Daffodil Software

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for an app-based event listing company. We help performers and hosts connect with their target audience. Our platform encourages an interactive dynamic between performers and attendees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We needed a developer to build a location-based mobile app from scratch with increased functionality. We also aimed to expand our user base by targeting new demographics.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Daffodil Software designed and built the entire product for iOS and Android. They improved the UX/UI, functionality, and navigation of our app’s first iteration. Streamlined navigation gave it a more professional look and feel. The team helped us clarify the scope by redefining user stories, improving key functions, and determining potential pain points.

What is the team composition?

At any given point, we worked with 6-10 people. Currently, we’re working with three resources from Daffodil Software.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

We wanted development resources who could execute our vision. They needed to be willing to work with our legacy assets. We researched vendors and solicited several referrals. Ultimately, we found Daffodil Software in a consulting firm’s vendor catalog.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about £40,000 ($50,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in May 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Currently, it’s too early to reveal quantitative metrics. Despite some ambiguity and miscommunications around scope and expectations, Daffodil Software delivered on most of our requirements.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

For the most part, they adhered to our agreed timeline. There were only one or two instances when they missed a deadline. The project manager renegotiated objectives and made sure both parties understood expectations and status.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciate their commitment to customer service. They were responsive communicators and promptly addressed our concerns. The project manager pushed the team to quickly resolve issues. The level of effort they exhibited was the best part of the experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While they were accommodating in the initial meeting, they could have defined the scope more clearly to mitigate the discrepancy between client expectations and deliverables.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a co-founder and CEO of Rootery. We are a B2C marketplace for cannabis products and we've been in operation for about a year and a half.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We did most of the coding for the platform ourselves, but we needed a company to help us with the backend development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re Rails React platform, so we needed a strong Rails resource to work on the backend databases and structure some of the relationships on the tables. They started with the backend, but our relationship has evolved and they now help us with the frontend projects, such as building landing pages and API security around the frontend. Our internal team does most of the design and some of the frontend development as well.

What is the team composition?

We work with the lead backend developer and three other members of their team.

How did you come to work with them?

They reached out to us via email. They offered affordable rates and the services that we were looking for, so we gave them a chance.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $10,000–$15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2017 and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've been experiencing growth every month and much of that can be attributed to the work  Daffodil Software has done. They're proactive in making suggestions and their recommendations are often better than our original ideas. Besides, they always provide feedback, which is important to us. We've been very satisfied with their service.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

They're responsive and available to answer any questions we have. They're an international team, so there is a difference in time, but they accommodate our time zone–whether it's late at night or early in the morning.

We communicate regularly through a slack channel and have three standing meetings a week. Most of the time, they're the first to initiate communication. Also, they send us a daily recap of any issues we need to deal with and everything that has to be done for the upcoming projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team and customer service are top-notch. (We worked with many other contractors, but Daffodil Software is one of the best.) We're a start-up and often change our mind, but they've been able to adapt quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything. I'm very satisfied with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear and concise with what you're looking for in terms of the deliverables and the platform maintenance. Give them as many details as possible, so that they have a clear understanding of why you're developing the product. They're a large organization and have a lot of expertise and resources available.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company, InteraXon, produces a meditation headband. It uses a device that reads your brain signals and guides you through a meditation session by adapting the sounds it plays out of your phone or headphones. Based on your neurofeedback, it will either play something noisy which tells you that your brain is scattered or unfocused, or something calm like beach water sounds, which indicates you're doing it correctly. My role is the call team lead. I work on everything related to the backend. We build the cloud component of the app that projects feedback for the users and saves the meditation data user profiles.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

It's hard to hire good developers at a reasonable price. A year ago, we were a financially constrained startup, and sought to outsource some of our work to a vendor with cheaper prices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Daffodil Software mainly performs frontend development for us. They build the user interface for our several websites and web products. Essentially, they take care of what the user sees. Our team builds the backend, and takes care of data related issues. They built the frontend to talk to the APIs and save data from the cloud. We give them very high-fidelity designs. and they build the product according to our specs. Right now, the team uses React.js. We explored whether they could build the app native, but ended up selecting a different vendor for that.

What is the team composition?

