Capicua

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former department head at an applied AI company. Currently, I have a different position at the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

Our arm of the company was a venture studio, taking early-stage companies from zero to one. We engaged Capicua to support us in building our software product for one of our startups. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua has supported us in developing a software product for an early-stage company. The solution is geared towards helping organizations recruit diverse individuals, including women, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. The functionality supports candidates in applying for C-suite or board-level jobs for which they may or may not have experience. 

The product is used in recruitment processes; candidates take simulation tests, allowing the recruiter to see how individuals would react in a situation. This functionality enables organizations to make better selections of diverse candidates with the necessary skills, even if they don’t have experience in senior-level roles. 

Together, we’ve built the product from scratch using React for the frontend and a mix of Java and Python for the backend. Our combined team consists of individuals in specialized fields working together on weekly sprints. In-house software developers worked with Capicua’s developers on the initial build over a year-long period. Now, the product is in its pre-seed stage. 

The startup that we work with manages the hosting. Capicua makes one-off tweaks to the product, such as changes to the frontend components. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 2–3 core team members for Capicua, including a UI/UX design lead and a senior frontend developer. Additionally, we’ve worked with several junior individuals on the software and UI/UX design side. Ismael (Founder & Director) is also involved in the project. 

How did you come to work with Capicua?

We found Ismael through a referral from another organization. Capicua had really deep bench strength from development and UI/UX design perspectives. They were also competitive in terms of pricing. 

Moreover, many of their individuals are based in Latin America; this was great for us because it allowed us to remain in the same time zone, making offshoring less complicated to integrate teams. Ultimately, Capicua had the right talent, price, and time zone, which worked really well for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent upwards of $50,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around January 2022, the product’s soft launch was around June 2022, and the partnership is ongoing. They’ve also supported other ventures within the company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

What Capicua has helped us build has allowed the startup company we work with to secure investment. The startup has received seed investment from a venture capital firm and will now focus on commercialization. Many organizations we work with don't make it, so finding the product market fit and getting customers interested has been very rewarding. Moreover, the solution is live and in the beta phase, so it's in the users' hands.  

During development, we ran pilots with potential customers, which allowed us to ensure that what we were building was in line with the customers' expectations. We haven't overbuilt the MVP; we've only put what we knew the customers wanted into the product. Capicua and our team held each other accountable, so they've helped us keep to keep the cost down. Therefore, we haven't cost the startup money without the revenue stream to match. 

Ultimately, Capicua has helped us create something customers want to buy.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

They always deliver on time or ahead of schedule. Moreover, the team is very responsive and easy to work with. Capicua is an extension of our team and very ingrained in our day-to-day. 

During development, we had weekly sprint planning sections and demos through Zoom. We use Jira for project management and Targetprocess for our sprint planning. As for daily communication, we connect through Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The ease with which Capicua has ingrained into our team is impressive. While many consulting firms only talk about being an extension of internal teams, Capicua has truly become our partner in this project. Thinking about the three organizations involved, I wouldn't know which teammate works for which organization, which is really nice. Capicua isn't just a vendor — they're a partner. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could probably charge more for their services. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ismael is very flexible in terms of setting up the project. I recommend putting a master service agreement (MSA) in place, which is how Capicua likes to work. 

If you try to scope every individual project, you'll lose the magic of having them embedded in your team. We have an MSA with defined rates and trust each other, which has worked really well. Set yourself up to be partners with Capicua.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a managing director and partner at the Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We needed a company that could help us with feature development for one of our products, which is a data and business intelligence platform that our internal teams use to build data applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua was a major part of the development team that built our Cloud-based data and business intelligence platform’s prototype and continued to develop it. They provided us with frontend, backend, JavaScript, and TypeScript developers, who built on Node.JS, as well as DevOps engineers, who provided DevOps support services. They built the corresponding backend application server and developed the frontend user interface, a visual drag-and-drop designer interface for end users to design data flows and visualizations. The data store is based on Snowflake, and they were tasked with building the Snowflake integration.

What is the team composition?

