Dedicated Developers

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of GrowthOracle, a management consulting business. I’ve used my 20 years of business experience to build a repository of information and automate some of our consulting processes into software.

My other company is an educational business that provides tutorial materials for Irish high school students. The two businesses effectively provide electronic products to virtual markets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dedicated?

We needed help with multiple backend development projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dedicated has done all the backend work for two vertical products. I started by writing a functional specification of what I required for both product sets. One is for small and medium business owners, and the other one is for management consulting practices. I tend to not pursue business with larger firms.

Basically, these products automate the business analysis process and allow other consultants to use my software. They can complete early analysis, figure out what the business is missing, and determine its needs by benchmarking it against best practices. It’s a white label model that other consultants can use under their own brand. They can use the software to perform business analysis on potential clients without revealing that a third party is involved.

The second product is an educational tool focused on students who are completing state exams in Ireland. They designed a backend system that will protect the copyright of the materials that we produce and allow us to fulfill customer orders without any human intervention. I’ve automated that whole process on both of those products.

We just upgraded the education system’s backend with a brand-new dashboard and a whole new set of metrics. They build templates that allow me to build add any WordPress website to the existing infrastructure using a turnkey turnaround. I have another e-commerce website that incorporates full reporting capabilities. That’s built into the application.

They’ve integrated our product log-ins with the backend of multiple WordPress sites. Right now I have two trading entities on that platform, but there are no restrictions on the amount that I can have.

They also integrated a new payment gateway with Stripe. I’ve been with PayPal before and I don’t like the way they operate.

What is the team composition?

I tend to work with 2 or 3 core developers within the firm. The project manager on the business side, Vikas [COO & Co-Founder, Dedicated Developers], was my main contact if I had any development issues. When we were scoping out and pricing the project, I always dealt with Vikas. I worked with their lead developer on a daily basis. 

How did you come to work with Dedicated?

I built earlier versions of my products in Ireland, which was expensive. I paid Dedicated 20% of what development would have cost in Ireland. They were prepared to step into projects that had run into some difficulty. The providers could not give me the functionality that I wanted or ran up very large time and materials bills to complete the product. Dedicated offered me a fixed price for development. We obviously had to pay for extra features that we decided to add later.

I met Eben Pagan, who teaches various online marketing skills, at a conference in California. Dedicated is quite friendly with him, and he gave them a high recommendation. I met them at one of his events.

While talking to Vikas’ brother, I mentioned that I had spent a lot of money on one piece of software. He offered to acquire the project, fix what was broken, and deliver the functionality that I needed. Very few software companies are willing to take on someone else’s code and all the accompanying issues.

They were prepared to commit to a fixed price and a fixed schedule, which I’d never seen in the Irish software industry. It’s always based on time and materials here, and the time element is almost infamous. It’s caused me a lot of grief in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

$35,000. In Ireland, we would have paid five times that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2015 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s been phenomenal. The quality and the value jump off the page. I’ve always gotten what I’ve asked for, and have never given them a task they could not complete.

They delivered exactly what I wanted within the time frames upon which we had agreed. The education business has generated an entirely automatic six-figure income. I answer an occasional email from customers, but I usually don’t need to do a thing. They even transfer money into my bank account at the end of every week. When a student buys the content, it is delivered in two formats. The first is a PDF, which is easy to rip off. The other format is MindGenius, a mind mapping software application that I have locked down.

Dedicated put the name of the purchasing student onto every page of every document, which amounts to over 1,000 pages of content. Students are more reluctant to distribute copies because their name is on it. I’d rather stop people ripping us off. We had that before and we didn’t have names on it. Even teachers copied documents and gave them to students. That cheated us out of 30 purchases, creating a copyright and security issue for us. Using a few of my ideas, Dedicated selected a tech stack and solved the problem. I did a lot of the testing to keep costs down.

The consulting product is smaller. It’s a subscription model where customers pay $500 a month for unlimited use of the platform. Your average small consultant pays me $6,000 a year. You don’t need many customers to get a pretty decent return from that. We offer multiple cost levels, including a standard mind mapping packages for $10-$12 and a consulting subscription of $500 per month. They’re two different verticals, two different markets, and two different prices. It gives us a decent return overall.

How did Dedicated perform from a project management standpoint?

I talked to Dedicated about technology choices and then we worked within an Agile environment. Every few weeks, we would sprint to get to a certain level of functionality with an MVP. From there, we’d make refinements on the product once we got to a stage where I felt all the functional specifications have been met.

Their managers are based in the United States, their developers are from India, my web developers are based in the Philippines, and I’m in Ireland. We work around the clock, but it works well.

