Dashbouquet Development

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Trackener is developing a horse monitoring technology, a kind of Fitbit for horses focused on health and welfare.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet?

We needed to implement a new version of our mobile app, migrating a legacy version to React Native.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DashBouquet developed our app using the JavaScript React Native technology. This involved implementing a mobile app along with its backend for retrieving data and setting it up on Amazon Web Services. They worked autonomously and have taken part in everything from DevOps to backend and frontend development.

They also worked on improving a small React Native app which we’d previously deployed.

What is the team composition?

Dmitry Budko [Founder, DashBouquet] was in charge of contracts and planning. They assigned project managers for reviewing the project and testing the app, as well as developers for each skill—a backend coder, a frontend JavaScript coder, and a DevOps person.

How did you come to work with DashBouquet?

I was initially looking for frontend developers using Work in Startups and AngelList. DashBouquet was one of the companies that contacted me. I looked at their profile closely because of the good reviews they had on Clutch and a similar website. I had two interviews, introduction and technical, with them and two other consulting companies. I chose DashBouquet because their senior engineer was very convincing, and they did good work in understanding what our needs were, providing a macro estimate for a piece of the task.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent €9,000 [$11,000].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with DashBouquet in August 2017. The project is currently on hold because of some internal issues on our side.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In less than a month, we deployed a basic, complete solution involving the backend and frontend, which we were able to test. Since we’ve only done a small amount of testing, it would be hard to speak about the app’s impact. DashBouquet identified bugs which I hadn’t been able to find myself, either in this version or the legacy app. This was helpful.

How did DashBouquet perform from a project management standpoint?

They did as much as they could on their own without requiring me to always provide feedback or code reviews. They were autonomous, but there was also a lack of communication, possibly coming from my side; I didn’t push enough. We used Agile methodology, defining features and estimating the required amount of work for each sprint.

We were in contact almost entirely through Slack with a few Skype sessions. We communicated on a daily basis with the developer and on an almost daily basis with the project manager. They were quite proactive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One reason for choosing DashBouquet over other companies is that they are specialized in JavaScript and have experience with React Native, a very immature technology which is hard to showcase. They’ve proven that they are capable of making a well-structured and well-architected app from scratch using a cutting-edge technology. I was impressed with their dedication and flexibility.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve by having a better structure of sprint retrospectives and taking the time to estimate, or re-estimate, all user stories at a beginning of a sprint. Again, I didn't ask for it enough until now. I would personally evaluate the criticality of the bugs they found to eventually postpone some fixes.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

When working with the Agile methodology, it’s important to structure sprints adequately and have strong expectations. I would strongly recommend to code review as frequently as possible and to get involved in the development, I think it was very helpful both for me to check the work and get familiar with the app, and for DashBouquet developer to get quick feedback.They are all team players. I find DashBouquet’s team to be individually good and supportive.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

SlashData is an industry analyst firm specializing in developer research—looking at what developers do. We produce reports and analysis for industry giants like Intel, Amazon, and Facebook. We run our own infrastructure for this purpose. I have a dual role in the company. I work on building the infrastructure as part of the development team and I consult with clients on the analysis side.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet?

We needed to find an infrastructure management solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked on a couple of projects with them, using a similar tech stack. The first one was a website we ran, called the Developer Satisfaction Awards. Through it, we handed out awards to industry leaders in different tool categories and for various aspects of their development programs. DashBouquet built a static website for us, using a site generator called GatsbyJS.

The second site was a static landing page for a big survey we’re running. We used third-party tools and had a lot of trouble with them. Eventually, we decided to have a localized CMS [content management system] to handle the static landing pages. There were a number of pages associated with coming to the survey, learning why it mattered, and other related information, such as terms and conditions.  

We run the survey in 8 localized languages and historically had a manual process for managing those translations. Our marketing team decided to instead do that through a CMS, but our internal team didn’t have the time to do it. DashBouquet built it using the same technology, along with a Content-as-a-Service [Caas] called prismic.io.

