BroutonLab

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a co-founder and the CTO of a SaaS startup that helps companies analyze their customer feedback.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to get a fully functioning web application built as fast as possible to serve our current and growing customer needs. The BroutonLab team helped throughout the stack, including the frontend, REST APIs, databases, ETL, and some devops.

SOLUTION

How did you select BroutonLab and what were the deciding factors?

We were introduced to BroutonLab through the network of another vendor that we were working with for frontend development. We talked with their leadership and developers, and started working with them at half-capacity during a trial period. After that, we ramped up to full-time.

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

Our engagement with BroutonLab was more open-ended. Because I led our company's engineering efforts, which were many and varied, BroutonLab generously provided engineers whom I managed and worked very closely with on our feature development. The team primarily worked on low-level design, development, and testing.

They worked with Python and Javascript, web frameworks, web scraper libraries, SQL and NoSQL, and AWS. I focused on UX, design and architecture, planning, project management, review, integration testing, release, and maintenance.

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

We worked with four backend developers from BroutonLab.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've been building features that customers have been requesting and using immediately. The main KPI is getting features out that work and at a rapid pace, which they've done.

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

I managed the engineers myself, meeting with them daily. We primarily used the Turtle app for task planning and communication.

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

The talent of the engineers that BroutonLab connected us with is high, both technically and professionally. Everyone on the team works hard, communicates effectively, stays organized, attends meetings on time, and is always available to help

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

Since I am managing the engineers, instituting and enforcing engineering process is my responsibility. We'll continue to iterate on this going forward.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a videoboard film firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with BroutonLab?

We needed help with development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They implemented an improved method for facial verification in our app. They build the AI models, too. They do good research on which model and how it should be implemented.

What is the team composition?

I work with two data scientists and their manager.

How did you come to work with BroutonLab?

I found them on Upwork. I interviewed them severely and they survived the test.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2018 and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They moved the content that we don’t need to process. Originally, we had to process three hours of footage and now that the detection feature is accurate, it’s closer to 30 minutes. They minimized the demands of labor and hours that were needed to complete the task.

How did BroutonLab perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve managed the projects almost by themselves. I typically give them assignments and they perform it. They coordinate the people who work on different tasks. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their analysis work is strong, along with their data science capabilities. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything is good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They research all opportunities because they’re extremely intelligent people. Give them the problem and they will solve it. It doesn’t even have to be extremely specific.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of Turtle.dev.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

The team was hired to help our client translate code for a hierarchical Bayesian model MCMC estimation routine from R/C++ to CUDA.

SOLUTION

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

We were referred to Michael by another developer working with us.

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

The team helped our client translate code for a hierarchical Bayesian model MCMC estimation routine from R/C++ to CUDA.

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

3 developers covering Data Science, ML, and backend development roles. There has also been minor frontend work for showing data processing results.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This translation allowed speeding up computation time by two orders of magnitude! This also allowed paralyzing the code onto a high-power NVideo GPUs.

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

Michael's team work with our customer through through Turtle's app. They're clear and effective communicators.

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

Super capable and prices Data Science and ML experts. Just a very talented team overall!

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

na