Bacancy

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and CEO of a SaaS business that provides data quality solutions for behavioural data tracking

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bacancy Technology, and what were your goals?

We had begun a React migration of some frontend components to improve the UX of our product. We needed Bacncys support and expertise to expedite this migration and complete key tasks to help us launch a new product

SOLUTION

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

We were looking a company we communicate easily with, that would deliver high quality work at competitive rates.

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

We kicked off the project by getting the project manager and React developer up to speed on where we stood, what our high level goals where for the project. From there we defined the sprints, issues and planned the work ahead. React was the primary technology used for the frontend development carried out, which was part of a Ruby on Rails + GraphQL backend.

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

We had a project manager who ensured communication flowed, that we had enough issues planned for upcoming sprints and that we were getting value for our money. The primary full time position we had hired for was a React Developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got going pretty quickly with few obstacles to begin, which was great. During the time we delivered the product we had set out to, and the React developer made the extra effort to get familiar with GraphQL as well as make UI recommendations.

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

Daily standups with an agile/scrum workflow. We planed bi-weekly sprints, discussed the issues each day, and prioritized accordingly.

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

The value for money for one, but the approach and organization overall was professional and helpful. Bacancy Technology always accommodates our changes in priorities and even the extension of the project.

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

Occasionally we had a few minor miscommunications but overall no real issues

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am VP of Business Development for Pack Leader DVM. Pack Leader DVM is a veterinary software development, implementation, support and training company for general, specialty, multi-specialty, and consolidators creating solutions for A/R and Electronic Health Records for animals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bacancy Technology, and what were your goals?

No Electronic Health Record exists in the veterinary space with true data for analytics. Most products on the market are older technology and rely heavily or solely on text documents. Therefore, research on clinical outcomes is laborious and ineffective. The Pack Leader DVM software is built for data analysis on Open Source technology increasing research data while reducing operating costs. The software is customizable, by veterinarian, so that each may practice medicine in a way comfortable and efficient to him/her.

SOLUTION

How did you select Bacancy Technology and what were the deciding factors?

Bacancy was selected based upon three primary criteria: 1. When demonstrated our legacy software, the Bacancy management team seemed to grasp our concept quickly asking relevant questions throughout the presentation. 2. References were important to us. Their references were honest and good. The references all gave good insight into the development process they had experienced. 3. Bacancy provided expertise in the exact open source technology we had selected.

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

Pack Leader DVM developed a veterinary software using Microsoft tools on a legacy technology. The software proved cumbersome and inefficient. Bacancy was contracted for a full rewrite of the Pack Leader DVM software, including many new features and enhancements. This was, in essence, a full development of an Accounts Receivable, Electronic Health Records, inventory, estimates, scheduling, drawing, and medications software.

It would include numerous interfaces to laboratories, appointment reminders, and merchant services. The new software was developed in React with a PostgreSQL database. Our team delivered numerous videos and written documentation for the project. The project was divided into modules within the software for ease of delineation for the development team.

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

Around fifteen programmers were utilized in the project including many senior level developers. At the onset of the project, one developer grasped the total concept quickly, while others simply worked in their lanes with no concept of the bigger picture. Once the senior developer was allowed to provide technical assistance to his colleagues, the project began moving much quicker. We conducted weekly meetings with the project manager.

Three project managers worked our project, but when the third and final project manager was added, the project began to move at its best pace. She was skilled at communication and objective in her approach. With projects as large as this one, her input was invaluable. As the project neared completion, the team of developers was reduced to six senior developers. They attacked the most intricate and difficult parts of the software.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Bacancy team brought much technical experience to the project. They assisted our team in selecting the best set of development tools for providing the most efficient product. Their expertise also introduced some third party software that will reduce our operating cost far into the future.

They also made some practical suggestions, throughout the process, that will make our software better. There was some concern on the Bacancy side with Mac products, but those were eventually addressed. In the end, the delivered product was better than we expected or even hoped. It is an amazing piece of software.

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

The Project was managed from start to finish by Project Managers. In the early stages, the Project Manager, the development team, and our staff conducted daily phone calls. Written information was done via Slack, and communication remained constant and consistent. The project was initially quoted at four months, but it ran well over that timeline.

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

The most impressive factor in working with Bacancy was their overall expertise in the Open Source Arena. Their suggestions and open source third party add-ons made the final product a better one.