We were trying to get as many developers as possible to take our survey. We had moved the static pages onto a specialist site hosting service called Netlify so we were able to easily A/B-test changes just by having different versions in place. It was a simple matter of tagging analytics for each one.

What is the team composition? 

We primarily worked with a single JavaScript developer. We interacted directly with the resources, except for the sales side of things.

How did you come to work with DashBouquet?

I was searching for an outsourcer on Reactiflux, a React developers’ specialist group on the Discord platform. They got in touch with us so I Skyped with them and found one of their technical co-founders to be very impressive.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of their work was around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2017. The second site was wrapped up in early-October and launched in November. We plan to use them for another project—a website using the same infrastructure.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The GatsbyJS technology was new when they started using it so they had to work around some issues with the early releases. It’s been very good for us in terms of modifying and maintaining the site. It was a successful project and was built in time for the launch of the awards.

We also managed to launch the second site on time. They were flexible around some design elements which were delivered late. We wanted to make some changes later on and the person who could do them was on another project. However, they made time, even though they were busy.

We increased conversions for people coming to our landing pages by nearly 20%, through the simplifications made to the pages with their help. We drove those changes, but it was possible to do because of how they built the system.

How did DashBouquet perform from a project management standpoint?

We mostly managed the projects ourselves. They checked in regularly to make sure everything was okay, but we preferred to handle management ourselves. There was an existing set of tools in place. We both used Slack for the collaboration but had separate instances. DashBouquet worked on our co-hosting infrastructure on Bitbucket, but they were flexible in terms of what to use. They documented things without being asked, which was a nice surprise.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We ran into some build issues early on and found some inexplicable errors. Their developer was able to debug quite deep into a new framework he’d never worked with before and resolved the matter quickly. We'd be stuck on a problem for a couple of days, but it took them just a matter of hours—they assigned a very competent developer.

In general, the pace at which they learned new tech we wanted to use was excellent. It was what we went to them for, but we were still pleasantly surprised, in the outsourcing scenario.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always a trade-off when working with suppliers who don’t speak English as their native language. The level of communication and understanding of English is good, but it can always be better. They’re better than average, relative to their location and pricing.  

They were willing to find a new person when we wanted changes, but because we were working on a new tech stack, we didn’t want to take that hit and pay for him to learn things. To some extent, this was our own fault.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They’re quite a small company, so, if the client requires a significant number of developers, it will be challenging. Unless planning is done ahead of time, DashBouquet won’t be very flexible with resources. They are growing, but they are still a niche group, with around 12 members at the time we started working with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a consultancy business and we make digital products for other people. I’m the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet?

We were working on a React Native mobile project for a client and we wanted somebody to help out with the development process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DashBouquet was white labeling their services to us. We needed someone who had experience in React Native. One of their guys, Alex, joined our team to help with the overall build of the project. They provided 1 resource rather than a full delivery team. The resource was working alongside one of our developers who was inexperienced with React Native. We just wanted someone there to support and help us learn. We wanted to know we were building in the right way and would be able to deliver within the timeline.

We had built the API, and our client wanted it cross-platform and on a budget, so React Native was a good fit. The guys at DashBouquet had done it before and it wasn’t a complex project. Doing a project economically is the most difficult thing, and we managed to include the core functionality and have a nice, well-confined MVP.

How did you come to work with DashBouquet?

I was introduced to them by another contact and did some background research myself. I checked out some of their other projects and spoke to their team. They seemed like a good fit.

How much have you invested with DashBouquet?

We spent $12,000 on the resource they provided.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2017, and the project was completed in May 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The client is happy with what we did. She’s preparing for launch now, so there are no key metrics yet.

How did DashBouquet perform from a project management standpoint?

We did the whole project management piece. Alex was involved in the standups on a daily basis. In regards to the admin side, including invoicing, it was relatively seamless. Alex fell in line with our development practices well. His English isn’t great, so thankfully one of our guys speaks Russian. There was a bit of translation needed, but he’s a nice guy and he worked hard. The process was smooth to ramp him up on the team.

