Bixlabs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a broker at a large real estate firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

We needed help developing an app that will help process our execution tasks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bixlabs helped us define the problem, evaluate the need, and formulate a solution. We worked together, so the design would allow for streamlined communication as well as an accessible data presentation for our staff and clients. Once completed, the iOS app will make it possible to define, analyze, and evaluate transactions.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Damien (Product Manager, Bixlabs), Santiago (UX Designer, Bixlabs), and Matías (Tech Lead, Bixlabs).

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

I searched for developers online and reached out to a few different providers. After hearing what each of them had to offer, I decided to go with Bixlabs. They were only able to offer the design phase, without committing to the actual development of the app. I thought that was a good option, so I could get myself to a solid starting point before taking the next steps with the app.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $9,000–$10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from May–July 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have any measurable data yet, because the app has yet to launch. During the project, while I had most of the ideas myself, Bixlabs came up with some valuable suggestions that were helpful in determining the app’s direction.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

The team was really organized and prepared. I thought they brought good ideas to the table over the phone and through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m overall very happy and impressed with their work. They ask a lot of great questions and offer insight I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything right now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend them to anyone in the same position that I was in—they’ll help you get to your next step.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

When I started working with Bixlabs, I was a partner at a startup in the restaurant space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

We were looking to develop a mobile ordering and takeaway app MVP. The app would send food pickup notifications and allow customers to order and then pay for their bill. It would also allow customers to divide the bill among friends.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed an app for Android and iOS. They also consulted with us about which type of app would be best for our business. 

What is the team composition?

They offered an interdisciplinary team rather than just a project manager. 

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

Initially, I was looking for a project manager and I found a very good freelancer who said he had stopped freelancing and was now working at Bixlabs. He connected me with them, and the solution they offered fit my business needs.

How much have you invested in them?

I’ve invested about $60,000–$70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in June 2017 and finished the project in May 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our startup has grown using the solution that they developed for us. It was a positive experience, and they delivered what we expected within all deadlines. 

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We had in-office meetings in addition to using Slack, Jira, and email to communicate. If we had any setbacks, they took care of them immediately. They took a hands-on approach to the project, which made me confident in their insights.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They had a flexible working style and easily fixed all any problems that arose. They gave thoughtful advice about which technologies to use. I told them what we wanted to achieve and they figured out how to do it. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could communicate the project scope more clearly. However, since our project ended, I know that they brought on a project manager to help with communication. They are taking the right steps.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director and founder of Tried and Supplied, a specialty food and drink supplier. We also list recommendations on the website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

We hired Bixlabs to build our MVP to launch our business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bixlabs developed my MVP for a web-based application. We used Jira, Cloudinary, and InVision, and their team has their own staging environment.

What is the team composition?

We started the engagement working with a project manager and developer. Once we got further into the project, I worked closely with the developer. Other team members such as a designer and other developers were involved at various stages and filled different roles.

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

I found Bixlabs through Upwork. We engaged with them because they work with the latest technologies and in an agile framework.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $40 per hour.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Bixlabs in May 2017. We still work together, but not as much since I hired an in-house developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch the MVP and attract users. The project manager constantly thought of ways to improve the site, making helpful suggestions.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication was effortless. We mainly use Slack. Bixlabs understood the urgency. I always receive quick responses from their team. There were a few occasions where they missed deadlines, but that was ultimately a result of not giving them enough time. Bugs appear randomly and need fixing, but that’s a challenge for a lot of development teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate that Bixlabs thinks proactively about my business. Their team has a gift of figuring out alternative suggestions for the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are none that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I run the internal communications department of Sociedad Española. With over 7,000 employees, we are one of the largest healthcare providers in Uruguay.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

Initially, we handled human resource transactions, processes, and requests in person, but with our large staff, we decided to automate our internal resource management system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bixlabs developed mobile applications for iOS and Android devices to support our internal processes.

What is the team composition?

We worked with about seven developers, and a multidisciplinary team of programmers, project managers, and designers.

