than being exposed to the new libraries to use. For the first few months of the partnership, All Front put on new libraries to our full-on brand and influencer app to completely change how we’re deploying the project.

In addition, they’ve also been helping us organize our database better, which helps us get more of a scalable platform. The way I built the app was just to make sure that it worked — but it introduced some issues, so the first couple of months was just a complete overhaul to bring in new technologies. Since then, we’ve been implementing tons of features or improvements, which makes it easier to manage.

It’s hard to list out the features that they’ve implemented, but we’re setting the app with robust building infrastructure to strengthen our Shopify immigration. It’s a platform that can do really detailed tracking for mobile app downloads such as user tracking, sign-up events, and registration, which is super unique in our space.

What is the team composition?

I started with David (Head of Frontend), but right now, I’ve been chatting with their UI/UX designers who’ve been focusing a lot on the platform’s usability, and helping me identify one more developer to work on the backend. Potentially, over the next few weeks, I’ll be hiring more developers from All Front.

How did you come to work with All Front?

My dad had actually worked with one of the people from All Front in the past, so he connected me with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent around $60,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in February 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The platform iterated a lot over the years to figure out the right kind of product. We wanted to deliver this influencer space and the strengthening of our infrastructure was super important. Once we did that, I gained a lot of confidence to start pushing the project out more. We’re now working on bringing in hundreds of brands onto our platform, because in the past, we felt like it wasn’t robust enough to turn into a stealth platform.

Having All Front on board really helped us unlock a very hands-on customer approach and have an unlimited scale point in the company, where we essentially sell as many brands as we want — which is huge for our ability to grow.

How did All Front perform from a project management standpoint?

David helped us set up Jira, and it forced me to start getting all the features and tasks in our project management software. He’s very good about updating what’s currently being worked on and what’s been completed — I actually have very little idea of how to make that process organized, but he set it up for us and it’s been really simple to follow.

Apart from that, he’s also good at estimating deadlines, and he’s been very realistic about all the work that will go into delivering certain features.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s been really helpful that All Front really understands our product. Some development firms are more engineering-focused, which is not always a top-down approach. With All Front, we actually have an idea of what solution we could craft and the technologies to use. Having a mix between actual business understanding, and the ability to implement features and solutions saves a lot of wasted time.

Additionally, their services have been really cost-effective, and we’re still getting a really competent and smart developer with David.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t really have any complaints because the product has been working altogether.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be to better define your features ahead of time. It’s good to have a little more planning up front to make sure that All Front knows exactly what to work on, and what their priorities are.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of RegTech Partners, a compliance cloud-based platform. We offer an online cloud-based platform where we receive a stream of events from our clients and give a verdict of whether they’re in line with the appropriate legislation. For example, if they’re compliant with anti-money laundering or fraud issues.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with All Front?

We had a couple of developers, but we needed help with the frontend visual of our platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

All Front helped us create the frontend of our platform. We had the backend ready, but it couldn’t be used directly, so they took our platform and turned it into something visual.

First, they helped us understand better what we needed for the design and how we should structure our code. They suggested ways for us to improve it as well. Then, we had them adding screens and statistics to our dashboard. All Front also added functionalities, such as search and filtering.

What is the team composition?

There was a designer and a developer. We also had a senior developer who did more challenging programming tasks and some of the management.

How did you come to work with All Front?

A colleague knew about them; she’d had a positive experience with All Front. With that recommendation, I didn’t hesitate to get in touch with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent €18,000 (approximately $21,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November 2019–February 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We did user acceptance tests (UAT), so we went through the platform and used the frontend to make sure that all the requirements were available. We also looked at the code to ensure it was high quality and well organized, and we were very satisfied.

Moreover, All Front was very professional, and their team went above and beyond what we asked. I’m a computer science lecturer, so I’m pretty confident about software. In that sense, I trusted them and was very happy with the quality. Not only did they make it work, but they also organized the code in a way that we could easily continue to update it in the future. They were very conscious of long-term quality.