It varied over the course of the project, but we worked with 4–12 people from Capicua.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

We found Capicua through a referral.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on this specific project from April–December 2022. We’re still engaged with them on some other work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Capicua did an excellent job, and they delivered high-quality work. They were capable, great at communication, easy to work with, reliable, and trustworthy.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

Capicua performed well in terms of project management. They were very consistent, and they did a great job of meeting expectations. We ran the project as agile and worked in two-week sprints. The project ran smoothly, and they collaborated closely with our internal product leadership team despite working remotely.  

We used Jira for project management, and we primarily communicated through Slack, email, phone calls, and Zoom meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They didn’t see themselves as a body shop — they took ownership of the project. They were highly passionate about what they were doing, and that translated into them being more engaged in problem-solving and thinking through how to best solve the problem that we were trying to solve.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they did a great job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bring them early in the design stage of the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a former product owner and senior technical program manager at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a management consulting firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We hired them to develop a piece of software for analytics for our internal use and deployment to our clients. We analyze business problems for other companies and then provide them with recommendations on how to solve those problems. 

Since our consultants weren’t computer scientists, they would often produce complicated Excel, PowerPoint, or Word documents that were static — they weren’t in the cloud or web-enabled. Moreover, the documents were so complex that it would have been difficult to build software based on them. Meanwhile, many clients expected to have a piece of cloud-enabled software available at the end of the project to implement whatever business considerations we had suggested to them. 

We wanted to build a tool that would allow everyone, from consultants to clients to developers, to build a logic centered around the business problem. This tool would enable users to easily manipulate and modify information, collaborate, and deliver insights. The analytic pipeline would output to an API that could then be interrogated over time. We had a set of internal developers and designers, but our team wasn’t sufficient to develop the product we wanted. Therefore, we needed Capicua’s help as both staff augmentation and design thinking partners.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we gave Capicua our idea. We had basic flameworking around coding standards and organization structures. Our designers created some mock-ups, and we worked with Capicua to break down the design. For bigger pieces of functionality, we had formal design reviews. They worked with our internal designers, conducting interviews with our consultants and end clients. In the initial phase, we delivered version 1.0 of the product hosted on AWS. 

The next phase centered on refinement. We were involved in cases with large clients that would highlight different aspects of the software that weren’t working particularly well. Capicua went through the normal development cycle; they talked with the people who were having the issue, figured out the problem, opened tickets, and put plans together to address issues. From there, we would do some design work and build the solution as a unified team with Capicua and our internal staff. At the end of phase two, we finished version 1.5 of the tool. 

The third phase involved a major re-platforming where Capicua helped us move the product from AWS to Microsoft Azure. Secondly, they took the product from a web UI with the directed application — drag and drop boxes — and expanded it so that third parties could start to develop. Together, we developed an API and a software development kit (SDK)  to expand the product and make it more of an ecosystem rather than a tool. All three phases took about two years.

The product’s functionalities included users uploading data sets or connecting to them in the cloud through Amazon S3 or Microsoft Azure. Users could also connect the uploaded data to a module that allowed them to do calculations and transformations, which could be in R, Python, or other built-in modules. From there, the tool produced output to either an API or a frontend Tableau. We had a Tableau widget for users to visualize the data. 

The output could also be on a small website, so we had a basic website builder to export the tool’s learnings into a rudimentary site for continued data collection. We built the tool using React, Node.js, and Capicua helped us with infrastructure. We stood up our own Tableau servers and Python notebooks, which we hooked into our frontend. 

Additionally, Capicua did engineering design work that was less about the look and feel and more about filling in the gaps. The major functionality was laid out and designed, and the engineers used their best judgment to design the minor functionality as they saw fit. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with 6–8 developers and a DevOps person. I mostly worked with senior-level teammates from Capicua, though I also worked directly with the developers.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

We found them through one of our partners, who had worked with them previously at a startup. After interviewing Capicua, we found they were great at ambiguity. Many of the teams we had worked with in the past weren’t great with ambiguity, and we had to lay out every last thing because they were more interested in meeting our requirements than producing a usable piece of software. 