They have an automated project management application that facilitates interaction between everyone and manages all documentation. If I found bugs during testing, I reported them on that system. I had almost daily contact with the lead developer, especially during the latter stage of the project. The entire process was very hands-on. Even though I never spoke to him on the phone, we had a terrific online relationship and he was very responsive to my needs. Everything that I wanted was completed to a high standard.

The pricing was also way more competitive than I could have gotten in Ireland. It was almost like having my own development team. It was a great experience with good communication. I highly recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

As the webmaster of a virtual clinic, I oversee all their web properties. We have nutrition counseling and training courses for nutritionists around the US and the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dedicated Developers?

There was too much work and growth for me to handle alone, and we needed help with web development and programming.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We currently use Memberium, Digital Access Pass, WordPress, and custom PHP scripting, with most of the work being the latter two. They've taken a large portion of daily operations.

They've done more advanced programming of SQL queries from several different databases and programs to have a mashup of information we could manipulate and use to run our systems to do cross-checks. They've done HTML, PHP with WordPress, as well as WordPress templates. They also do server maintenance and server scripting.

What is the team composition?

I have one main contact, who is a project manager for us. He has one or two people under him that he assigns work to.

How did you come to work with Dedicated Developers?

We met them at a conference. The two owners were professional and easy to work and communicate with. They had a large clientele with testimonials and a proven track record of quality work.

How much have you invested in them?

We've spent around $50,000 since we first started, around $10,000 a year, though it varies.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in spring 2014, and the work is ongoing. We just had another one of their team members come on board to give us additional help.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our business has continued to grow, and through them, we've been able to keep up with the demand. We have 20 different online classes they've helped us build and continually maintain. We have hundreds of new customers a year that come through our programs, which is possible by their contribution.

How did Dedicated Developers perform from a project management standpoint?

They've always been excellent. In fact, we've thrown a lot of work at them and said we need it by tomorrow. They're always able to do it. I'm thankful for their dedication and ability to handle when we have an emergency or something urgent that needs to get done. Their response time is great, and as far as communication goes, they're very responsive. We use Teamwork.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can give them practically any assignment, programming task, software, or different third-party service to work with, and they can figure it out and support us. They basically have a next-day turnaround, and I can give them two or three projects the same day and they'll do all of them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Maybe just clearer communication, but they're very good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do it now if you're struggling with keeping up with your own workload. Their rate is good in terms of cost, affordability, and availability.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a digital agency that provides web and app development. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dedicated?

I needed a web and app development team to help with various, ongoing projects. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve been with me since the start of my company, working on many web projects. One of the projects involved a New York Times best-selling author’s recipes, which we put in app form. Creating the user interface was complicated. We had to reformat the images to get them looking good on all devices and to develop the app for iOS and Android. One aspect that was pretty technical and interesting was to easily change the serving size. You’re dealing with cups, numbers of eggs, numbers of chicken breasts, and everything else so it’s a challenge. They helped us through that and made it a success. That was a good experience.

Their work also involves widgets that interact with our sales team and all kinds of complicated tasks. A lot of the web work is PHP and JavaScript. The app development was iOS and Android. 

What is the team composition? 

There’s always a project manager. It’s usually me working with 1–2 dedicated developers depending on the project. On an app, it could be 3–5. On a day to day level, it’s just project manager and coders.

How did you come to work with Dedicated?

My friend was doing an information product and I worked with him in development. We both wanted to get into the computer sector. I had always been good with design and website work. He found Dedicated and I started working with him on this project. It was powerful to have a developer at my disposal full time. It fell in my lap and it was such an awesome situation that I decided to use them. 

How much have you invested with them?

$250,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in 2010 and the work is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

My business model is to coordinate and design these projects and farm out the coding talents to dedicated developers. My ROI [return on investment] is 4X out the door—what I bill clients compared to what I bill. That’s a compelling number.

Your average business owner doesn’t want to deal with the logistics of hiring an outsourced company. I provide the structure for it and I make my money on that markup, but they provide that quality service. 

How did Dedicated perform from a project management standpoint?

The coolest thing is I love being able to assign work at night and when I wake up, all the work is done. We use Teamwork to communicate simple tasks, daily priority lists, and videos. I go back, make changes, and any updates that need to be made, I simply send them over. I have a continuous 24-hour development cycle, which is pretty incredible. The communication and the management are always top-notch. It’s frictionless. It's hard to give too many specifics besides saying that it works perfectly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s priceless that no matter what happens to an individual resource, your project is always taken care of. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes there are spacing issues, for example, asking them to vertically center something, but I’m neurotic about that. They’re coders and you can’t expect too much in that area. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Create Jing videos and explain things that way if you’re working with any outsourcers. If you don’t make videos, you will have so many headaches. I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.:
I serve as the Director and Lead Performance Consultant at a firm that specializes in empowering companies through advanced leadership training and strategic technology tools. We combine behavioral science with innovative digital platforms to help clients elevate their sales performance and internal processes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address?
Our biggest challenge was the lack of flexibility and depth in off-the-shelf CRM tools. We needed a purpose-built platform tailored to the nuanced sales cycles and training workflows of our clients. Beyond solving inefficiencies, we aimed to create a smarter, automated system that could scale with evolving client needs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement and team dynamic?
Dedicated Developers played a pivotal role in both the strategic and technical aspects of our platform. They didn’t just develop what we asked for — they helped us expand the vision. After understanding our business model and challenges, they proposed a more scalable and automated solution. They led the architecture and development of a fully customized CRM and marketing automation platform with advanced features like lead scoring, intelligent appointment flows, integrated SMS/email/voice campaigns, and performance tracking.