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

We personally knew one of their employees. Once we decided to move forward with the mobile app, we reached out and asked for a meeting. We chose them based on their understanding of our idea and their cost.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on the first version of the app from November 2017–June 2018. We’re currently working on new features for the platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a complex task, but Bixlabs understood our goals and successfully completed the project. They were receptive to our feedback and we’re very pleased with their work. The institution, as a whole, praises the app.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated mainly via Slack, but there were additional meetings and phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their collaboration skills were great. We had consistent meetings to discuss the project and Bixlabs willingly incorporated our feedback into the application.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at atLarge, Inc. We’re an interactive marketing and digital agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

We’ve done several projects with Bixlabs, but the most recent one was for an insurance company that provides towing coverage for boats. They had an existing application that was only half-completed, so this was an urgent project. The previous build included a custom PHP server, a native iOS app, and a native Android app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we started working with the platform, it was clear that a lot of the original codebase was subpar. It was difficult to maintain and had a number of bugs, while the design was poorly organized. We made updates to the PHP server largely internally, but Bixlabs managed the process of redesigning the applications and revamping the UX according to our specifications, as well as performing other maintenance tasks to optimize functionality. Their work then went through a QA process, and they oversaw the launch on the App Store and Google Play Store. They’ve also pushed through a number of important maintenance updates since the app’s release.

In terms of technologies, Bixlabs used Objective-C for the iOS app, as well as Java and Android Studio for the Android app. They also integrated a REST API from a company called AerisWeather, which allows the apps to pull real-time weather and tide updates. They also added interactive maps using Google Maps and Apple Maps as applicable.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one iOS developers and two Android developers during this project.

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

I had worked with the company personally in the past. They created an MVP and brought it to market successfully, so I was confident in their ability to take on this project. I knew they were skilled in native app development. I originally found them online.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2017, and the project concluded in May 2018. We plan to work with them again in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We collectively brought response times down from about 12 seconds to under a second, which was a huge UX problem before we addressed it. The apps are extremely stable, and crash reports have gone down to nearly zero. The client and their stakeholders have been very happy with the results of the project.

Also, one of the initial drivers of the client’s redesign was a plan to more deliberately market the specific towing insurance package, and they wanted to make sure the apps could handle spikes in traffic. They’re moving forward with these marketing efforts now.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

Their approach to project management is one of the major reasons we choose to work with them. We added them to our company Slack due to a number of designer/developer resources we utilize on the platform. Their team collaborated very effectively with ours. We used ActiveColab to track progress and manage their weekly sprints. We also met every Monday to go over priorities for the next week.

They were very understanding and willing to work around my schedule, sometimes with short notice or minimal information, which we very much appreciated. When I wasn’t available, they kept pace and worked independently to keep things on schedule.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Both applications were successfully delivered with almost no bug reports. It was a painless QA process, which is extremely rare in the industry.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Any challenges we faced were minor and fairly standard for projects of this nature. Compared to other vendors, they handled these challenges very well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of a video compliance startup. We’re in the RegTech industry, developing a platform that helps regulated industries—such as financial services and healthcare—to deploy video in their environments and oversee that video for compliance violations and other regulatory issues.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

We’re a group of accomplished backend developers and were specifically looking for resources to augment our frontend team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a cloud-based platform. The web is our interface into that entire product and we wanted an Angular-based JavaScript frontend, backed by an API running in the cloud. All our services extract intelligence out of video . We chose Bixlabs to help build the frontend for that product for our company.

The development is all Angular and TypeScript, and associated technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. 

What is the team composition?

They assigned two engineers for the project.

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

In my previous startup, we had worked with a team in South America where you can find people who are very skilled and speak English at a fraction of the cost of a Bay Area developer. In the Bay Area, developers are expensive and the loyalty level is extremely low. Developers are encouraged to jump jobs very quickly, but if you are a startup it can be a real risk to get people invested and trained and then they leave, leaving you with a big hole.

For this project, I reached out to the team I had worked with before, but they were going in a different direction and didn’t have the core skills I needed for this project. I looked for other groups, and based on interviews with the CTOs, I chose Bixlabs.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working together since September of 2017 and it is an ongoing collaboration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They developed our product from scratch and it is tremendous. We’re able to demo to customers. They have delivered perfectly and continue to do so.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Slack, email, and Jira. We effectively do the project management because it is staff augmentation. They’re two developers who work on our team in our development cycles, in our agile methodology. They’re very skilled engineers who know what they are doing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a pretty deep pool of people who know Angular. Over the holidays, we had engineers taking a vacation and Bixlabs was able to very quickly find people who could contribute meaningfully in the absence of the main developers who were assigned. They’re very good at what they do and they have a lot of expertise, especially around Angular.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have absolutely no criticisms of their work so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to know what it is you want to build and be very clear about what you want.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of a healthy meal prep company.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs ?