We chose Capicua because we wanted a provider who could be more of a partner than an order-taker. They were happy to voice opinions, and their quality of work was very high. Talking with senior staff, it was clear they were very good. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $2.5 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with them from October 2019–September 2021. Although the project with Capicua continued, I left the company, so I can’t comment on its status beyond that.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The tool was fantastic and worked exactly how we wanted — Capicua met our expectations. We measured the project's success based on output-driven metrics and how the product enabled our consultants to do their work more quickly. Although we dealt with large data for each data set, it wasn't high-yield. Our work was more about enablement and producing good software that worked well, was smooth, and easy to use — that was our metric.

For example, a Fortune 500 telecommunications company hired us for a project requiring us to analyze data and produce an output. Previously, this process took one consultant 2–3 days. With the software that Capicua helped us build, we could upload end-to-end in half an hour. 

Another metric of Capicua's success was how they helped us evolve the software. When we launched version 1.0, we could only upload a few hundred megabytes of data at a time. By the end, we could upload up to several terabytes on a cloud drive or 2–3 gigabytes of a local file. 

Moreover, our end clients loved the tool. Previously, they'd receive a fragile Excel sheet. With the new tool, they could get a piece of software to upload a file, and the tool could take care of the rest automatically. When a data analyst uploaded a file, the CEO could look at the Tableau dashboard an hour later, and it would be completely correct. Additionally, our internal consultants liked the tool because, as it was cloud-enabled, they could collaborate on it. 

Capicua also addressed bugs very quickly. Any time we had an issue, we went through standard development processes. If we ever needed to shorten those processes due to a very high-profile bug, Capicua was always willing to jump in and figure it out. Overall, they responded well; our discussions were about how to fix the problem rather than whose fault it was. 

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

They met timelines very well; they would work late hours to ensure we met our deadlines. If we ever had an issue with personnel, they were great about coaching the individual or moving them off the project and getting someone better suited for our team. Capicua was fantastic at responding to feedback; they never balked and constantly focused on finding solutions instead of complaining. If we asked them for something, we got it. 

We worked as two Scrum teams; I acted as the program manager and would meet with our US-based team and the Capicua team. The Capicua team also had senior leads responsible for the day-to-day work who would come to me for product decisions. 

We used Jira for project management. As for communication, we used Slack, Zoom, and WebEx. We only knew they weren't part of our internal team because of the difference in time zones; other than that, they acted as internal teammates. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was most impressed with Capicua's technical abilities. They really knew their stuff, and their team was excellent at producing quality software. Pablo (VP of Technology) wrote difficult and advanced pieces of software, including custom software with Tableau. Even Tableau was pretty amazed because Pablo figured out a solution when there was no existing software or feature for what we wanted. 

The highest compliment for a staff augmentation organization is their resources feeling like internal resources, and Capicua's team was very well-integrated with our internal team. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing they could have improved was pushing back a bit more when something didn't work; they were hesitant to say when something was too difficult to tackle. Other than that, they did fantastically. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The best thing you can do is to lean on them like they're your internal staff and not turn them into order-takers. Capicua has very smart people; you'll get a better result if you treat them like collaborators. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a digital dermatology platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We needed a company that could build a mobile app and a web app for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I hired Capicua to handle the front- and backend development of a mobile app and a web app using React Native. We provided them with a company profile and business plan, and they’re tasked with building the app’s functionality and technology from the ground up.

The apps are a two-sided marketplace, like Airbnb or Uber, that services two core groups of customers: the people that provide the service and the people that avail of the service. For our business model, we essentially work to facilitate connections between doctors and patients through the web and mobile apps.

We’re currently in the process of building the last parts of the app and website, which are mostly frontend and UI Pangea. Capicua will be in charge of their maintenance as well.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with five people from Capicua, including Ismael (Founder & Director) and Carlos (Project Lead). 

How did you come to work with Capicua?