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

The quoting process on time and cost was well underestimated.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of DOPPLET. We develop multiple mobile Q&A applications that store video and audio answers in a database and retrieve them any time the question is asked.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bacancy Technology?

We don't have any engineers, so we hired Bacancy Technology to build our mobile application from the ground up,

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted Bacancy Technology to develop a complete app and website that we could market to consumers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Our team researched offshore app developers online and found several options. We met with three vendors in-person and found Bacancy Technology to be the best fit based on their knowledge, team, and price.

Describe the project in detail.

We met with their team over the phone numerous times to explain the app we wanted. They took our app designs and created a comprehensive project timeline for completion. We had daily calls with the team to discuss its features and functionality. Bacancy Technology built the back- and frontend of the app and website. They also developed its infrastructure and UI/UX.

Our app allows anyone to create a database of video answers to questions from their followers, who can simply speak or type a question to retrieve the relevant answer from the database. This system is powered by an algorithm that Bacancy Technology developed. 

What was the team composition?

A project manager served as our point of contact. We spoke with him daily, and there were six full-time development and QA resources on the project. They joined our daily calls to answer questions and provide progress updates.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our app launched in the App Store and Google Play Store in June 2018. We had 1,100 downloads within the first 30 days.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our project manager was extremely responsible and easy to communicate with. I could get in touch with him almost any time. We set up daily phone calls to ensure frequent communication, and we never had any workflow issues.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their ability to pull additional resources onto the project when necessary was impressive. We easily scaled up or down depending on our needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We brought on additional QA resources to ensure that the app was bug-free. Bacancy Technology worked so fast and sent us such frequent builds that we found a lot of bugs. However, this was likely a result of how quickly we asked them to work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CMO of a brain reprogramming therapy app that uses custom meditations to address negative emotions and helps users feel better anywhere and anytime.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bacancy Technology?

We needed app design and development services.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a well-functioning app that’s easy to use and understand. It also had to deliver personalized content.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We looked at online reviews and cost estimations.

Describe the project in detail.

They translated therapeutic science and practices into a viable mobile app that supports ongoing patient health. They were responsible for site mapping, wireframing, interface design, and overall development. The app is available on iOS and Android.

What was the team composition?

Bacancy's team consisted of a designer and developer. I’m not sure how many people were involved on their side, but we worked predominantly with Harindra (Senior iPhone Developer, Bacancy).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app is now available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store. We’re largely pleased with the outcome, and user reviews have been mostly positive.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

There were some difficulties due to time zone, language, and cultural differences.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They didn't give up and delivered a good product.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They could have managed expectations more clearly upfront regarding timing and workflow. Additionally, quick responses to change requests would be better, though they did improve throughout the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Origin.gg is a SaaS [software-as-a-service] platform helps organizations and players in the e-sports arena to setup their own web presence. We focus on taking that burden from them so that they can focus on what they do. I am the chief product officer, and try to contribute code when possible, but spend most of my time on marketing tasks. We have a two-person team in the U.S.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bacancy Technology?

Creating an e-sports organization is difficult. There are many things that go into it, beyond how good a player is, and how much prize money they’ve won. We wanted to create a scalable system that helps organizations focus on their core competencies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I’ve contributed minimally to the development of our platform, with the vast majority of it being done by Bacancy. I am not a great designer or visionary when it comes to building things, but rather the person who can handle the operational side. As such, I didn’t have full mockups in place, or a set scope. I provided a general framework of what I needed, Bacancy produced a first draft, and we iterated from there. If someone provided Bacancy with a comprehensive development plan, I am confident that they will produce it almost exactly as it was drawn up, but this wasn’t the case for my project.

We’ve also gone through a lot of testing and trials. Bacancy took a lead on design, set up servers using NoSQL and SQL databases, and developed the application using Node.js on the backend and React.js on the frontend. The app is web-based as of right now, with mobile optimization.

What is the team composition?

Bacancy assigned three fulltime resources (two developers and a project manager), and others as-needed.

How did you come to work with Bacancy Technology?

I did a lot of research on overseas development. As much as I wanted to keep the work within the U.S., the cost difference was too hard to ignore; an offshore firm would charge 25% of what U.S. firms offer. There isn’t an ultimate authority on the market, which is why checking Clutch is always a good idea. Pretty much anyone in the industry will have a good portfolio on their website, but I never check with listed references.