What did you find most impressive about DashBouquet?

They know what they’re talking about from a technical perspective. I went to meet them and they’re nice guys, very welcoming.

Are there any areas DashBouquet could improve?

We were fortunate to have a person in place to deal with the communication. It would have been a shock to us if we didn’t have someone who could speak Russian - we would have had a language barrier. I don’t remember if we had agreed on using a Russian speaking resource beforehand or not. I think if we didn’t have someone who could translate, they would’ve organized it at their end.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a car-sharing technology company. I’m the director and co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet Development?

I needed help putting some JavaScript into our website because we needed some new changes and didn’t have the in-house ability to do that.

SOLUTION

How much have you invested with DashBouquet Development?

We spent 400 GBP [approx. US $500] on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our relationship in January 2016 and the project was completed in March 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The code was checked by our in-house CTO and it was very high quality. It functioned perfectly. We had one minor bug which we caused, and they fixed it at no charge.

How did DashBouquet Development perform from a project management standpoint?

They were extremely responsive. They were very clear about the scope of the work. They completed the work on time and under budget.

What did you find most impressive about DashBouquet Development?

Something that sets them apart is that they have full stack capabilities. They had an understanding of the whole business and how all of our technology works, so they could do their work in a much more effective way.

Are there any areas DashBouquet Development could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a crowdsourced comparison tool for medical doctors. I am the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet Development?

They helped us build our MVP [minimum viable product].

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a web application but I don’t remember the language it was coded in because we’ve changed it since.

How did you come to work with DashBouquet Development?

My business partner at the time had recommended them because he had used them for a smaller project.

How much have you invested with DashBouquet Development?

This information is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our relationship in February 2016 and the project was completed in May or June of 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve continued to develop and are progressing well, so we’re very thankful to them.

How did DashBouquet Development perform from a project management standpoint?

We had weekly calls. Overall, they produced a great web app from an aesthetic and functionality standpoint. With any MVP there are issues you need to sort out, but overall, they were good to work with. 

What did you find most impressive about DashBouquet Development?

They combine design and development seamlessly. They take control over it and made us feel at ease. It almost felt like it was one team dealing with both aspects. They did that well.

Are there any areas DashBouquet Development could improve?

This information is confidential.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Intellectsoft is an outsourced software developer. I was the director of the company's project management office in Minsk.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet Development?

We needed frontend development resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DashBouquet Development provided Node.js, ReactJS, JavaScript and HTML coding for our group. We typically used 3-4 full-time developers from DashBouquet Development, who worked with a project manager from our end.

How did you come to work with DashBouquet Development?

We used to have a list of vendor companies which we worked with depending on the type of work. DashBouquet Development was recommended by one of those companies. We conducted a series of interviews and decided to work together.

We chose DashBouquet Development because they were a professional company, had a good skill level for the required tech stack, and they had a front-end studio attitude, investing their own time for research into new technologies.

How much have you invested with DashBouquet Development?

Our contract with DashBouquet Development amounted to around $75,000. We mostly worked on a time-and-materials basis.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with DashBouquet Development in September 2015. I am no longer with the company, but they are still working with DashBouquet Development. My current company is also engaged with DashBouquet Development, based on my recommendation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

DashBouquet Development provided developers who were equal to our in-house ones. Their general skill was at middle or senior level; we never had juniors from DashBouquet Development.

How did DashBouquet Development perform from a project management standpoint?

DashBouquet Development was good technology-wise, but they also coped well with tough timelines.

What did you find most impressive about DashBouquet Development?

DashBouquet Development was able to tackle the issues we presented, and delivered good-quality products in short periods of time. This was their main competitive advantage.

Are there any areas DashBouquet Development could improve?

DashBouquet Development needs to bring up junior developers to spread knowledge. Other than this, everything was good. Everyone who took part in our projects integrated well into the teams.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We do mobile and web development. I am the co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with dashBOUQUET Development?