I found Capicua through a platform that helps companies find remote IT talent and development teams.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $40,000 on this project so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven’t launched yet, so we currently have no metrics. However, Capicua's work has been very well regarded by our team, investors, and everybody involved. Overall, they’ve done a phenomenal job as far as building the apps and acting in a consultative capacity to help refine UX and workflows.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

Capicua has performed well in terms of project management. They’ve stayed on budget and over delivered. They’ve definitely done more than what we asked of them.

We use Figma and Slack to manage the project and our communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate Capicua's consultative role in giving us ideas, advice, and ways to improve the platform instead of just doing what we asked them for without any feedback. The second thing I really appreciate about them is the fact that we were quoted the initial scope of work based on a certain amount of hours. We've already gone past that amount of hours, and they didn't overbill us or try to haggle us for additional time. They've been very generous with their time, and all of them are just great, very supportive team members.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve been great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to take the time to meet them in person. That was something that Capicua made themselves available to do, which I appreciated and added a lot of value to our relationship.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Pulp, a debate and discussion app that lets users share content in any video, image, or audio format. We’ve turned a simple comment section into an organized and clear way of debating.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

Our challenges were to establish our brand and rebrand the comments section. Online debates have a bad reputation due to all the toxicity and misinformation online. We needed help to create a brand that signaled to people what we were about and corresponded to the application we’d develop. Moreover, we wanted to energize people and create something that wasn’t as stuffy, traditional, or unhelpful as Internet comments tend to be.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua helped us take our idea out of our minds and into a screen. They helped us with the UX/UI design and with branding. We initially provided some branding assets as the base. We had a little gavel icon prominent in our logo; Capicua got rid of it in the first set of logos they offered to us. They explained to us the difference between branding an image and a name. Ultimately, the team convinced us that our brand would be more substantial and identifiable if we focused on the name instead of using symbology to get people to think of us.

For branding, the core deliverables were the logo and branding kit, which involved the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors for the application and marketing assets. The logo had clear parameters, and they delivered black, white, and colorized versions. They also provided clear instructions on how not to use the logo, worked with us on messaging, and developed a landing page.

For the application, we first did a discovery phase with Capicua and our team; they had to understand our vision before we put anything on paper. We passed ideas around, as well as examples of other products that contained features we wanted to explore and brands we wanted to stay away from. Toward the end of the discovery phase, we start to play with wireframes.  Initially, we had a working version, and they were able to iterate on that. We then decided to get into the second phase and split our application into priorities.

Overall, the priority for our company was conversation threading. We leaned on Capicua because all Internet users were familiar with conversation threading, so we spent a lot of time creating our company’s bread and butter during the second phase. We wanted multiple options to view the conversation as it related to any piece of content. We spent a lot of time figuring out how we could have an argument-based UX that didn’t require users to learn a lot of new things and how to recycle items that users were familiar with while building a brand-new experience.

In phase two, we worked on the details around conversations. We created a reference bank to help us design the experience as a crowdsourced annotated bibliography. The product would organize the conversation and let people indicate to the community what links to trust.

Once we got that down as the core of our business, phase three was filling in the rest of the functionality. Capicua created small familiar features, like profiles and a newsfeed, to make a difference in the UX. They used Figma and Overflow for development.

Additionally, even though it wasn’t initially discussed, Capicua helped us build a pitch deck. We were responsible for the copy and narrative, but they chimed in.

What is the team composition?

Everyone we contacted from Capicua was involved in the project. We met with Ismael (Founder & Director) several times. He oversaw the project and made himself available for our questions and concerns. Additionally, we dealt with some senior designers and the COO.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The total scope was a three-month engagement; we worked with them from September–November 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They built the holistic UX around sharing content and having conversations, arguments, and debates in a way that was functional and easy to understand without requiring too much user education. Also, the product was beautiful. The color schemes were user-friendly, energizing, and not intimidating. For example, pink meant that the user disagreed with an argument, green meant they agreed, and blue meant they didn’t know how they felt.

They also did an amazing job with the pitch deck; it was beautiful and practical, and we were very happy with it. All the people who have seen it have loved it. Before Capicua, we only had an abstract idea. While people enjoyed the conversation, they wouldn’t invest in something they couldn’t see clearly. Capicua helped us demonstrate our challenging concept and made it digestible and enjoyable to consume.