I found Bacancy through some gray hat techniques I learned from the people I had worked with previously, and reached out to a few clients on LinkedIn. The feedback was quite positive, so I decided to go ahead with them. Outside of this due diligence, my general plan was to simply try a company out for two to four weeks, and, if it didn’t work out, it wouldn’t be a big deal, since the price wasn’t that high. Bacancy exceeded my expectations, so we’ve come to the fourth month of our collaboration.

How much have you invested with them?

The project is on a rolling basis. The cost so far has been $15,000, and I expect to reach $20,000 in a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We technically started working with Bacancy in September 2017, but there were some delays, including a major Indian holiday. We didn’t fully ramp up until October.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve always been on track, and there hasn’t been an issue with missed deadlines. The scope is constantly changing and expanding, and we haven’t come to a stable-enough point to have reliable burndown metrics. This reflects more on me as a general manager than it does on Bacancy. In terms of measurable points, we’ve hit our development velocity precisely.

Feedback is to be determined. We do have users and customers, but not at a scale that would reveal inefficiencies in the code base. There are always trade-offs between solid code and just getting something out there, and we’re in the latter mode. I’m sure that if Bacancy’s team had it their way, they would love to go back and refactor parts, but we don’t have time for it. I give them high marks for reliability, but I can’t provide qualitative feedback until we’ve had thousands of users on the platform and it crashes in the night, but, even then, it would probably reflect more on me than on Bacancy.

How did Bacancy Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

They are extremely responsive. The time difference is probably the biggest issue. Had they been on our side, I’m sure more people would have used Bacancy’s services. It’s challenging, but it wasn’t an unexpected factor. I’m on Central Time, so there is an eleven-and-a-half-hour difference with India Standard Time. For the most part it hasn’t been an issue, which is mainly due to my flexibility. I can be up at the most convenient time for them, because it’s important for me to have consistent feedback. Had I been doing this as a side-project and not as a fulltime job, it would be tough, but this is also the reason that I can pay 25% of what a U.S. developer would cost.

We use Skype, Slack, videoconferencing, phone and every other available technology for communication. We’ve worked within an Agile scrum model, and communication has been primarily between myself and their project manager.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their design capabilities are far better than mine. I usually want my partners to be very involved creatively, but I don’t think I made it a specific point, given that there were no specs for what we’re doing. Bacancy had freedom to deviate, but they made almost exactly what I gave them. Upon seeing their other work though, I asked them to redesign the platform as they saw fit.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They run a tidy operation. You can always nitpick, but I’ve worked with many developers over time, and our collaboration with Bacancy has been great.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

If the client is not at the stage of having designs and specs laid out, they should let Bacancy provide input. They’re very good at it.

Anyone considering using overseas developers, where there would be a language barrier, should be aware of what their expectations truly are. I’m a developer and have technical knowledge, so I can get in there and interact with the team on a level which would not be possible for a non-technical client. The process has been great, but I can see how miscommunication could happen, and how things could not turn out as expected. People can end up spending a lot of money going back and changing things if they’re not really prepared for what the process looks like.

When I read online reviews, for the most part, they seem to come from ordinary people with an idea for an app, who hired someone without fully understanding the hurdles that come with any software development project. Those hurdles can then be exacerbated by time zone differences and language barriers. Adding them all together, it becomes clear that this isn’t for everyone.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Kingdom Candidates is in the church staffing industry. The company provides a digital network for pastors, church administrators, and leaders in the church market to find one another affordably, empowering them to make informed decisions about one another faster. Our goal is to make church staffing simple. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Bacancy Technology?

There is a position in the market for a positive disruption to be introduced to the church staffing website/consulting industry. Kingdom Candidates is a positive disruption to the church staffing world because it is a highly functional website that is an effective alternative to hiring expensive church staffing consultants and using other church staffing websites.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bacancy Technology built a digital platform to aid Kingdom Candidates' pursuit to bring affordable and effective church staffing solutions into the 21st century. The successful completion of the project helped us digitize the search hiring process for churches by building our website. They developed the means for churches to build informative profiles online that entice high caliber talent and then organize that talent. There is no competitor on the market that does this.

