Daffodil Software

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of DS Scientific. We are an original electronic manufacturing service company. We create our own products and do engineering services. 

We are a startup that’s been around since 2014, and we branched into original equipment manufacturing and SaaS in 2016. It took about a year and a half for us to get rolling into the SaaS product that we offer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We had some difficulty with coding our product correctly — we’re hardware engineers, not software engineers. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The software that we designed was basically conceived by myself and a hardware engineer who knew a little bit about coding. The actual physical footprint of hardware is very small, so we needed to control systems for those very, very small circuits that we have created. 

We had some bugs, and Daffodil Software came in and fixed them. We had to redesign some things and they got it done. The software is for data mining and data analytics. Our product allows us to do a lot at a low cost using Excel as a platform.

What is the team composition?

I worked with about five people at various times. The first person was the project manager who put together a small team to do my project. There were a couple of designers and coders, and then there was one other person who did some integration at the end. There was also a supervisor or general manager.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

My web designer is an independent contractor. We ran into coding problems and he suggested that we use Daffodil. 

There were a couple of companies that he had in mind, but he thought Daffodil would be able to work well on this project. He had used him several times to do other things and they did very well. I decided to take his word for it and try them out.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent approximately $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe it was August 2017 and the final touches were done in July 2020.

The project now is in marketing and sales mode. We plan on improving and adding new features in the future, but right now we are not actively engaged with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, Daffodil did a great job of helping us get our deliverables. That was the strongest point. They were good in their design. There were a few glitches with personnel, but they were basically good. Even that person that was on the project was good. He got sick a few times and they had to pick up the ball, but they cater to the client’s needs more so than anybody that I’ve known. 

They really worked with us on that hiccup, and I attribute that to them being just a great design company. They reached out and tried to work with us on our special needs. We can’t get that everywhere, so I give them top grades on that. 

I've worked with other companies on other projects and they didn’t give us the same level of attention as Daffodil. 

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They stayed on point and on time. On our end, we had some surprises which ruffled the feathers a little bit because we had to figure out things. Our company lost key personnel who designed it so we had to go in and figure out what was going on. Everything was fine, and on their part, they did a great job handling it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The project manager was excellent. He did his homework, and when they had to replace a guy, he spent a lot of time thinking about what was necessary to do on his end and he got it done. 

We had funding issues and we had to slow down, but he got us over that. We lost a couple of people on the project and he got us over that. He was very understanding, and he got his superiors in the company to work with us and understand. 

During that downtime, I don’t know for sure, but I felt that low key they continued to look at what those issues were and when I was able to start back, they were able to get it done really quickly. They were working in the dark and getting things figured out so that when we started back up, it wouldn’t be a long time or like picking up a new project. They picked up the ball and ran with it. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a couple of times when communication lagged because they are located in India and we are on Pacific time, and I had someone in central time. It was sometimes hard to link up or we missed meetings because of the time zones, but that was a little thing. 

I think the biggest thing is that since this was a low budget deal, we were dealing directly with their developer a lot. They would send things to us but they weren’t really beta tested on their end. It could have been because it was a low budget that they didn’t put in another person to beta test, but I eventually commented on that when we got to the end. Other than that, they were excellent.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technology director for Reminder Media. We primarily create products to help our clients stay in touch with their own customers. That being said, we have a wide range of products and offerings.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

They’ve helped us with web and backend software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve supplemented our inhouse team. They’ve mostly helped us build tools for our internal CRM but recently branched out into building backend components of our client-facing products. We’re using PHP with either Laravel or a custom framework.

What is the team composition?

We work with around 11 teammates from Daffodil providing both development and QA testing.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

I believe we looked through a number of directory websites. I contacted several companies until something worked.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and it’s an ongoing collaboration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I think things have been going very well. Their technical leads demonstrate a genuine investment in the success of our projects. Whenever we give them feedback, they’re very receptive to it; they’re interested in the growth of their developers. They’re great at following up and overseeing the full cycle of development, and not just handing things off.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We do have a project management team on our side. By the time they get a project, the requirements have been fleshed out and broken down. That being said, they’ve been generally good at handling deadlines and attending our standup meetings. We utilize Microsoft Teams for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re able to fill positions, and the account representatives on their side have been excellent at communicating in regard to projects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything at the moment.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Focus on communication. Make sure that your requirements are fleshed out well, and that they’re understood. On a larger project, I’d make sure to have a project manager on your side.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of Vital Quest which is homeopathic medical software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

Our earlier software was almost 20–25 years in the market. Since Apple has shifted its architecture, it wasn't possible to continue with our older version, and we needed to shift to a different architecture. We had to rewrite the whole code.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took over the project and used Node.js, React, and GraphQL. After going through the knowledge transfer and training, they worked on improving the UI/UX and the technology. It's dynamic software, so we could implement different iterations. They also integrated some security features. We utilize copy protection devices.

