DarinX

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO for a small startup called Pawntek based in the United States. We don't have products online right now, but the idea is to create a platform that will help us communicate much better with our business partners, and buy and sell jewelry with clients digitally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DarinX?

We needed a development solution partner because we had to create a platform. Instead of hiring people to sit in the office and work nonstop on a product, we decided it would be much better to go with an international company. Price-wise, it's much cheaper, but our biggest challenge is that we didn't have the manpower to start the frontend and backend development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DarinX provides the backend solution for our needs and a progressive web application. They are doing our development job from end-to-end; they do everything. They're creating our frontend and our backend. They are responsible for taking our idea and turning it into a much better product. They use Angular.JS, HTML, and CSS. The application is responsive and mobile-friendly.

What is the team dynamic?

I went to their office in Ukraine, so I've met everyone, but I have a project manager that helps me with the development tasks. I also have an account manager who is responsible for the costs involved.

How did you come to work with DarinX?

I used Freelancer.com to reach them. I contacted them, they gave me a quote, and we started working. I saw some reviews on Freelancer.com as well. I started to talk with their account manager, and the impression that I got was positive, so we decided to take the chance and started working with them. I chose them because they looked professional and had a creative website.

How much have you invested with them?

I prefer to keep this confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since July 2017. We are considering them as our business development partner, so hopefully, we won't end our engagement soon. We are always releasing new versions by working in Agile, like a Lean strategy. Meanwhile, they're our partners and we will continue to work with them for the next 3–4 months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They are doing their job and they're doing it well. They're almost done with making the application. As a CTO, I understand code, and theirs makes sense; I've seen the code and it looks great.

How did DarinX perform from a project management standpoint?

They're perfect. I'm always involved with the tasks that need to be done. I create some of the tasks, and they are doing as well. We are putting everything on JIRA. Their quality of communication is also perfect.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have really good communication skills, which is important when you do business overseas. They are always available, and they are always willing to help. That's the most important thing for me.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of a learning management system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DarinX?

DarinX provides frontend designs for our company. My partner is a backend developer and a data scientist. He’s really involved in numbers and the code but doesn’t specialize in design. We weren’t sure what we were looking for but knew we needed to make the product look good. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DarinX sent us about 12 different design suggestions, and we chose a theme we liked. From there, they’ve developed pages within that design based on my PowerPoint mockup of the home page, about page, contact us page, and login page. Once users log-in, they can complete surveys, questionnaires, and profiles that help us understand their needs. Once users have answered the profile questions, they can progress to other interactive pages, which allow them to plan their curriculum roadmap and play with an avatar that they create to refine their goals.

DarinX strictly works on the frontend, and they’ve created all of our customer-facing visuals. They’re responsible for graphics, links, backgrounds, images, rollovers, and all the aesthetics. My partner has taken that code, plugged it in, and connected it to the backend. From a creativity standpoint, they’ve been amazing. We used Python on the backend and Angular and Java for the frontend.

The system has dashboards and graphs, as well as an overlay feature where the back page moves more slowly than the front page. So, as users scroll, they’re seeing visuals on top of each other as they roll and move. I love the graphics and the animations where students can play with their avatar and try out different ideas. The stats relative to the globe pop out, and different countries will emerge from globe and light up. The graphs were probably the most difficult piece to develop because we take different profile results and overlay them to create a picture of students’ strengths and pair them with careers or education roadmaps. We’re still ironing those out.

Other people at DarinX have offered to handle the backend. We’re actually meeting with them to discuss that. Before long, we’ll be utilizing more than just their design services.

What is the team dynamic?

We speak with 3–4 people, and there are another 1–2 developers on the backside. We’ve communicated with Inna [Account Manager, DarinX], Konstantin [CEO, DarinX], and another person. Depending on what we’re working on, we’ll talk to different people. We have a primary point of contact on a day-to-day basis. If we need to dig deeper into something or are requesting design changes that our contact may not have the details on, the developer will provide clarification. Konstantin was the first contact we spoke with when establishing our relationship.

How did you come to work with DarinX?

I found them on Freelancer.com. About 50–100 companies responded to our project description. I looked at 10 and spoke to 3 before choosing DarinX. Their positive reviews and portfolio sold us. They had some of the highest rankings, and their written reviews were really thorough. I got a good picture of what we would be getting into. They matched both our style and personality.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2016, and the collaboration is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our learning management system is not visible to the public right now. We are extremely happy with the system’s design and our overall relationship with DarinX.

How did DarinX perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re responsive and willing to critique our suggestions thoughtfully. They’re always prompt, cordial, and understanding. They’re probably the best freelance team that we’ve ever worked with. I believe in them and have had no issues, which is unheard of in the freelance world.

Our developers communicate weekly with their designers via the freelancing platforms. We also utilize GET lab and Github.

Do you have any advice for someone who would want to work with DarinX?

Having a clear vision will set them up for success. Through a PowerPoint, I’ve been able to articulate what I’m looking for visually. All they have to do is replicate my ideas. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of a sports and outdoors e-commerce company with distribution in many countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DarinX?