Further, Bacancy aided our business's pursuit to streamline the hiring process by providing a platform for candidates to upload all the necessary information that churches require—beyond a resume—to get hired (cover letter, resume, sermon videos, statement of faith, philosophy of ministry, personal salvation story, personality assessments, and pictures etc.).

Additionally, Bacancy helped us create a questionnaire that aids employer's assessment of the candidate, their background, leadership ability, ministry experience, and emotional IQ. Bacancy's design and development abilities have given our business the ability to be a positive disruption to the church staffing world. They brought our vision of a highly functional and effective church staffing website into reality. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The duration of the project was was 4.5 months. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a pleasure to work with Bacancy. They succesfuly implemented every component of our agreed upon Phase I work. Bacancy has a desire to produce not only excellent work but lucrative websites and tools for companies that depend on the internet for a portion, or all, of their income. 

How did Bacancy Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

Whenever a problem was discovered that needed to be fixed in order to guarantee website efficiency, particularly from a website user perspective, the team at Bacancy was creative and accommodating. They placed our company's needs first.

What did you find most impressive about Bacancy Technology?

Any issues we found on with the website were fixed by Bacancy within 24-48 hours. They understand that our success as a company translates into their success as a company. 

Are there any areas Bacancy Technology could improve?

We were informed the project was completed on time (in early June 2017) only to discover there were some important functional components of the website that were not working. In hindsight, these issues came from a breakdown in communication and a misunderstanding of website functional expectations. When the issues were clearly pointed out and expectations made clear, Bacancy was extremely accommodating and implemented all necessary changes and fixes to make our website highly effective.

From a control perspective, Bacancy would benefit from completing projects prior to informing the client and forming a test team and then testing, retesting, and testing again the final web project before presenting it to the customer. Prior to going live, we spent many hours testing and retesting the website with our own team and other leaders in our industry to discover what did and did not work on the website.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Department Manager of Microminimus. Wicked Weasel Bikinis & Microminimus are a manufacturing/publishing business based in Byron Bay, creating high-quality swimwear and evening wear. We operate an online community platform for our community of 30,000 devoted brand advocates and bikini loving enthusiasts. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bacancy Technologies?

We needed a developer who could grapple with our very outdated and underperforming IT system that was almost entirely undocumented, falling apart, and in need of urgent repairs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were assigned a developer named Hiren who, after some weeks exploring and investigating our system and its inherent troubles limitations and dependencies, was tasked with bringing the system back under control so it would be able to be developed upon again. We use Ruby on Rails for our community site including forums, groups, user profiles, gallery submissions, internal currency, moderation, and subscriptions. It also has integration with another Ruby eCommerce project.

How did you come to work with Bacancy Technologies?

This was conducted by our Managing Director and Human Resources team who assessed numerous companies and chose Bacancy for their Rails experience.

How much have you invested with Bacancy Technologies?

Somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

February 2017 to present.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Hiren was assigned to investigate and fix our broken system. There was no documentation, old versions of Ruby & Rails, conflicting dependencies and many other issues that caused problems for our members. Hiren's work has essentially fixed the key broken components, which has been instrumental in our doubling subscription revenue in just six months.

How did Bacancy Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

As good as can be expected. I have no problems with how they work at all. In fact, Hiren has worked late, overtime, and under a lot of pressure, while always maintaining a good, positive attitude despite the fluid nature of the project and its requirements.

What did you find most impressive about Bacancy Technologies?

I also was “thrown in the deep end” with this project and my lack of knowledge in managing an IT project such as this was made so much easier with the patience and perseverance of Hiren and his counterpart, Ankita. Never have I experienced such a fantastic commitment to the tasks at hand.

Is there any area that they could improve?

Nothing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a startup company in the Boston area developing a web app to help families and professional caregivers share care plans, schedules, tasks, health data, notes, and communications. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bacancy Technology?

The senior population is growing rapidly, and 1 out of every 5 seniors over the age of 65 needs help with activities of daily living. Tracking and coordinating care can be time-consuming and stressful for families, who often have no good way to communicate with professional caregivers or see how their aging loved ones are doing.

We were looking to create a new web-based app that would allow families to communicate with their professional caregivers who were taking care of seniors in their homes. We needed a vendor to build the solution completely from scratch. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In this project, we provided Bacancy with wireframes and mockups for what we wanted. They provided a detailed scope of work based on these mockups. They did all of the frontend and backend development of the app.