All in all, we’ve gotten a lot of good reactions from our community so far. The team spent a lot of time ensuring the design was efficient and attractive for users, which was important for our brand. They provided a lot of clarity, and we expect it’ll yield successful investor conversations in the next couple of months.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was fantastic. The design team communicated seamlessly with our internal developers. They were based in Uruguay, but they made themselves available. They gave me access to their accounts, emails, and Slack. Since they shared their Figma, we could watch them work. Also, we used Overflow to see what the components were supposed to do and met twice a week via Google Meet. Additionally, we could see their availability and schedule time with them on Calendly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Working with them was such a positive experience. We got more out of the engagement than we expected. We knew we gave them a difficult task, but no matter who we dealt with, they were totally invested in the project. Capicua’s team was friendly and professional; we felt very respected and valued. They were a wonderful part of our team and worth every penny.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything off the top of my head.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Verde Economy, which is developing a new payment system. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We needed help designing the product’s UI/UX — we wanted Capicua to conceptualize and visualize the design and execute it. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the start of the project, we provided Capicua with our overall business strategy and our concept of how customers would interact with the product. We wanted them to look at payment system best practices and then design a radically simple UI/UX that would make it easier for our customers to interact with our product. Then, Capicua designed the UI/UX. 

Now, Capicua provides us with consulting services in terms of product design. 

What is the team composition?

I only have one point of contact, the CEO, but about five teammates have been working on our project, including the head designer. 

How did you come to work with Capicua?

A mutual contact connected us. Then, I reached out to Capicua’s CEO with our product briefing because I wanted to better understand their ability to help us realize our vision. After several meetings, we contracted them for the design work. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $150,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in November 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been thrilled with the outcome of the UI/UX design project — it’s the reason we’ve continued to work with them. We’re going to continue to outsource our UI/UX development to Capicua’s team. Everyone on our team has been happy with Capicua’s deliverables. 

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team is quick to deliver and very responsive; no matter when we need something, Capicua ensures it is done quickly. Everything they deliver is always within budget and often before our deadlines. 

Their team absorbs feedback well to ensure our relationship is iterative. We are in constant communication with Capicua through Slack, which ensures we have very fluid communication that helps us resolve issues when they arise. We also occasionally use WhatsApp and Zoom to communicate. We have an excellent working relationship with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Capicua has a very strategic and smart team. Whenever they propose a solution, it's always couched in a strategic justification. Their team is also very creative — their creativity is one of the top values we get from them. They’ve surprised us with solutions that we’ve never even thought of. They combine their strategic understanding of our business with the ability to execute solutions innovatively. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The project has gone smoothly, so I can’t think of anything Capicua needs to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Once customers have their brief developed, I’d suggest bringing in Capicua and beginning the partnership. Capicua will help make the brief better and more precise based on ongoing feedback customers provide. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a partner at Agency Jet, a digital marketing agency with multiple locations across the US — we’re a remote company. We provide digital marketing services like SEO, PPC, web development, and web design. In my position, I oversee our web development department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

Our website was due for an update. Although we offer web design and development ourselves, we could never get to our own website. Therefore, we decided to look for someone with a fresh perspective on UX that could help us design a new website. We use HubSpot, so our potential service provider was required to be knowledgeable about HubSpot.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua has helped us design and develop a completely new website from scratch using HubSpot. We have very specific brand guidelines, taglines, and content submission standards. Thus, one of our main requirements for Capicua was to build our website around our custom-content approach, branding, and messaging, as well as to integrate the moving and animated parts we required.

To meet our requirements, Capicua initially took the time to understand who we were, our culture, and how we approached our work with clients. After the discovery phase, they designed the website based on their findings and our requirements.

Our branding only highlights two colors, black and orange, so Capicua has also helped us create a complementary color palette. With their guidance, we’ve also created some custom illustrations we didn’t have before. For this part of the project, we had to hire an outside illustrator, and Capicua also helped us select the illustrator to work with.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three people from Capicua, and we’ve also talked with Mauricio (Co-Founder & CCO) and Ismael (Co-Founder & CEO).