Two resources from Daffodil Software are working on our project.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

We started working with Daffodil Software before my time at our company. From what I understand, we got quotes from and conducted interviews with developers from each of the potential vendors, and decided they were the best fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $50,000-$60,000 Canadian on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our company first started working with Daffodil in February 2017, and our engagement is ongoing. When I joined in April, they were already working on this project, but it wasn't too far along.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Financially, hiring two developers from Daffodil Software costs around the same price as one domestic developer. That's a big plus for us, especially since the quality of their work is quite good. Sometimes, the design of the spec is not 100% clear, and they have to make educated guesses about what we mean. They're usually right, which we're very happy about. The developers are very skilled, have the abilities we need, and produce work on a quick turnaround time.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Every day, we hold hour-long Slack meetings, during which they answer our questions. They’re definitely very productive. When we assign tickets, they’re usually completed by the next day. While we’re offline, they post queries to the Jira tickets. They're very clear, and everything works well. We've had no problems with communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The two developers we work with are highly skilled and professional, and produced good deliverables. Asking clarifying questions preempts excessive back and forth, or wasted time spent working. Much of the design is done upfront before any coding happens, which is great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The structure of the code could be better at times. We don't really have a guideline for them to follow, so they structure it the way they want. Sometimes, that doesn't quite meet our expectations, but that's not entirely their fault. We should have been more upfront about our requests.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the lead client liaison for Property Lab, a company that designs and develops websites for U.K.-based estate and letting agents.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We needed assistance in developing Joomla-based sites for our clients with some PHP coding required. We wanted a partner that could augment our in-house resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Daffodil provides a dedicated developer who's worked with us for about six years, primarily on Joomla PHP development and some web app dev. Daffodil has worked on over 200 projects, all of which are property sales and letting websites with a degree of backend integration to the client’s office space software or cloud-based portals.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

We found them by searching online. We met with them and did a trial run, which went well, so we formed the partnership.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between £100,000–150,000 ($14,202–$21,302 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership began in 2012, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The only metric we have is how long we’ve been using them. We’re happy with their work and the quality of code they develop.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We do project management, but Daffodil always meets deadlines and communicates clearly. They give us a daily status report explaining the project status, what was completed that day, and plans for the following day.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We're pleased with the end result of the projects because it’s a collaboration. We don’t have a supplier-customer relationship, but they’re part of our team and work well with us.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a tag and label manufacturer. We manufacture and market them to companies large and small around the continental U.S. and globally. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil?

We wanted to do more e-commerce and needed help with getting us on an e-commerce platform. We wanted a custom-built solution where customers could easily design their label, order, and checkout in a streamlined process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They put us together with a project manager and a technical team that helped us manage the project, design, and do the development, in addition to some original graphic work. We had a preexisting website. The main functionality they provided was making our label builder more robust and making some of the applications work a little smoother within the platform. We had some of the pieces put together, but we needed the last piece to tie everything together, as well as some additional enhancements.

This was a LAMP-based stack. It was a CMS [content management system] that was incorporated custom features. It was PHP, MySQL, and Drupal. They did some wireframing and some prototyping for us.

They do a nice job of asking if we have thought about certain things and shared the services they had available in case there are other areas in which we may need them. Our IT department took advantage of some .NET capabilities that we didn’t have here on site. We were able to automate one of the processes using some of their .NET developers. It’s been a full-service project development in many ways. They got us in the right place and helped us look outside the box in not just web development, but application support that can help our business as a whole. 

What is the team dynamic?

There were 3 individuals assigned to the team. One was a high-level project manager, 1 was a technical person, and 1 was the developer. We had a really great relationship with the developer, who’s working on another project with me right now. He’s very attentive, very detail oriented, and did a very nice job in making sure that all of our needs and requirements were met. It went well above and beyond what the expectations were.

How did you come to work with Daffodil?

I worked with them a number of years ago when I was with another company. I recommended them when we were looking to grow our developer base and didn’t some of the resources in-house. Partnering with another company was the way to go. I reached out and the experience has been very good. 

How much have you invested with them?

About $10,000–$12,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May this year and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our workflow is better now. We’ve been able to produce more accurate invoicing in terms of the proof that is generated from the site and the reports that customers get. We’ve gotten good feedback that it’s a good representation of what they’re going to receive, with a lot of good information there.

They’ve helped us communicate with our customers by making it very visible and very true to life. When customers are doing the checkout process on the website, we get less cart abandonment because they feel assured the product looks good and will look like that when produced. It’s helped us capture more orders and customer confidence. 

How did Daffodil perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very good. Our main project manager, Joy [Manager Strategic Partnerships, Daffodil Software], has been very good about getting us the right technical teams. He's very good at connecting us with the right technical teams we need, whether in scoping and wireframing, and connecting us directly to developers for bug fixes or specific features. They’ve done a nice job in getting us with the right people depending on what we need. 