Right now, the app is a web portal. It allows us to enter information about all of our clients and caregivers. Everybody can see the care plan and client information—their needs, their preferences, and allergies or conditions that they have. Tasks are set up for the caregivers to complete every day or on an ad hoc basis. Everybody can see what the tasks are on a daily basis, and then the caregivers check off tasks as they complete them. Also, caregivers can record health data or observations about the patient like their temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, weight, and anything like shortness of breath, dizziness, or increased frailty. That’s all fully customized, depending on the client. Users can also share notes for both clients and caregivers. Often, a family member is the direct client supporting the caregiver because the seniors may have Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and not be able to advocate for themselves.

Through a chat-style function in the app, caregivers can share notes about how the patient is doing or questions or concerns that they have. The family members can share notes about tasks, things they want the caregiver to pay special attention to, or feedback.

The app is built in Ruby and React JS. We have a project manager/Scrum master, 2 frontend and 2 backend developers, and a testing person.

How did you come to work with Bacancy Technology?

We looked at quite a few companies. We had bids and proposals from at least 3 other providers. We weren’t satisfied, which is why we hired Bacancy Technology. Our CTO had prior experience working with them and recommend them for our project. They also had the most competitive price and the right resources to complete all aspects of our project on a tight schedule.

How much have you invested with Bacancy Technology?

We’ve spent about $35,000 or $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2017, and the relationship is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re going into beta testing right now. We have a product that works, and we’re getting really good feedback about the app. People like the interface. The app does what it’s supposed to do, and we’ve been sharing it with potential customers. A few people want to beta test it with us so far. We’re pretty pleased.

How did Bacancy Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well. This is the first time that we’ve worked with them. We had to develop a cadence that worked well after a few little bumps in the beginning, but the work has been going well. They’ve been really helpful in terms of managing the project and keeping track of all the different features, bug fixes, and things like that. We use Trello to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about Bacancy Technology?

We were pleased to see how quickly the project developed from concept to a working product. The development team easily grasped what we were trying to accomplish and made it happen.

We’re not technical people, so I’m not able to evaluate the code specifically. But, in general, they work fast and are able to create what we want. There are always bugs, but we received a lot of features quickly and the right functionality.

Are there any areas Bacancy Technology could improve?

In the beginning, we didn’t feel the communication was always clear regarding the next steps. This affected priorities, from our perspective, of the different things that we wanted to work on. As a result, the scope was a bit off. We didn’t get quite as much from the first phase of development as we expected. But, overall, we’ve been pretty happy. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Xenatus Global is a Microsoft certified partner that implements ERPs globally, and we are also an ISV that builds products for Microsoft and distributes them globally. I am the managing partner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bacancy Technology?

Our website was outdated and our hosting provider that we were using prior to them was constantly being hacked. We needed somebody to rebuild our website in modern technology and to host our website in a secure model.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We outsourced our web development of our website to them. We designed the website in-house and then we needed to provide it somebody that was going to figure out all the technical aspects of our website and architect it, design in, and then build it for us. After doing that, they hosted our website in their hosting platform, and they support us with any enhancements or any new features or things that we need on our sites.

Our website is a complete corporate profile of what we do and how we do it. It also is a location that attracts our resellers, because we have network of over 200 resellers around the world that buy the products from us and they implement them to end customers. We also needed a part portal where the party is able to login, get access to their products, solutions, marketing materials and so on. Bacancy did an end-to-end platform for us.

How many resources have been assigned to your project?

We interacted with at least five people when we were going through our website implementation. 

How did you come to work with Bacancy Technology?

We have been working with them for so many years, that I actually forgot how we got introduced to them. I think they were referred to us through a friend. When we first engaged them, what we did was that we asked them to do a small prototype on a mobile application that we were building. After that, we asked them to do some more web work and we gave them little bits and pieces to see their capabilities, and they did a very good job. Once they did a good job, then we started to give them more work.

How much have you invested with Bacancy Technology?