My company focuses on mobile but, sometimes, clients want to have web work done. I outsource most of that web work to them. Also, if we were short on manpower for mobile development, they helped us there as well.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We focused on iOS mobile app development. We use Xcode, which is Apple's development environment.

How did you come to work with dashBOUQUET Development?

I found them on Upwork. I tried a number of different contractors, and I liked how they worked. They're efficient, quick, and responsive, and I liked the price and quality of the work.

How much have you invested with dashBOUQUET Development?

We have spent $5,000 to $20,000 a year with them, depending on the year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our relationship in 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Most of their work was part of larger products. I never outsourced the whole project to them, so I don't have any metrics on their work.

How did dashBOUQUET Development perform from a project management standpoint?

We have mostly used JIRA for project management, and I've paid them through Upwork.

What did you find most impressive about dashBOUQUET Development?

I've been happy with their work, and that's why I've hired them multiple times.

Are there any areas dashBOUQUET Development could improve?

Not at the moment.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I have a web development firm. It’s called nSoft. It’s been around for about 11 years. I’m the CEO [Chief Executive Officer]. I’m also hands-on on all projects, as we’re a small company. I manage all projects on a one-product-at-a-time basis. I run teams that do most of the development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet?

Two years ago, we had a project of developing a web platform for a couple getting married to plan their wedding. I was looking for help with that because we were already full.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s web development mostly. I’ve been working directly with their developers. Recently, they added a quality assurance resource on one of the projects. So for the web, it’s mainly HTML5, CSS, and Angular, but now we have switched to React with Node.js on the server side.

How did you come to work with DashBouquet?

They came up on Elance. We started working together from there.

How much have you invested with DashBouquet?

So far it would be around $100,000. It would be an average of $50,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in August or September 2014. It’s ongoing. We’ve done multiple projects with them. There may have been a couple of months where we haven’t had projects, but most of the time we did.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had several projects that were completed. The clients were happy. We have a university in Israel that required a portal for managing their funding on research. They developed the full portal. The customer was very happy. It was a very custom project with custom graphics, which is really unordinary in the world of university projects. We got very good feedback from the customer and they got good feedback from their users. It was a very successful project.

Now we have a project for a big data startup that we’re building the dashboard for. Just last week they had a conference in New York City where they previewed our work in progress and they got very good feedback on that. They have clients the size of Netflix. That’s a good thing.

How did DashBouquet perform from a project management standpoint?

I work mainly with Anton [Shaleynikov, CEO] who is managing the project that we’ve been working on. It depends on the project. We either do a daily standup if it’s an Agile project, or we have status updates a couple of times a week. Otherwise, we’re constantly on chat - Skype or Slack. I get constant updates. We have constant communication throughout the day. The development resources are all remote. Anton is the project manager and I’m mostly in contact with him. Currently, I’m interacting directly with the developers on one project, but mostly it’s a project manager.

What did you find most impressive about DashBouquet?

I can say that I got a feeling of high professionalism, and even more important, very high credibility. I have been outsourcing work for years now to all around the world. The level of credibility I got from Anton and his willingness to take responsibility over the project and get it done even when over weekends was great. It’s always more work than expected. He always pushed through. I used to run a lot of in-house development and I can definitely say I get better results now working with DashBouquet than I had from in-house developers. It’s a different viewpoint. They take the viewpoint that they’re here to deliver a project and not just do a job. I’m very happy with that. If I had to manage an in-house team it would probably have cost me three times more.

Are there any areas DashBouquet could improve?

I know they’re under a lot of pressure because they’ve got other projects. Recently, it’s been a bit harder at times to complete everything smoothly. I think they need a bit more time, or the project manager is busy because he has more projects now. I know they’re reorganizing because they’re scaling up. They’re having growing pains but that’s the best kind of pains.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

uTheory is an online fundamentals of music theory ear training and rhythm course, sort of like a Khan Academy but for music. I’m the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DashBouquet?