How did All Front perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very communicative. We used Jira to manage the project. I could directly create tasks, and they’d discuss the priorities with me to take on the work. Then, I was able to see the progress of each task, which was helpful. Even when they sent the invoices, they’d call me to explain what took long and take me through the hours. We understood each other, where the effort was going, and the priorities.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were professionals, and we could trust them. We got the feeling that we were dealing with someone who knew what they were doing. We didn’t have to micromanage them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, they were still learning a lot. Team members were so enthusiastic, and they were suggesting so many things to add to our platform, but it was beyond our budget. It was all with good intentions, but at some point, we felt we had to slow them down because we were a startup, and it wasn’t within our plan. However, they’ve improved on that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you’re communicating right and understanding each other. Also, make sure the requirements and framework of the agreement are clear.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tech lead for delivering a Kiosk solution to an established telecoms provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire All Front, and what were your goals?

The main challenge here was to deliver something easily consumed by people interacting with a physical kiosk and deliver it with an extremely tight deadline.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

With a tight deadline, I was looking for a team capable of delivering without hand-holding along the way. I looked at their previous work and could easily determine that they had designers who could easily outmatch anything I could propose and more importantly able to execute on their vision in a quick fashion.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

This was a Angular solution formatted to fit on some quirky hardware responding to touch (so "large buttons", "click next" kind of UI). The scope of work was to deliver a complete solution from UI design and typescript talking to a REST backend.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager (David) was the main source of contact; a technically competent guy, I had no problem conveying what I wanted and leaving him with a pretty free hand on what the final UI would look like to minimise time-costly interactions -- it worked!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The project was a complete success from my point of view -- we delivered a complete backend/front-end solution to the end client that exactly delivered on their requirements.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Since the team could talk tech, we had a pretty brief call and some milestone follow-ups. We early on agreed on the openAPI spec to deliver, I provided quick mocks for testing, they adhered to this spec and delivered periodical updates along the way.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The best thing about this company was the "throw the problem at them and they will deliver" aspect, with the milestone deliveries keeping all parties involved in the chain happy (UI mockups, initial snippets, etc). Reasonable pricing too!

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Honestly not much to improve upon. Reported bugs were very quickly fixed, client feedback was taken upon instantly without pushing too heavily on their vision and so on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Forest Holidays, and we’re a lodging provider/holiday provider in the UK. We have 11 locations that are based in the forest, and we typically cater to people who are looking for outdoor experiences and reconnect with nature.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with All Front?

We had an old desktop-first website that we were trying to modernize.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re building a new website and are continuing to make enhancements as we have a roadmap that lasts for about 12 months. We moved to a new headless CMS and have started implementing new technologies like React, so All Front is engaged to help us with that process.

In terms of features and functionality, we’re building a brochure website, so we’re putting out general content for people to consume as well as create an interactive booking journey. We’re able to execute a search that includes a selection of locations, dates, and the number of attendees. Users will then go through an interactive journey through the results where they can choose or add extra information to confirm the booking and proceed to payments.

We use Optimizely DXP as our main CMS.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with a UX designer, and three senior frontend and React developers.

How did you come to work with All Front?

There was a company that had worked with All Front before so they were put forward as an option. We met with them to try and get our process, what we were trying to do, and figure out our style of approach.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably invested about £1.3 million GBP (approximately $1.8 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered with them in June 2020, and the partnership is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The success of the project has been measured by maintaining our SEO position and conversion rates. We’re going to continue working together to exceed those in terms of quality — we’re looking at a low number of areas, a low number of bugs, and speed to market.

How did All Front perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. All Front is able to bring in more developers when we need them reduced. They were self-managed and high-quality individuals, so they’re able to fit in with our project management approach quite happily.

We typically use Azure DevOps for our ticketing, a tool called Product Plan for our roadmaps, and then we ran an implementation of Agile.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with their solution-oriented approach. One of the features within our booking journey is the ability to have an interactive map that you can zoom in on, and we had to make it work not only for desktop interactions, but also for mobile. Within a single sprint, the team was able to find a library, build the solution, and deploy it — they were very quick in finding a solution that worked for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We definitely could’ve used a bit more backend resource, but All Front is very much frontend-focused — it’s not really their fault, and their skills are great in terms of frontend development.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

All Front moves quickly, so you better have your user story and approach well-defined, because they’ll run out of things to do very quickly if you’re not organized.