Their team included a seasoned project manager, a technical architect, a UI/UX lead, and several senior developers. Each brought specialized knowledge and contributed to a smooth, collaborative workflow. Communication has been clear, and their process is transparent, which has made the experience highly productive and efficient.

What's the status of this engagement?
The project is ongoing and growing. After successfully launching the desktop platform, Dedicated Developers recommended extending the solution into a mobile app — something we hadn’t initially planned. They worked closely with us to design the mobile architecture from the ground up, translating our evolving goals into a scalable mobile experience. They're now actively developing native iOS and Android apps, turning that shared vision into a powerful tool for our clients on the go.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with your partner evolve?
Our relationship has grown from a client-vendor arrangement into a strategic partnership. The Dedicated Developers team consistently thinks beyond the scope, helping us refine our ideas and guiding us with solid technical direction. Their commitment to understanding the “why” behind our goals has made a big difference in the platform’s impact.

In what ways can they improve?

Thus far, they’ve exceeded expectations. As we continue building out the mobile platform, faster iterations on UX refinements would be a bonus — but given the complexity of the system, their pace and quality have still been commendable.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?
Don’t treat them as just a dev shop — treat them as a long-term innovation partner. Bring them into your vision early, and they’ll help you scale it with clarity, creativity, and technical precision. Their ability to bridge business strategy and technology execution is rare.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on September 22, 2020.

Dominic Carubba
CEO & Founder, Sales & Technology Consultants, LLCEducation

Atlanta, Georgia

11-50

Mar 2019 - Ongoing

$200,000 to $999,999

Verified

Project summary
Dedicated Developers creates a custom CRM and marketing automation platform for a training and coaching firm. The solutions aims to boost the company's sales funnel strategies and other marketing efforts.

Feedback summary
Thanks to Dedicated Developers, the company's customers now spend less time tracking and converting their leads into clients. Most importantly, booked appointments and sales soared even if clients did not increase their marketing budget. Customers can expect outstanding development from them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director and Lead Performance Consultant for a firm that specializes in customized training as well as developing technology for companies that want to improve their leadership and sales results.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Dedicated Developers, and what were your goals?

We hired Dedicated Developers to help us build a fully integrated custom CRM and marketing automation platform and help us implement a more effective marketing, automation and sales funnel process for our clients. They implemented our landing pages, email marketing and onboarding sequencing to enhance efficiency.

SOLUTION

How did you select Dedicated Developers and what were the deciding factors?

I was referred to Dedicated Developers by a colleague. When I met their team in their Atlanta office, it became evident that they are a solid team and had a great vision for the success of our project.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We used to use an off-the-shelf CRM platform for our clients that was restricted to have many customizations. We needed a solid technical partner who also understood online marketing and sales as well in order to develop a customized CRM platform with unique new custom features based upon our client’s business requirements.

Dedicated Developers team helped us build email marketing integration, appointment management, SMS follow up, voice drop follow up, lead scoring and tracking along with many other custom features that our clients requested. They also helped us with putting together a solid marketing and automated follow up system that has greatly improved our client’s sales funnels.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked with a project manager, technical architect, UI Architect and the lead developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our clients now spend a fraction of time as compared to what they used to in past to properly track and convert their leads into customers. The new customized follow-up and automation marketing process is much more streamlined to perfectly suit our client’s business.

We have seen a huge increase in the number of booked appointments and sales for a variety of our clients without increasing their advertising budget or expanding their sales team.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

They have an easy to navigate project management system which made communication easy to access and track.

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

Their level of detail was outstanding. The developers were very easy to communicate with and implemented all our added features just like we needed.

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

Not yet. They have done a great job so far and I have an internal project manager that is very particular about how our money is spent... they have not upset her at all.... KUDOS.

STAR RATINGS:
Overall rating:    5.0
Overall, I've used several contract developers over my 25 year career. By far, these guys are the best I've ever worked with.

Quality:    5.0
Top notch quality. All features and functions worked as planned.

Cost:    4.5
Not the cheapest... but worth every penny, because I've lost lots of money on cheaper developers.