They were largely involved as we were building our initial product. Actually, from early on in the design stages, they were doing a large amount of the graphic design for the site as well as the frontend design. Basically, what we’ve built is a content management system for music classes. They were building largely the content management system, and then the folks on our side of it were building the music content and doing programming related to the interactive music questions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The frontend of the site is built in Angular 1.5 at this point, and we’ll probably stay with that for a while. On the server side, we’re running Node. Originally, we were looking at going server-less and going with Parse, but then we moved away from that as some of the requirements where we were tracking student progress became just too complex for that.

How did you come to work with DashBouquet?

Initially through Elance which of course is now Upwork. As I was interviewing various firms, the thing that really impressed me in particular about Anton [Shaleynikov, CEO] who was the project lead, was that he was able to look at the requirements and the specs and actually see through to what a better set of specs would be and how to get there. Really, that was largely my experience as we worked together for about 18 months. They are just very experienced in this space of responsive web design, and knowledgeable of what technologies to turn to in order to solve various problems.

How much have you invested with DashBouquet?

We’re at about $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in December 2014, and then we launched into beta at the beginning of this summer, around June.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve only launched publicly two weeks ago, so I don’t have all that many stories, although we already have four colleges who have adopted us as a text for classes, so that’s exciting. From beta testers, I have an enormous amount of internal feedback on it that’s all been very positive about how just usable and just intuitive everything in the interface is. Especially in our space, to use our competitors’ products, students and teachers have to have training to know how to do it, whereas we’re getting almost no support calls at this point. It seems like it’s all clear enough and logically enough laid out that people are able to just figure out how to do that stuff on their own.

How did DashBouquet perform from a project management standpoint?

Really, they seem to have in place a really good project management system, and their estimates were always really quite good in terms of number of hours for different portions of the project. I don’t have a sense actually of how large the organization is, but basically there were about four or five people regularly involved in building uTheory, and then different people brought in as different things were needed. For a time, we had one of their guys helping out actually with some of the musical interactive exercises as we were trying to do a sprint to get some of those done. Then, they also brought in a designer from time to time at the start of portions of the project and then as we’d wrap up portions to just go back and do polishing.

From my perspective, it was really seamless and saved an enormous amount of time in terms of having to find and hire separate designers, CSS experts, JavaScript experts. Largely, we interacted through Slack and Trello, keeping a Trello board as users would report things or as we would notice things and then assign them on Trello.

What did you find most impressive about DashBouquet?

I think that the scope of the project crept enormously. It turned out to be a much bigger challenge than we expected when we started, and their flexibility at responding to that and scaling in response to that was really impressive. All the way along, they were really concerned with delivering quality work and very responsive to feedback. I think in our case it may have been a slightly unusual situation for them, because on our side we were working with a codebase and they were working with a codebase as well, so there’d be mutual code reviews happening. They were all really wonderfully responsive to even just styling changes in code. Anton, especially, I have to single out as just being a really extraordinary communicator and just being highly committed to getting the job done on time, on budget, and done well.

Are there any areas DashBouquet could improve?

No, I think they’re really very strong overall. Their frontend work seems to be a bit stronger than their backend work, and we did most of the backend work on this project, which was just fine. We also had some very complex backend challenges including various machine learning things. I’m just very pleased with all the work they’ve done for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Head of brand and product of a supply chain, logistics, and transport company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Office furniture lifecycle management and redistrobution

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Dashbouquet Development to accomplish?

• Audit current admin dashboard
• Upgrade admin dashboard
• Create new microservice saas

SOLUTION

How did you find Dashbouquet Development?

Online Search

Why did you select Dashbouquet Development over others?

High ratings

How many teammates from Dashbouquet Development were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Helped audit and upgrade exisiting admin dashbord, whilst helping deliver new priority features. Also helped in sprint to create new SaaS microservice

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Deliverability of key priorities in timely manner

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes they worked to deliver items on time. They did lack some pressure to deliver items at reasonable rates. That was partially due to our demands though and their willingness to accomidate, but overall their work was admirable

What was your primary form of communication with Dashbouquet Development?

Virtual Meeting

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

Their ability to quickly find skilled people in fields we needed

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

If anything, more project management structure and help trying to deliver on time