They’re very accommodating even there’s an 11-hour time difference. We have a flexible schedule and use email follow-ups. They’re fantastic at letting us know where the project is up to on a day-to-day basis. We like that they do month-to-month engagements because a lot of our projects are small to medium-sized, with a constraining timeline. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their follow-up makes them very unique. They do a great job in communicating daily what’s been completed, what their plan is for the next day, and where they fall on the scope of things left to be done. The quality of work has been very good. When we get the quotes and estimates, they’re very competitive in terms of providing great value for what we’re getting as an end product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some things get dropped because of the time difference. If they had another center located somewhere else, it maybe would make scheduling a little easier in terms of hours. There’s not much else that needs improvement at this point. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Mindsauce is an expert network where users can micro-consult with global top experts and executives from companies like Facebook, Google, and eBay. I am a product manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We needed to completely redesign and rebuild our website. Its UX was underwhelming, and there had been no user or unit testing done. I made a new design but needed people to implement the workflow, as well as refactor the code and build upon what was already there.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Daffodil improved our backend code, implemented my frontend design, and built several new features. The profile pages, search functionalities, signup process, and everything else on the site was redone.

We also needed business accounts on top of the existing personal ones. As it was an entirely new area, this was complex to set up and build.

So far, it’s been a refactoring and bug-fixing operation, dealing with the major problems we’d been facing, but also building up.

What is the team dynamic?

We’ve worked with 2 backend/frontend developers from their team and a 3rd one solely for HTML and CSS. The backend developers have a “team leader,” though I’m not sure what his role is.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

I joined the company in April 2017, and it quickly became clear that the work done by our previous agency wasn’t good enough. We'd been looking for a new partner for a while; Daffodil came to us and we went from there.

What is the status of this engagement?

We were in talks toward the end of May 2017 but didn’t start working together until early July. We’re starting on some of the bigger features, building upon what we already have.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have any metrics right now, but the work I’ve seen so far seems good. The developer we were first put in touch with is high quality.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Trello for project management, and everything has gone fine so far. I work directly with the developers every day—something they probably hasn't been used to. Their boss sometimes gets involved, but I am basically the one project manager. I’m happy with how this has worked out.

They’re not strong in terms of meeting deadlines, but there are many reasons for this, and it would be unfair for me to judge them at this stage. They're building a website on someone else’s lackluster code, and things are simply going to take longer. I expect us to become more accurate in terms of estimates as time goes on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The developer we’ve been in touch with has been very good, both at things like testing, as well as thinking about user journeys. He is not afraid to challenge me when he feels I’m making a mistake, which is something I value highly.

If I were to sum up the company in one word, it would be 'professionalism': they’ve been professional from the start, tried to understand our business needs, and addressed them as fast as they could, in a professional and high-quality manner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

So far, I’ve been happy with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the co-founder of a real estate crowdfunding company that raises private equity online. I act as the technical lead for the software that runs our business. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what reason(s) did your company hire Daffodil Software?

We wanted a high-value provider to help us reach feature milestones faster than our resources could, and we didn’t want to bother with hiring full-time employees.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to develop an MVP [minimum viable product] that would allow us to start selling our services. This included completing integrations with several third-party services and creating an end-to-end experience for our customers. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed Daffodil and several other companies when looking for partners to help us solve this problem. We received good referrals from other businesses and hired Daffodil for a short-term engagement. They demonstrated satisfactory performance, so we decided to hire them for a longer project due to their abilities and communication skills.

Describe the project in detail.

The project involved building a web solution on top of a content management system [CMS] called DNN. This solution was designed to enable users to invest under a set of parameters depending on the type of exemption each offering was issued under. The solution had to integrate with third-party services for escrow, payments, billing, and data management features.

What was the team composition?

The team was comprised of several developers and testers as well as a project manager. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The software was completed on time, and Daffodil delivered everything we specified in the statement of work.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had regular check-ins and managed all features and bugs through sprints in JIRA.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Daffodil excelled at communicating regularly and setting clear expectations. They delivered working code at consistent intervals and always had progress to show. Work estimations were accurate, so I could reliably predict their progress throughout the project.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Their testing resources were not as capable as the developers. They were still able to build some automated test harnesses for us, but those took longer to complete, and I was less impressed with that work compared to their developers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of AreaOwl. We’re a completely online service company. We are a traveler focused, local information site. We list a bunch of local businesses and offer that information to travelers and hotels so the hotels can help the travelers [their guests] find local businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We needed a fully functional website built.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Daffodil built the entire website. I’m not an engineer myself, so I don’t know all the technicalities behind what is required to build a website. However, they’ve been very supportive in understanding what I’m trying to do, educating me through the process. They've helped refine what I’m trying to do and translated that into code, building the website to meet my needs. That’s been very helpful. The website provides directories of different types of businesses in specific geographies. It’s built on Drupal. We needed to add a self-sign up function and the automatic credit card monthly billing functions. All of that was new as we started working with Daffodil. Drupal was the platform that they recommended.