Schedule:    5.0
Everything was done on time, as promised. A few items were delayed because of my team, not theirs.

Willing to refer:    5.0
I have already referred 3 people that are as happy as I am. I am sure you will always be glad you worked with Ded Dev.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the owner of a commercial roofing company based in Atlanta, GA, and we service the Southeastern US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Dedicated Developers, and what were your goals?

I hired them to develop an iOS app for our internal team to use to help during roof repairs, to better document roof issues prior to bidding for the job.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

While looking for developers in my area, I found Dedicated Developers. Due to their impressive ratings and glowing testimonials, they caught my attention, and I made the decision to schedule a call with them. Their office being in Atlanta, in my opinion, is advantageous. Their team’s indepth knowledge and breadth of portfolio gave me a peace of my mind that I’ve found the right technology partners. After our meeting and after carefully considering their offer, I came to the conclusion that they were the best choice for this new project.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The UI screen designs we provided needed more design work than we expected, and Dedicated Developers stepped in to finish that part, even though we hadn't originally thought it would need to be done. Then they worked on building the app. We encountered a number of technical challenges as what I was asking has neven been done before in the industry and the team didn't give up until they were solved. The developers were collaborative and worked to ensure our app worked for all of our team members' devices and even did calls where we shared screenshots of what was happening on some of our team members' phones. They also created a Master admin panel for our office. Now they’re working on making final adjustments and tweaks.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The team included a backend developer, a UX/UI developer, and mobile app developers, and a project manager who all worked together to keep things on schedule.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The app has been available for our internal team and we’ve started using it. Having this app has increased our internal efficiency by 37% and we’re able to elevate our customer experience and have much higher accuracy in quoting jobs than before we started using the app. The reception from our staff has been very positive.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They use Teamworks, which has worked well for tracking the progress of the various tasks. That’s been effective, and we work well together as we work through all the steps in building and perfecting the app.

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

The willingness to do what was needed to achieve my objectives made me feel positive about the experience. I’ve had great customer service in my interaction with the team.

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

None. So far, the collaboration with them has been quite positive.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm one of the Members and Mentors for a Program for education & counseling for underprivileged youth in India.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Dedicated Developers, and what were your goals?

We hired Dedicated Developers to develop our mobile apps. We needed a platform that could streamline our customer experience without requiring as much involvement from our team, and that could expand with us. An admin panel was also required so that our team could handle clients.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Following a Google search, we discovered them on Clutch. We chose Dedicated Developers after speaking with a few other companies.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We wanted to design and create our company's mobile apps from the ground up, as well as certain IP we were developing. The apps are for our charity that helps educate underprivileged kids. Project strategy, user experience and visual design, back end engineering, front end development, QA testing, launch strategy and execution, and maintenance were all part of the project.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager, backend developer, UX/UI developer, and mobile app developers were among the people we dealt with regularly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

They did a fantastic job of organizing our thoughts and assisting us in seeing the larger picture. We’re very pleased with their work. The app screens are done, we’ve completed the backend development and now we’re in the internal testing phase. Our company's employees have generally given us excellent feedback. Everyone is happy with the project's direction, and we have a terrific working relationship. In general, we have faith in what they have to offer and are eager to see what they've created.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We didn't have any process issues, so everything was perfect. As a result, I'd say it's pretty effective. Regular meetings, ad-hoc meetings, and everything in between were all part of our schedule. It works well because Dedicated Developers is very collaborative.

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

The people, the working atmosphere, the personalities, and the desire to work together with our larger company to achieve a similar goal. They are a natural extension of our company, and we never feel like we are dealing with a vendor.

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

Certainly not; their developers are capable of meeting whatever obstacle we throw at them. Their knowledge helped us take our product to the next level.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the owner of Health Check and the creator of the overall concept of the health app we’re developing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Dedicated Developers, and what were your goals?

We’re creating an app that will measure a range of biometrics and provide a variety of tips to help workers in demanding occupations perform better.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I found them on Clutch.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They helped us from the beginning because it was our first time doing this. We collaborated with them on the early concepts and mock-ups for our human performance apps prototype. They worked hard to grasp our vision and put all our features and objectives into action. They're currently working on an MVP that will be released later this year.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager, backend developer, UX/UI developer, and mobile app developers make up the team. The team's size varies depending on the situation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We have found Dedicated Developers to be great partners. They've helped us along the way, and the team has been proactive, which is critical for a business like ours. We appreciate how they tackle the project from our point of view. They take into account what we don't know and our hurdles, and then they foresee problems and provide answers for us.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Everything is going according to plan. They have complete control over the project, and we all get along nicely.

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

Working with Dedicated Developers is a breeze. They have a fantastic team. I find they are open and honest with me, and I would certainly recommend them.

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

No, there aren't. Everything is going well, and we are pleased with their performance.