What is the team composition?

The team is very good. I’m very happy with the project manager who leads the team.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

We originally worked with another company but they got stuck and couldn’t meet our speed and performance requirements. Instead, they started to increase their price. 

We were not happy with this, so we got in touch with Daffodil Software. We went through their reviews and they seemed more trustworthy.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February 2019–June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The version they delivered is already helping the market. We’re already using the software and have the user base. We had some challenges when we released. There were some bugs but the fixes were made.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

I appreciate them. The project manager is constantly in touch with us. The communication channels were very good.

They offered us flexibility. They were very open to discussion and allowed us to change direction. They coordinated the task and would call us 3–4 times a day for feedback or directions.

We discussed our process and their process, and they adapted to ensure smooth interaction and workflow. We really appreciated that. They have a very professional approach.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re open to our additions and they listen to us. They communicate well and are flexible. They gave us a lot of solutions to what needed to change. Compared to the first company we worked with, who provided no feedback after we gave them our requirements, Daffodil Software provides constant feedback.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We have no complaints about them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company provides insight into urban green space using satellite imagery

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Daffodil Software?

Developing machine learning algorithms to detect trees in satellite imagery

What were your goals for this project?

Get high accuracy tree locations in cities at scale

SOLUTION

How did you select Daffodil Software?

We approached several oursourcing comapnies. We ranked the companies on quality of customer support, affordabilty, flexibility, and our estimation of quality of service.

Daffodil scored best and especially the quick responses of the sales team helped a lot in daffodils favour.

Describe the project in detail.

Get high accuracy tree locations in cities at scale

What was the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, 2 machine learning engineers, 1 dev/ops and 1 full stack engineer.

We mainly had contact with the project manager the machine learning engineers and the full stack engineer as from our side we had one machine learning engineer and a project manager involved also.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The tree detection algorithm was significantly improved during this project.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow proposed by the daffodil project manager worked well. It was a adapted version including scrum and kanban style elements.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The flexibility of allocating resources was impressive. The flexibility of the people we worked with to work with limited resources as we had a tight budget.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There was a percieved difference in experience of the people we worked with. Some had a lot of experience and others less.

The commitment of the project manager fluctuated a lot over the term of the project, it should have been more constant.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Talent Evolution develops tools for organizational surveys and leadership and team assessment. We offer products for companies in the US and Latin America, in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

We’re just a three-person team, but we manage and work with consultants from all over Latin America. I have hundreds of consultants taking care of the process, and I provide them a platform through which they can run their projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

I’d worked with different assessment tools for almost 20 years, mainly in the Latin American market. I was trying to build a strong platform that would allow me to do things that I never could have with those other tools. I was looking for a high-level, reliable technology product with a good design and structure.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I’d developed a previous platform, so I already knew what I wanted. I also had my own designer, who designed the whole platform. So Daffodil was responsible for the development. 

Daffodil developed a web-based platform for administering 360 leadership assessment projects and different organizational surveys and team assessments. The main idea was to have a flexible platform that I could adapt to any kind of customer request. It needed to have different languages, scales, questionnaires, and reports.  

What is the team composition?

I was in contact with five people from Daffodil Software, and there were around 12 people working on the project. My main contact was their project director. Depending on the part of the process we were in, I’d sometimes receive support from their project manager, the people taking care of the server, or the frontend developers.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

I’d worked with them three years ago on another project. I was looking for a strong company that could deliver exactly what I wanted, in a good timeframe, and at a price I could afford. I evaluated different providers, but only Daffodil Software offered me everything I wanted.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of this project was around $23,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project with Daffodil Software ran from February–July 2020. We’re still making some adjustments, but the main work finished in July.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They knew how they would accomplish my request from the beginning, and they did it. The frontend Daffodil Software created looked exactly the same as the design I gave them. The platform is already working, and I have customers using it.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They always stuck to the delivery dates they set. Knowing in March that I’d have everything ready by the end of June and seeing it happen exactly like that speaks to their project management. They knew what they were doing, and they scheduled their time really well. 

The only concern was that the last milestone was too big and took more time than the others. The time I had for reviewing the complete project was very short. In the end, I had to work late every day trying to find all the bugs. It was hard for me to deal with that, but everything was really good in the end.