We have spent between $10,000 and $50,000 over the course of our relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2013, and the work is ongoing. We are about to engage them in a new phase of our website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This is a corporate platform. I’m not an online store, so I’m not tied to the performance of my website. It is more of a corporate image for us and an informational site. I can tell you from my Google Analytics, our website does very well. It’s fast. It’s mobile-supportive so our website transforms on whatever type of platform that you are using. They architected our site and our overall solution to be very modular. I can actually take bits and pieces depending on what I want to load and where I want to keep it and they made our CMS, which is WordPress, in such a way that it enables to very easily add and remove and do things on it that used to take us a long time before. More important than any of this, the reason we moved over to them was that we were being hacked before many times. Whatever they’ve done, I am very happy with it. We have had no downtime.

How did Bacancy Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

One feature about Bacancy that I can highlight is their support. They are extremely responsive to us. I can call them any hour of the day, 365 days year, and they respond back to us within the hour. They have an engineer available to do whatever it is that I ask.

Our communication has been done online. There is no in-person interaction. They assigned a project lead to us when we first got started. The same project lead that was assigned to us day one is still the same person that we reach out to whenever we want enhancements, changes, feature changes, or anything. I like the fact that they’ve maintained consistency throughout it. This way I don’t have to re-explain everything anytime we need something.

Everything we do, we do on a six-month basis, so I don’t have any budget implications. They deliver within the time frames that we’ve needed. I don’t remember if our large project was delivered on time or if it was delivered ahead of schedule, but I know they were not late. Any current things that we ask for they always work on it immediately, and they roll it out for us as soon as possible.

What did you find most impressive about Bacancy Technology?

The most impressive part about Bacancy is their support. Their support has been very different than all other providers. We’ve worked with many other providers because we update our website almost every other year. Other providers were really difficult and the support was the same. Bacancy is very responsive to what we want. They are very considerate of how things happen, and they are very patient. I’ve changed my marketing people over the last couple of years. The new marketing people that I’ve brought on board, Bacancy has trained them on how to administer and how to work on our platform at no charge to us which is something I am not used to.

Are there any areas Bacancy Technology could improve?

They could add to their toolset by providing design services. When we had our website designed, I engaged the designer that did the initial design and the usability of our applications. Then that was delivered to Bacancy so they could implement it. Then throughout the evolution of the site, if they had a designer in-house that was able to help me with more aesthetic things, then I would have relied on them 100% instead of having to constantly contract designers that can help me when we needed that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Bringur is an on-demand delivery application that allows customers to purchase local goods and have them delivered to their door. Items ranging from restaurant food, alcohol, groceries, and snacks can all be ordered and delivered via the customer’s smartphone. The application helps connect customers with drivers in the area who go to the shops, purchase the items, and deliver them to the listed addresses. Currently, the application is only available in the city of Waterloo, Canada, and the target customer is mainly young professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bacancy Technology?

I had an idea for an app after observing the success of on-demand delivery in America. I thought it would be successful in Canada. Most apps either specialize in on-demand restaurant delivery, alcohol delivery, or grocery delivery. Bringur combines all those features in a single platform. I had a few mockups and needed development assistance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are creating the application from start to finish, including an admin website, application development, and the server database. They created an iOS version for the customer Bringur app and the driver app.

The drivers get paid through a unique method on the platform. The customer lists the items they want, and the driver doesn’t know the price until he or she reaches the shop and sees the price. The driver writes down the prices for the customer, and when the customer agrees to the price, the credit card transaction is done. The signup process is user-friendly and simple.

How did you come to work with Bacancy Technology?

I contacted Bacancy after I found a similar ride-sharing application they’d made that impressed me. I sent them an email asking for a virtual meeting, and they responded immediately. I communicated to them my idea, and they drafted a proposal for me, including mockups and timelines. I admired their professionalism. Once a price was agreed on, they began work immediately.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in October of 2016, and the first phase of the project is complete. We’re currently talking about making additions to the app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I have been extremely impressed with Bacancy. They designed exactly what I asked for. The app has just launched. So far, I have 20 customers who regularly order on the app. The app is user-friendly and has few bugs.

How did Bacancy Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated daily through Skype and email. If something was urgent, we talked on the phone.

What did you find most impressive about Bacancy Technology?

They have a large yet competent team, so every field of development had a different expert working on it. For example, the user interface was completed by a developer, the server databases were completed by another developer, and so on. This feature was missing from other organizations I communicated with.

Are there any areas Bacancy Technology could improve?

They’re happy to make changes right away. I’ve worked with other freelance groups that would complain about making changes. Bacancy’s communication was great, and they responded within a day, even on weekends.