This is our third version of the site. The first one was very preliminary and I had some friends help me build another website as a second website. The second site was built on WordPress. It was still not fully functional in terms of allowing users to self-sign up and manage their own profile or the local businesses to self-sign up and list their own businesses.

The website went live earlier this year in January or February. I continue to make upgrades, changes, and modifications. I continue to work with them on a maintenance contract. I hire them every two or three months. I buy the hours upfront and we keep on going because I have a lot of stuff to do.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

I found them by way of a cold email. I get a lot of various offers from many web development, SEO, and digital marketing companies that are working in this area. I was reviewing some of these emails and the portfolios that they send me. I just decided to talk to Daffodil and it started from there. I was comfortable that they must be good based on portfolio work they had with other companies that I knew.

What is the team dynamic?

There are at least three or four people’s names that once in a while appeared. I haven’t communicated with several of those people. Most of my communication is through the project manager.

How much have you invested with them?

Over $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been pretty good at meeting my needs. The qualitative responses from some of our users have been great. They like the look and feel and how it operates. In terms of getting actual customer sign ups and traffic, that’s more of a marketing issue that I have that’s not related to their work. That’s been a bit of a challenge as expected. We’re in a very crowded area and we’re competing with the Yelp's and Google's and all the travel sites of the world. It’s not an easy market to crack.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They assigned a project manager and she’s been great in communicating with me, understanding my needs, and getting her team to implement the things that I discussed with her. She’s been my main contact, but there are a few other people that come in every once in a while depending on what we’re trying to do. That’s been working very well.

We use email as well as Skype conferences. Once the site was launched, they introduced a bug tracking platform, Redmine, where I can report any bugs that I find or any changes that I want to make. We use that as a communication tool, too.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like the project manager that I’ve been working with. She’s been very responsive and supportive. She’s available to talk to you over Skype. We’re basically on the other side of the world, 12 ½ hours apart. That has been a challenge. We usually communicate around 9:00 or 10:00 in either our morning or our nights, which is their night or their morning, respectively. Even late at night their time, she makes herself available. That’s been really helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As a web developer, they’ve been doing great. More of the difficulty has been on my side because I don’t have a real team to speak of. I’m doing everything myself. In that sense, they’ve been really supportive even though it’s just me, without the engineering background, trying to build this website with all these technicalities. They’ve taught me and guided me all along the way. That’s been really nice.

Do you have any advice or recommendations for someone who is considering hiring Daffodil?

I would have no hesitation in recommending them to others. They’ve been great. Their rates, for me at least, are very attractive compared to working with similar companies, especially compared to Silicon Valley where I am. It’s very expensive. For the amount of money I’ve spent, I’ve been able to accomplish quite a lot. That’s been great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a marketing and communication agency that creates apps. We also develop business concepts for startups as well as our own projects. Our focus is on the gaming industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We created a new application that allows users to play Open-Face Chinese Poker, and we did the wireframing and design of the app. Since we don’t do development in-house, we were looking for a company that was qualified to build and create the app. We prefer to outsource because there are simply too many different techniques and web technologies out there. We wanted to choose a company that was best suited for this specific job.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We created very precise guidelines for the design as defined by Google. Daffodil used the development tools from Apple and Android to build the app in React. It has a user management system that syncs with the application. First, users need to create an account and invite friends to join the app. Once users have invited their friends to use the app, they can start playing the game. They have the opportunity to search for random opponents through a matchmaking feature. Players can do challenges and compete in tournaments. There are a lot of statistics so that users can see their performance and compare their scores with other players. We have weekly, monthly, and yearly rankings. The app also has a messaging tool and a store to buy coins so that you can play more games.

There have been 4–5 people working on a daily basis on the application. There was a 2-month period when we had a team of over 10 people on the application.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

We receive daily presentations of companies presenting web services. I usually talk with all of them to see what kind of people they are and how they do things. Daffodil was one of the companies that contacted me. We talked for 4 months before we decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with Daffodil Software?