How did you come to work with Capicua?

We found them online. We also reviewed a couple of other agencies, but when we talked with Mauricio and Ismael, we felt a strong connection with them. They understood very well our culture and our needs.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $32,000 on the website in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2021, and our engagement is ongoing. The website design process took two months, and website development took four months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Capicua has given us a fresh perspective and created a great design for our website around our company’s culture, branding, and standards. Now, we have a better website than we had before. Moreover, they’ve elevated our branding with their design work and guidance.

Since launching our new site, we’ve received amazing feedback from clients. Thanks to its great design, the new website caused a domino effect, which made us improve our designs and collateral in other areas of our business.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

Capicua has performed excellently; they’re one of the most efficient companies I’ve worked with. They deliver wireframe designs very quickly — I’ve been impressed with how much of our feedback they’ve been able to implement within a matter of days.

Capicua uses the Agile methodology for web development, so we mostly communicate via a shared Slack channel to streamline the process. They also use Figma to create and share their designs. By using Slack and Figma, we’ve had a very fluid collaboration. On top of that, we have regular Zoom meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Capicua is an excellent communicator with a great talent for interpreting requirements. Creative work is very subjective; however, Capicua is very good at understanding ideas, thoughts, and feedback in a very constructive way. Additionally, they’re great at listening, which allows them to provide their own feedback and bring ideas to the table. They don’t simply follow instructions; they share their knowledge too, which is refreshing. They have a collaborative approach to design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing Capicua could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Maintain constant communication, whether it is via a shared Slack channel or Zoom meetings. Capicua thrives on feedback and is always in touch with their client, so you need to be as active and involved in the project as they are.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-CEO of APX Platform. We provide training and data analytics services for athletic practices.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We were looking for a company that could help us find affordable, high-quality full stack developers who could work within our time zone. We also wanted to scale up and down that team as needed to meet our startup needs, so we needed to work with a flexible team in that regard.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua provides us with full stack developers who work with us as our development team. These resources have different areas of expertise; some of them focus on backend development, and others focus on frontend development. In addition to these developers, Capicua currently provides us with a QA engineer and a UI/UX designer who work on our project part-time. Still, we’ll switch the QA engineer to a full-time basis very soon.

Before Capicua’s team joined, we had inherited a software development environment that a European software company had developed. Thus, Capicua’s scope hasn’t only included developing new features but also redeveloping some of the components that didn’t work properly.

We want to turn our development environment into a design-driven development one — we want to see mock-ups first. Thus, the UI/UX designer helps us come up with various mock-ups and provides feedback to identify the most user-friendly ones.

From there, we pass those designs to our development team to start working on implementing the feature. During this process, our project manager helps us enhance our requirements. As for the technology stack, we use Figma for the UI/UX designs, PostgreSQL for the database, React for the frontend, and Node.js for the backend. In addition to that, they use TypeScript and make some API integrations.

Our software system has two main components on which Capicua’s developers are focusing. One of them is our training module, where we have videos and a feature that allows users to assign specific sets of video content to employees within their organizations. This module also allows users to track their progress, get different types of reports around their progress and accomplishments, and award them certificates.

The other main component is the data analytics feature, which contains financial and operational calculators to optimize the practice’s performance in different areas, such as revenue per hour and profit per treatment. This feature also allows users to track their goals, and it has compensation calculators they can use.

On top of that, Capicua is helping us create a business intelligence dashboard for data sets consumption. Currently, a lot of this data consumption happens manually, but we’re actively working on this integration, allowing users to see data through this dashboard in a KPI manner.

What is the team composition?

We initially started working with Carlos (Partner & COO), who then introduced us to Ariel (Developer). Since then, Ariel has acted as our development team lead. Our current team from Capicua consists of five developers with different areas of expertise, a QA engineer, and a UI/UX designer. Still, they allow us to swap those resources and scale up and down the team as needed.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

They were recommended to me by a teammate I used to work with in the past. This person connected me directly with Carlos. He was very pleasant to talk to, and we started working together quickly.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay Capicua around $40,000–$50,000 per month, and we’ve been working together for around 10 months, so we’ve spent close to $500,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around February 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Capicua has transformed a barely functional software system into a fully functional product, helping us move from a proof-of-concept stage to a beta product that is currently undergoing the production phase. Now, around 300 customers are using our platform while Capicua continues to develop and release updates.