The communication was always very clear, and all milestones were completed on time or before the deadline. It gave me a lot of relief to work with professional people who knew what they were doing. We communicated through email, Skype, Google Hangouts, and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was really impressed by the frontend. Many times, a designer will create something really nice, after which the developers will tell them that they can’t do this or that. With Daffodil Software, they developed the frontend exactly like the design I gave them. Their scheduling was also impressive — everything was on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As I’ve already told them, the last part of the project shouldn’t have been that big. In the end, I just had one week to review the whole project. Reviewing the first milestones took me a couple of hours each, but the last one took me days. Everything was accumulated in the end, so the burden on my side was very heavy. In the end, I felt overwhelmed by everything I had to review in just one week.   

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

People who want to work with Daffodil should be very careful about the milestones and sprints, so that they don’t get too much in the end. The time they need to review bugs shouldn’t be that big.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am founder and CEO of a B2C startup in Silicon Valley, CA in US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Daffodil Software?

We are a Silcon valley based startup and were looking for developing our release1 app for our startup- Klosenit. We also wanted a small landing website. We were capital-constrained so were looking for a very reliable development partner who could help us.

What were your goals for this project?

Develop and release native mobile app on iOS and Android platform. Develop informational web site.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Through a referral from a friend who used Daffodil.

Describe the project in detail.

Project was to develop mobile app for Klosenit- a matchmaker platform for SMB market in US. Another project was to develop a small website which gave information on Klosenit using Wordpress

What was the team composition?

For Klosenit mobile app development, the team comprised of lead, back-end developer, front-end developer, UX analyst. For website work, we had website lead, web developer and UX developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We released Klosenit app on iOS and Android platform. We also released Klosenit website as well.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had setup a regular cadence plus ad hoc discussion to discuss. They had a very effective workflow to work and get things done.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Very adaptive and collaborative people to work with. Daffodil team adapted well to our requests as much as they could.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Just like all of us, there are some room for improvement in operational, billing, resource scheduling.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Mechademy Inc is a US startup since 2017, providing advanced analytics and diagnostics services to the Oil & Gas Industry in the field of Turbomachinery. Turbomechanica is Mechademy Inc.'s big data platform specifically designed for industrial machines and processes. It integrates state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms with performance modeling algorithms that allow plant personnel to gain deeper insights into the health of their turbomachinery assets. I am the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Mechademy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Daffodil Software?

We are engineering consultants for the Oil & Gas industry. In our years of experience we have found that the industry faces a big challenge from unplanned downtime and system outages. We have been involved in several projects to troubleshoot issues for our clients and have developed various proprietary algorithms for early fault detection and machine learning based predictive maintenance. We hired Daffodil to develop a cloud based remote monitoring platform to take near-real-time data from clients machine sensors and run our algorithms to provide rich insight into equipment health and prescriptive alerts for potential anomalies in operation.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal of the project was to input time series data from our client's machine sensors, process it using our engineering as well as machine learning algorithms and predict equipment performance as well as provide prescriptive alerts to the client for optimised performance of equipment.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Daffodil was recommended to us by another business associate. They had developed an application for the associate on which we have also consulted. We were impressed by the professionalism and response from Daffodil, hence we initiated discussions on developing our own platform with them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Daffodil conducted scope finding sessions and prepared a detailed scope for the project. Then their engineers designed, developed and deployed all the infrastructure on our AWS Cloud. They also optimised the services, data flow and processes. They also consulted on cybersecurity initiatives. The project was split into 4 milestones with 2-3 sprints each. Currently we are in the final ,milestone of UAT and bug fixes.

What was the team composition?

Daffodil's team consisted of a project manager, a tech lead, 2-3 front end, back end and data engineers, as well as dev-ops and testing engineers. During the course of the engagement, we required a cybersecurity team and Daffodil extended the services of their Chief Innovation officer and his team. This was really helpful and insghtful

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

It is too early to say this, however the platform developed by Daffodil has indeed differentiated us from being an engineering consultant to being a product/service provider in the space of advanced analytics and industrial IoT. Our clients have shown keen interest in the product and we do hope to scale our business several folds once we successfully deploy the platform

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project manager (Manjit Singh) and the technical lead (Shubhang Malviya) were exceptionally helpful and proactive. They understood our business case thoroughly and offered key insights into the resource, infrastructure and technology selection. The project tools used consisted of Bitbucket, Jira, Slack, Google Hangouts/Microsoft Teams

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team was extremely responsive and extended themselves beyond regular expectations to cater to our extensive set of questions and requirements. What impressed us the most was how they understood our business case and practical requirements and translated them into functionalities of the application.

Are there any areas for improvement?

If we must point out improvements then we would like the team to add on internal processes for secure code review, basic vulnerability analysis and cloud resource estimation. Our project's complexity was something even we could not estimate upfront. This put us in a tight spot in front of our clients, who expected us to showcase our product functionalities a couple of months ago. Had we knows this beforehand, we would have made different promises to our clients.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of an enterprise data company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We were looking for affordable development and cloud engineering.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

For our cloud engineering project, they’re reviewing our entire architecture and automation of our core product. They also did some frontend work for a React interface that we needed to control and some microservices.