We needed frontend and backend development, including architecture, as well as mobile application development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The mobile app was developed using IBM LoopBack framework. They used Node.js for the backend technology and Angular for the frontend.

What is the team composition?

In total, we have worked with 6 or 7 developers.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them on this project in July of 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, they provided great development services. We have had a good ongoing relationship and continue to contract them.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

They are probably one of the best project management groups that I’ve worked with, specifically Lucrecia Gonzalez [Project Manager, Bixlabs] who we worked with the most. She’s fantastic. We have daily communication and speak almost daily over Slack. It’s very well organized.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overall, it was the good organization. They’re very professional, and their strongest area is in technical documentation. That provided a lot of continuity since we had worked with different developers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Define your requirements ahead of time, as it will make the project management experience all the better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of a social polling application that combines the social engagement side of marketing with analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

We wanted to create an Android version of our application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the Android version of the app.  They also provide engineers to do the server-side work for us. However, I am not familiar with the technology they have used.

What is the team dynamic?

They assigned 3 members of their team to our project. Our initial contact was Alfredo, and we were in touch with Matias as well. We have 1 web developer, 1 server-side developer, and they also have a part-time graphic designer on their team.

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

We had worked with a freelance developer to create the iOS version of the app, whom I had found via Upwork. When we told him we were looking to expand to Android and to get someone to help us out with server work, he recommended a few people. Those people ended up working for Bixlabs.

We went through a review process with Bixlabs, and looked at samples of other projects they had completed. We knew they would be a good team, having been recommended by our iOS developer, and we have loved working with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent approximately $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Bixlabs in March 2017. The project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have gotten 5,000—10,000 downloads on the Android app. We’ve had very few complaints, and we are currently somewhere in between 4.3 and 4.4 stars on Google Play. Most of the negative reviews have been from people who were trolling.  

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Asana with them. They supplied us with a project manager, Ana Dawson, who is wonderful. We have a well-organized project, thanks to Bixlabs. Even though they are based in Uruguay, their English is perfect on all media: Skype, Slack, and email. We have been very impressed with their work, and it has been cost effective.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Some of their key strengths are their willingness to communicate, they like to stay on top of deadlines and budget everything hourly so that we are able to track cost easily. They communicate very well through Skype calls, webinars, or any means necessary. They are personable people which is the biggest thing. I really enjoy talking with their team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Developing apps can be tricky. With any company I have worked with, it is about trying to meet deadlines faster.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of PreeMe + You, which is a social benefit startup based in Oakland, California. We address disparities in premature and neonatal health in the United States and around the world. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

Both I and my co-founder are both academically research-driven and trained. I’m an anthropologist, and the co-founder is a neonatologist. We have a lot of knowledge about this field as far as what is needed to bridge the current gap and which tools we need to create, but we’re not tech people. The whole idea of making apps in Silicon Valley seemed foreign to us. It was out of our scope of training.

We needed someone with tech expertise to help us build our app. I also wanted a firm that really had a social mission and that understood our goals. We’re not a typical Silicon Valley tech startup that’s trying to get rich. We come from research and academia. Our focus is on understanding health needs. We really wanted to apply a lot of what we’ve learned over the last 20 years. We’ve seen the need, and we know that we need a technology-based solution in order to make health more accessible. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We are working with a pretty small budget. So, we strategized with Bixlabs and came up with this idea of doing a mobile-based web app as an initial beta that will be tested in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). We’ve created a neonatal app that tracks maturation of preemies from the time they’re admitted to a NICU through discharge. We are also designing a second app that’s going to help preemies and their families with developmental exercises and assessments in a way that lets parents partner with their child’s medical caretakers.

We had 2 developers throughout the process, but we only used 1 at a time.

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

Our technical director works with many different technical firms. He has a lot of experience in this space. Bixlabs really met us on equal footing. They are very skilled as app developers and in the tech world, but they also really recognize they’re helping us build our vision to meet a need.

