Blue Brick

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of BeeMobile, we provide software development and consulting services for big companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Blue Brick?

We didn’t have the technology or resources in-house for the projects we were doing. For example, we needed to integrate a Python engine into a .NET project. Specifically, we needed to be able to script Python and execute a code generator that was written in C# and .NET. However, we didn’t have any Python skills at all.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Blue Brick solved that problem for our client. They made a couple of Python scripts to be able to run the full project.

Blue Brick did a full solution for a Facebook integrated game for Android and iOS. I made the requirements quite loosely. Within the budget, they had the freedom to hire all the artists, do all the game design, and choose the technology stack. The Facebook API integration involved Unity, and we had Xamarin for iOS and Android.

What is the team dynamic?

There have been as many as eight people working on our projects. This number varied, depending on the project.

How did you come to work with Blue Brick?

I found them at the Swedish Embedded Awards, where they won first prize. I talked to them there and got their number. A year later, I had a project that I couldn’t really start myself, so I got in touch with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $50,000–$100,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2012, and our collaboration ended in January 2016. Our business changed slightly so we do most of our development in-house now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The code quality has been really good. I would say they’re pretty advanced. My customers and I have been happy with the quality of their work and the way they design software.

I had the occasion to work with one of the developers, and one thing I noticed was the speed of that person’s typing. He typed twice as fast as I did while looking at my face and talking.

How did Blue Brick perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated mostly through Skype and phone calls. There were some language issues because most of our customers are based in Sweden. There was some overhead for us in translating what the customers needed from Swedish into Polish. It had nothing to do with Blue Brick’s performance; it’s just how outsourcing works between two countries.

I noticed that they charged just for the hours they were typing. If they grabbed a coffee for 30 minutes, they turned off the clock. Most companies would charge you for a full day whether they were working or not.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Blue Brick’s team was pretty humble and down to earth, which made it easy to collaborate with them. There were some stressful moments, but they managed things well and took care of me as a customer. Some companies go into a blame game when things don’t work out, but Blue Brick didn’t do that. They fixed whatever the issue was. I was quite happy with their social skills and communication skills.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If there was a way to limit the overhead in projects, that would be good. There could be less involvement from me as a client to get the requirements in place.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of Driver Media, LLC in Poland. I also work for our counterpart Scandinavian Holdings in Denmark. Our main product, field of interest and business activity is IT services and software publishing for the driving school industry. We provide software for lectures and driving practice in Denmark and Poland.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Blue Brick?

The initial challenge was to implement a new database. I convinced my business partner to hire a Polish development team because it's a lot cheaper than a Danish development team. Polish engineers are extremely skilled and we decided when we wanted to enter the Polish market, we would hire a Polish team to do the software for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first big task was to implement the new database from our old database from Denmark. They did all the websites in .NET and HTML5. We started to work on the mobile apps, but the project collapsed. Blue Brick mainly worked on implementing the Danish system to the Polish market.

We only had one problem during our cooperation, which was a misunderstanding from their junior developers on the task that they were doing, which was a USB presenter and online presenter for the lectures. That's mainly why we split with Blue Brick 2 years ago because I couldn't pay for the junior development handling very important stuff.

The company grew so big that Tom and the other owners that I met in the beginning, and that I trusted, simply didn't have time. It wasn't their fault. It was actually the result of their further successes with our project and others. They completed the work for us in transitioning the program from Denmark into our system. I'm happy with the quality of their service.

What is the team dynamic?

There was a maximum amount of 10 people, the average amount was 4-6 people.

How did you come to work with Blue Brick?

I was looking for somebody trustworthy because the IT sector was strange for me and I didn't have much knowledge about it back then. I wanted somebody whom I could trust when it came to quotations, prices, and getting the expertise for the size of the project. Tom, the owner of Blue Brick is a friend of mine. I knew him for a bit of time, and I decided that we would try to make something together with my new company, that's why I decided that I would go for Blue Brick. 

How much have you invested with them?

In total, I've spent around £400,000 [approximately $540,000] 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in the beginning of 2014, up until January 2016. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I'm getting evidence every day, we’re servicing all our clients and I have contact with them frequently. We are like the production company; we are the sellers, resellers, and publishers. That's why we had few problems during our cooperation, mainly because when Blue Brick did something in the wrong way, we had immediate feedback, especially from Denmark. We have almost 74% of the market there. We got feedback within 2 hours from a few hundred driving schools. You can multiply that by 10 clients in each driving school at the moment; that's a huge responsibility that they have.

80% of the cooperation was in a correct way, 20% there were some errors, mistakes, but it's not totally their fault.

This is a difficult task because they were working on a leaving project. Some of the changes, some of the data migration, some new features, and implementation was done in the night. On the very next day, everybody was using it without even noticing that something has changed. Our clients sometimes became testers. Usually, with this kind of situation, there are some risks and we were aware of that. I'm not complaining about that because I took the risk.

How did Blue Brick perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicated in person and on the phone. We have offices close to each other. Usually, we had short meetings, updates, presentations, and every time my business partner came to my city, we had more than a few meetings a day with them. 80% of the core communication was in-person.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The owners, the guys from the board of directors, and senior developers, they are very creative and they can really impress clients with their solutions and ideas. They have a very good and smooth way of suggesting things. When you want to do something in such a way, they can pretty much visualize it immediately and make you believe it will work. Usually, it does. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only disadvantage about the whole cooperation was the lack of project management. I even advised them in the middle of the phase that we had problems as a result of the misunderstandings from junior developers that they hired. They should hire professionals and spend some money on a project manager. That's their representation for their clients, and nobody understands why things are going wrong before they do. That was a problem. They closed the project and I decided that I would try to build my own team of developers. The split was friendly, no conflict or legal issues. 

Immediately after the feedback, they hired a project manager. I'm happy for them that they did. This is a common problem, even now I'm advising four different companies just in project management and legal issues. I suggested a few solutions to them. I know they are working hard on improving it, so that's the only problem. It's also the client’s responsibility. You have to be aware and take care of your project every time you're dealing with the other company. The project management is the key point that everybody has to be careful about.