Additionally, Capicua’s involvement in the UI/UX design part has helped us save time in development tasks. Thanks to them, we’re all on the same page regarding how the next features will look and how they will deploy them. Additionally, having the UI/UX designs upfront allows us to gather feedback even before we start to invest in development.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Slack for regular communication, and we have around 4–5 different Zoom meetings throughout the week. One of those meetings is with me, and the 3–4 others are with our project manager to touch base. Still, I’m involved in some of those meetings as well. Additionally, we use Jira and GitHub for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Working with Capicua has been a pleasant experience. Their flexibility, availability, and responsiveness are outstanding, so I don’t foresee our relationship ending anytime soon. They’re better than having an internal development team.

I’ve worked with other development companies in the past, but I had never worked with a team that almost felt like having internal employees before. Although Capicua is a service provider, they act as if they were part of our team. They’re loyal, respectful, and responsive, and they don’t mind sharing their opinions, which is very helpful. Their resources stay working extra hours if needed, and they take accountability and responsibility for the releases.

Moreover, Capicua’s English domain is very good, so we haven’t experienced any language barrier. On top of that, the timezone that they work in is very convenient for us. I’m on the East Coast, my project manager is on the West Coast, and Capicua’s time zone is right in between, which makes them constantly available and easy to work with day to day.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive feedback because Capicua has been extremely responsive to our requests. If anything, it would be great if they offered a volume discount.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a digital supply chain platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We were having difficulty identifying IT resources and weren’t sure if we wanted to hire full-time employees or contractors.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had engaged a designer to redesign our website, but we needed to engage development resources to build the site. 

Capicua has provided us with two development resources who’ve worked on our existing platform to implement new features on the site. We’ve provided them with Jira tickets, and they’ve used Ruby on Rails and React to build the site. One team member has built the frontend, while the other has developed the backend. 

Our users trade and process raw commodities, so they use our site to log inputs into product processing. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with two programmers from Capicua. 

How did you come to work with Capicua?

We found Capicua through a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $60,000–$70,000 in the partnership with Capicua. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with Capicua since February 2022. One of the resources just rolled off our project, but the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Capicua team has developed the features we’ve assigned them and moved them into production, and they successfully launched the site.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

Capicua has met deadlines and worked within our budget. We’ve used Jira to delegate tasks and track progress, and we typically communicate via Slack and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been most impressed with Capicua’s ability to identify resources quickly and provide competitive pricing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing Capicua could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you clearly identify your needs, so Capicua can find resources to match them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the director of software development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

First, we needed to scale up our team at a cost-effective price point.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were looking for full-stack developers that were proficient in React and Node.js applications. For athletic departments and organizations in the US, we’re collecting statistics from large sets of games that happen in real-time. One of the programs Capicua helped us build handles this data. It uses React. Another part of the project was modernizing applications. We’d built a legacy application 12 years ago on Java, but it was very old. The goal was to move around that monolithic solution and into a microservice-based architecture with different modules.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two full-time developers and one QA resource.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

After finding them on Upwork, I went through a series of interviews with the candidates they proposed and some other members of their team. The focus of these interviews was to determine whether they would fit with our culture and technical requirements.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost was around $70,000–$75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2021–February 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their service was fantastic; the developers were brilliant with the technologies that we were using, and they brought a lot to our team. We were looking for resources that would basically become team members to supplement our full-time employees, and Capicua succeeded in that. They also established proper QA processes like we wanted.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

We handled the management ourselves, as they only provided the resources.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Capicua is a straightforward partner. I went through the process of interviewing multiple agencies, but their developers were the most skilled.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think so. Everything was delivered as expected. I don’t have any feedback in this regard.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your objectives and clarify the project.