They are great listeners and really understand the problem we’re trying to solve, and they bring in the right tech expertise. The whole team is mission-driven. I felt we were well-aligned. I also selected them because they didn’t do business in the typical Silicon Valley way where everything is highly aggressive. We wanted to be a different kind of social benefit tech startup. We are really about creating community and prioritizing fair contracts between firms.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them sometime between March and May 2017. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Throughout the development, they really understood that we will be using this app with families with premature infants and also with doctors in the neonatal space. Doctors in this area are very reluctant to test any kind of new technology. Bixlabs understood that whatever product they made, we would have to do multiple iterations after that. A lot of testing would have to happen before we are comfortable launching the product into the open market.

For the first time, the NICU has an app that doctors and nurses and parents can all use together. This is the first product of its kind. The fact that busy medical staff are enthusiastic and actually willing to give feedback shows that Bixlabs’ work was really excellent. These are families under distress. No user is going to be willing to even test it or give us feedback if the app’s not helpful. The first introduction has to be compelling so that people are interested enough to give feedback, which allows us to keep on improving the app. If the product wasn’t done well, nobody would sign up to test it because everyone is too busy.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

They assigned a project manager, George, who was really wonderful at balancing Bixlabs’ interests with our own interests. He often acted as a bridge. I know they’re open to using all different kinds of project management software. They decided which project management software they were going to use based on our specific needs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What really stood out for me was the thoughtfulness that they showed and their willingness to engage with other areas of expertise. I went with a gigantic firm that was used to large corporate projects. Of course, I feared that I would not get the same amount of attention as I’d receive from a boutique firm. I was really comfortable with Bixlabs; they give every client the amount of attention that they need. With every app development project, there’s always going to be issues with what’s in scope and what’s out of scope. They were really great working through any bumps or obstacles to ensure everything was fair.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are based in Uruguay, and our team doesn’t speak Spanish. They write all their codes in Spanish, so after translating some of the app text to English, a lot of little grammar mistakes appeared. Most of these were minor issues, but they did create extra work on our part to have to deal with the language translations. Their English is great, and they have project managers that are completely bilingual. It’s mostly just small translational issues. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Front Porch Politics, which is a small business working on using technology to increase civic engagement.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bixlabs?

I was looking for a development agency to develop a mobile app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

So far, we only have the iOS version of the app and they built it using Xcode. We worked with Google and Facebook APIs. We didn’t have to build any databases on the backend of the app, though.

We had one developer at a time and one project manager. We switched developers half way through as resources got reassigned.

How did you come to work with Bixlabs?

I found Bixlabs through Clutch and was impressed by what seemed like a solid foundation around application development and user experience design. I felt like they would be capable of building an app that performed well and looked and felt nice to use.

How much have you invested with Bixlabs?

We spent between $12,000–$14,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2017, and the app was launched in March of the same year. The relationship is ongoing but we are not currently working on anything.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are very pleased with the final product. The cost was definitely lower than if I was working with an agency in the United States. Communicating with them was easy and I appreciated working with a small team as opposed to having to guard against the team being overstaffed and being overcharged. They were great thought partners for the project and its implementation is something I’m really pleased with. I’m going to continue working with them moving forward.

How did Bixlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We used email and Skype to communicate. They had me use JIRA so I could see the user stories and the backlog and provide feedback. That was sufficient since it wasn’t a terribly complex project.

Their communication was good and the project manager was a valuable addition. They kept the big picture of the project in mind. Under other circumstances, I suppose an entrepreneur or company could provide the project manager role themselves and interface directly with developers. In my case, it was something that allowed me to focus on other things while the project manager helped research the APIs that we needed to interact with, think about the logical flow of the app, and bridge the gap between the division and the technical implementation.

What did you find most impressive about Bixlabs?

I don’t have much to compare them to. They seemed to be very technically competent without an overly formalized process. I feel like I was dealing with people that would produce something of high quality in a lean way.

Are there any areas Bixlabs could improve?

There were aspects of working with the Facebook API that complicated the project and created the need for some unexpected iterations. I think more rigorous planning up front might have saved us time and money.

There were also some frequent typos in the app. To a certain extent, it’s a limitation of the iOS developer platform, but the workflow for discovering those errors and having them corrected was challenging because I had to download a new version of the app on TestFlight and then play with it to notice the typos. Then, I had to communicate with the project manager who would tell the developer to get them fixed in an upcoming sprint. Later, I would have to download the new app to try it again.

Ideally, there should be a way to form a tighter feedback loop there. It’s probably a challenge with the language barrier since English is not everyone’s first language. Some additional care and oversight around the copy for the application would save time and money.