We have spent €40,000 [$44,760] so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed the contract in December 2016, and the development started in January 2017. The work is ongoing. This week, we started with a couple of changes requests that came up during development. We think that most of the change requests will be finished in early July. After that, we have another feature that we would like to add. If everything goes according to plan, we will launch the app publicly somewhere around August.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a working beta application that is 95% finished. Currently, it has around 50 players. We are very happy with the technical implementation of our project. We are based in Belgium, and it’s the first time we worked with a company based in India. We didn’t know what the results of the development would be, but the reliability of the app exceeds expectation.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They have very good project management. We had 2 contact persons. One is handling the business side of our partnership while the other is the technical lead for the development. I have had an excellent relationship with both of them. I talk with the technical contact on a daily basis. We use Slack as our main tool for communication. We also use Google Drive, Google Sheets, and shared documents for descriptions. On our side, we use Asana for ticketing and planning.

What did you find most impressive about Daffodil Software?

What makes Daffodil unique is that we agreed on a budget for a well-designed project. It doesn’t seem to matter what it takes to accomplish the task. If they require more hours, people, or research for a specific task, the budget is not affected. That is pretty unique for a development company. They understand what we need and what we want. Daffodil’s team does things in a very good way, and they have the motivation to create premium applications. I’m 100% happy with the way things are going right now.

Are there any areas Daffodil Software could improve?

Not much, really.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We run an online beauty concierge, helping customers find beauticians who can come to their homes for hair and nail treatments, massage, and so on. We have a number of registered therapists for whom we manage an availability calendar. I am the CTO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daffodil Software?

We were looking to rewrite our app, and create a cross-platform product which could service our iOS and Android customers. We had already specked-out the app in terms of user flow using another provider, but we needed someone who could handle the development, since that company only specialized in UX.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had an existing app for iOS, and initially used Daffodil Software for some small changes on it. They were able to scale up our team from one developer for the initial project. When we started work on the new app, Daffodil Software assigned a team of two, and then four people. We also added a product owner on their side. Our resources have been consistent from the start. Daffodil Software didn’t provide us options for the members of our team, but we did have an introduction to the devs they suggested. We could also change them, if we wanted to.

How did you come to work with Daffodil Software?

I believe that Daffodil Software initially contacted us after we’d sent some feelers out for development companies. We had some preliminary conversations with other companies, but we were eager to move forward, and started a trial with Daffodil Software for a previous iteration of the app. They made some small changes to it, and gave us a feel of what the team would be like to work with.

How much have you invested with Daffodil Software?

n/a [To be emailed]

What is the status of this engagement?

We had our first interaction with Daffodil Software in November or December 2016. The engagement started in February 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re hoping to go live with the app in a week’s time, after getting through some final tweaks and testing. One of our goals was to go cross-platform using React Native. Daffodil Software has been very good in providing this, and their experience with this cutting-edge technology has shown in the work they did.

How did Daffodil Software perform from a project management standpoint?

There has been a number of complexities which have delayed the project, partly due to our specifications, which were loose to start with. Daffodil Software has been one of the best offshore teams we’ve worked with. Their prices are good, relative to the experience offered, and Daffodil Software markets itself as an extension of the client’s team. It has literally been as if we had an in-house developer who happened to be located somewhere else.

Their aim was never to deliver something quickly, but rather with as little hassle as possible. Daffodil Software made sure they understood everything, and were keen to keep the engagement going. We have daily calls, and, if they have any technical questions about our integration, they contact me over Skype. We also use JIRA as a tracking tool, as well as Google Drive. The communication is very good, much better than that of other offshore developers I’ve used.

What did you find most impressive about Daffodil Software?

Their sales director was good in terms of feedback gathering. I’ve had a few calls, allowing him to get a better understanding of things Daffodil Software could improve on. We have had actual improvements as a result of those conversations. He visited us in the UK for a face-to-face meeting, which is when we talked about getting extra resources on the team, as well as a product owner. Daffodil Software has been good at getting our feedback and acting upon it.

Are there any areas Daffodil Software could improve?

Their billing system is a bit tricky. We pay on an upfront basis, and do it through international banking, which can be tricky. It caused a bit of difficulty at times, since having to track large payments internationally once a month is not pleasant. Adding extra resources can also get confusing, since we have a set amount of credits per month.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Daffodil Software?

It’s key to make sure that the communication channel is established, as well as the frequency of updates. These are things that most people don’t consider, looking more at what the end-product will be, when it will be delivered, and whether or not it will be within budget. Actually making sure that the communication is good is a key factor, as is being able to rapidly track progress.