What is the team composition?

We work with a frontend engineer, a cloud engineer, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

We found them mentioned on a podcast, and decided to reach out. We tested their capabilities in a smaller project, and it’s been great ever since.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent more than $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The cloud automation project was probably the most important one we’ve done this year. They’ve helped us take our product to the next level.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been great and they send daily reports. They’ve understood the work and take time to ask the questions. We’ve had a very good relationship and it’s been easy to maintain. We use Trello and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have the best quality that I’ve seen. They have professionalism and consistency. The experience of working with them has been great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are these monthly forms I have to fill out to help them promote their new business, which I don’t mind. I want to help more, but I’m so busy.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to be prepared. The more that you know what you want, the better your productivity will be.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

MasterMatchmakers.com is a high end personal matchmaking and coaching practice that covers the entire United States. We provide a remote based service using a distributed team throughout the country. There is a public facing website, a client portal and administrative console that allows us to deliver a best in class experience. I am the Founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Daffodil Software?

Daffodil has been managing our technology stack for nearly a decade. They have purpose built native mobile applications for iOS and Android as well as web based apps that allow us to operate our business front to back. There is both an administrator and client portal with extensive functionality. The continue to develop, support and maintain our entire technical infrastructure.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to transform our brick and mortar business into an e-commerce company. Now 100% of our business is conducted online.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Daffodil found me actually. We were working with other onshore developers who were very expensive and sadly incompetent. I knew I need to outsource our development overseas but I was concerned about the language barrier, time zone differences, cultural differences, etc. They were able to alleviate those concerns and assure me that I was in capable hands.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They helped me design, develop and deploy a front to back, top to bottom solution that transformed our entire way of doing business. We created our own custom CRM on the back of an open source CMS with custom modules purpose built to execute important functionality such as email handling and parsing, transaction processing, background checks, inventory control, reporting, etc.

What was the team composition?

The team varied based on the discipline of each individual. There were no less than 10 different individuals involved in our development over the last decade. They have done a good job of separating and siloing the responsibilities from accounting, business process management, architectural design, front end, back end, mobile development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The services of Daffodil have had a profound impact on our business. Our company has no less than tripled in size since we migrated to this implementation. We have a solution that scales and we can add as many seats as we want without incurring licensing fees. It was far more economical to build versus buy.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We were assigned a project manager who was able to manage my expectations. Very rarely would I interact directly with the engineers until there was enough of a working relationship in place that I felt permitted to work out misunderstandings of bugs, feature requests, etc. Now we have a great mutual respect and understanding. We are organized and deliberate in our approach. Supporting and maintaining is much easier than ground up development.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their work ethic and determination to get the job done right. They are incredibly diligent and the management of the company has invested heavily in finding the right talent to consult on product development. They have developed best practices for the discovery and design stage that is crucial to proper execution and high fidelity quotes and schedules.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. They are extremely capable and it has been a pleasure working with them for as long as I have.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the vice president of IT and products for FS.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We were looking to hire an external development team to work on several projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did an initial test project, creating an automation tool for SMS testing. 

A larger project they worked on was to create an application from scratch. We specified the requirements, and provided them with outlines and desired features. They created the application based on the outputs we generated. It’s a Cloud storage solution for end-users compatible with iOS, Android, desktop, Windows and Mac, and web browsers. Their team keeps the software evolving with updates we request.

They used Node.js, Google Cloud platform, Java, React Native, Swift, and Java for Android.

What is the team composition?

There were about 30 people working on the team. The developers were overseen by the business manager, product manager and Scrum Master.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

We found them on Google. We contacted a few companies, but chose them because they had a fairly large amount of developers available, good pricing, and were quick to reply. We gave them a test project first and decided to continue working with them when we were pleased with the outcome.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in October 2018, and we are in a contract with them currently.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They work quickly and engage additional developers as necessary to deliver on time. We were able to build out the scope and migrate data for a completely new product within six months. We also built an e-book project with them in three months. 

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They collaborate well with our internal project managers. They use Scrum methodology, as we do. We use Jira and GitHub, as well. They are responsive, and communicate well. The timeline has not been an issue as they quickly respond to any and all requests.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are committed to delivering what is agreed upon, and they handle unexpected issues that arise. They add resources and put in extra time to make sure they deliver on time. They’re a good team to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be better at giving reports and updates on progress during the project. If we don’t ask frequently, sometimes the updates are outdated.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be in constant contact with them, as if they are part of your internal team, to keep the project moving along and to stay on top of things.