We had done much of the coding and frontend design of our e-commerce website ourselves, but the person in charge wasn’t available anymore. We needed a team for further development to improve functionality for our customers and develop other functions in the background in order to make processing easier.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DarinX helped us implement some new features, both on the backend and in terms of frontend design. We had specific tasks for their team, such as design changes on our home and category pages. They also worked on our backend inventory-management tools.

We had started with an e-commerce shop locally, in Norway, but wanted to create a new one for the European market. DarinX handled the design and development for that platform. It was custom-made rather than from a commercial template, and required complete refactoring in order to be easier to improve in the future.

They implemented payment systems that make it easier for us to ship from China to Europe, like PayPal, D+H Pay, and DHL, the latter of which allows the courier to extract information from our website. These systems were also important for making the site work with every European country.

They also worked on a better handling functionality for package returns. It’s a better system for refunding money and helps get the products back into our inventory.

What is the team dynamic?

Oleg is my project manager and also my only contact from their side. I assign him tasks, and he relays them to developers. We generally have communicate daily.

How did you come to work with DarinX?

We hadn’t had any experience with foreign developers. We had found them online, and their profile looked professional and established. My colleague made the first contact with them in the spring of 2017, and we got in touch to explain what we wanted. I don’t remember the first task we assigned DarinX, but it was important for the simplification of our backend order processing.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2017. The collaboration has been continuous since then for various small tasks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

DarinX has been able to handle everything we’ve assigned to them, and we are satisfied with their work.

We had a working online shop before bringing them in, but it needed a lot of improvements, both for customers and our backend processes. On the European website, the work was done mostly from scratch, using the framework of our Norwegian shop.

The initial web shop has been in business for 5 years, and had an existing customer base, which has been growing steadily for the last year. DarinX made minor improvements on its design and backend functionalities, which, although important, weren’t crucial for our sales. We needed those in order to make the site better for further growth.

For the European shop, we specified a design, which DarinX implemented exactly as we wanted. Their work got the website started. All the tasks we’ve given them have been successful. They’ve taken the time to get to know our system, and the development has gone very smoothly.

How did DarinX perform from a project management standpoint?

The work went slower in the beginning since their team wasn’t used to our platform, which had been made from scratch by a previous partner of ours. He didn’t make it easy for others to continue the work, so DarinX really had to dedicate their time in order to refactor it for future development.

After 2–3 tasks, which took more time, the process went smoothly. Now that they know the system and have worked on it for a while, I receive time estimates for each task, which are almost always precise. They fix any resulting bugs without extra charge, and are willing to work during weekends. The workflow continues to grow more effective over time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are skillful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They required some time to get to know our platform, but we were patient with them because we knew it was necessary. There were some bugs in the first deliverables, but DarinX pushed on and fixed them. At the moment, I cannot see anything they still need to improve. They’re doing a good job.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I own and manage a small cleaning business in Portland, Oregon. We provide residential and commercial cleaning services all around the area.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DarinX?

As our company has grown, I realized that we needed a software to keep all our jobs, clients, appointments, and employee information under control. We needed a simple and affordable platform that could be used internally by our company and externally by our clients, making our database and tasks more accessible and effective. Our biggest concern was being able to gain customers without losing existing ones.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the whole software for us. I think they used Django, HTML and CSS, and an AngularJS framework.

They added online accounting, a special database for jobs for workers, and a messaging system for employees to respond to specific jobs. They also added a rating system so that our most trusted or long-standing employees would be put on the more important jobs.

They tested the software themselves for a while, and there were almost no bugs.

What is the team dynamic?

There were at least 2 guys working on the project that I know of. The people we had contact with were the project manager and someone from QA, sometimes another person if we had specific questions. They’re pretty cool guys; they’re always in touch.

How did you come to work with DarinX?

My partner found them a couple of years ago and they helped us with our website. We looked at other freelancers but no other companies. We heard some good reviews about them from various people, including friends in a moving business who said they developed an administrative software for them. They said they were satisfied and the price was good.

They have a very competitive price with the U.S. and Europe and the quality is the same. They were nice guys and had time to do our project.

How much have you invested with them?

They didn’t charge much.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2017. We will continue to use them if we need them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our database looks much better since we started working with them. It’s much easier to put people to work and it’s easier to track our workers and jobs. It’s been helpful software, so I’m satisfied with their work. My partner and I have more time now to grow the business in other ways.

Our business didn’t jump up a lot but it’s under more control thanks to the software. We’re not losing clients like we were before. There were times we were booking too many people on a certain date or we would forget someone. Since we started using this software, we have not messed up at all. DarinX was super responsible and they pay attention to what we need. Plus, their QA was very high quality.

How did DarinX perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re satisfied 100%; they delivered everything on time and within our budget. We talked with them every week, gave them our requirements, and had the opportunity to ask them questions.

We used Skype and email to communicate depending on the urgency of the situation. Even though they’re in Ukraine, we never had an issue getting in touch with them. There were no connection problems, language barriers, or any other inconvenience.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re always in touch and very professional. That’s important for us. I’ve used different types of companies before and sometimes people are just pretending they’re professional.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so.

Do you have any advice for potential clients?

I would recommend them 100%.