Dengun

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an IT services company. We provide software, web applications, IT, networking, hardware, infrastructure, and cloud services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dengun?

I was working on a project and needed to build a prototype.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I explained my project to Dengun, and there was some collaboration. I was very much involved in the coding, and they helped me with the frontend and some of the backend using Python, some marketing ideas, and helping me evaluate UX. We worked together to develop a SaaS MVP. The key technologies we used included Python, Django, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for the frontend. I managed the hosting.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a few people from their team.

How did you come to work with Dengun?

I met them through a school director. I went to a meeting and mentioned I was from Macau. The director said he knew someone from Macau, and that’s how I met them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–July 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was nice working with them. The facilities were excellent, and the team was friendly. It was a great environment with many synergies, and I was delighted with the experience.

How did Dengun perform from a project management standpoint?

My experience was very agile, so we didn’t have much project management. We had a one-week turnaround and worked in sprints. They tried to push me into heavy management, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to spend time in meetings or have much bureaucracy. I wanted a very lean startup, so we did it my way.

We had meetings, but it was a very agile project. It would have taken a long time if we had gone for standard management. We used GitHub for project management. I was there almost every day, and we communicated face-to-face.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The building was great, and the environment was pleasant and international. I could meet people from all over, and there was a very high level of technical expertise. Different projects were happening in various areas, but in the same building.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t know what they could improve. I was working on my project full-time, so I wasn’t aware of what they were doing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t think I can recommend anything because each client is different.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Kalibra

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Kalibra brings to clinics, patient-centric practitioners, and health-conscious everyday people tools to improve health outcomes with an intelligent software platform that provides decision support and data-driven recommendations based on biometric and biochemical markers from lab data and wearables seemlessly connected together through a global and holistic scoring model that brings insights on all of your health needs from sleep, movement, food, to social connection, personal grow and mindfulness.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Dengun to accomplish?

• Migration of infrastructure from private cloud to aws in Kubernetes cluster
• Migration of codebase and DevOps framework from self-hosted instance to gitlab.com
• Ongoing support

SOLUTION

How did you find Dengun?

Referral

Why did you select Dengun over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Dengun were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Entire infrastructure and dozens of microservices to be migrated from private cloud to aws.
• Entire codebase management and CI/CD pipelines and framework migrated from self-hosted to managed gitlab.com solution
• Ongoing monitoring, management, tweaking of operations

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Successful and timely completion of projects

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

Everything was discussed, agreed upon clearly, and delivered on time.

What was your primary form of communication with Dengun?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their combination of personal connection and professionalism is impressive.

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

The only thing would be to have a second person like the one with whom I worked, but I realise how difficult that is.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of IT and Development

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are an Irish owned chain of Supergyms, catering for all levels of fitness and disciplines.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Dengun to accomplish?

• Create a user friendly mobile app for our staff and members
• Create a highly configurable push nofication management system
• Align the functionality and style of the app to match or exceed our current website
• Tightly integrate with our in-house API

SOLUTION

How did you find Dengun?

Referral

Why did you select Dengun over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Dengun were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

We had a need for a mobile app but didn't have the resources nor no=how to do it. Dengun came highly recommended so we approached them and immediately put our minds to rest. They brought us through the process in a professional and friendly manner. A lot of work was put into the discovery process on both sides, wireframes and logic flows, to flesh out as many requirements and mitigate issues before development started. 

As well as the mobile app for both Android and iOS, they were also tasked with creating a Push Notification Management System for us, so that we could send notifications to custom dynamic groups of members as needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As with any development project, it's important to say that, you get out of a project what you put in. Our company invested a lot of time into the documentation that we gave Dengun; along with specific aims, goals and required outcomes. It left little room for ambiguity, which is a good thing as there is no guess work. Dengun exceeded every one of our aims and goals. 

Deliverables were provided to us after each development sprint. All deliverables were to spec, tested and worked. The app integrated perfectly with our API.

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

I couldn't fault the project management. Documentation was meticulous including Figma charts, colour schemes, fonts to be used, even the style and location of small things like button placements. There was formal discussions over email and virtual meetings, along with informal conversations with the actual developers using Slack, allowing for minute developer discussions to take place. 

They were highly accommodating to small changes in the spec, as even the best laid plans can't think of everything before development starts.

What was your primary form of communication with Dengun?

Virtual Meeting

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

They are friendly and accommodating. It seemed like they actually cared about the success of our project. They were highly knowledgeable and answered every question we threw at them.

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

This was our first outsourced major project so I don't have a basis for comparison. I don't have any complaints with how they performed. They were friendly, courteous, professional and knowledgeable. I would certainly use them again in any future projects and highly recommend them to others.

I have no reservations in highly recommending Dengun for future projects. I believe they also assist in digital marketing. Top class company and a plesure to work with. A+++.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Vote In Or Out, a social media platform for politics. We crowdsource research and facts on politicians that are running for office.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dengun?

There was no easy way to find information on candidates on the internet. For instance, it would take hours to find a candidate’s thoughts on guns. As a result, we wanted a platform that users and voters could use to learn about candidates so that they could make more informed decisions when electing officials. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I gave Dengun a completely fleshed out design of the platform, and their main task was the engineering and creation of its desktop and mobile versions. After I delivered the design brief and files, they developed and launched the MVP. They had around six months to launch that heavy first iteration. They recommended using Flutter since it was a quick way to create the platform and link its frontend to its backend. 

After that initial release, we’ve been slowly adding features to the platform to improve it over time. It's similar to Twitter in that users can post research around candidates while others can partake in that information. Voters can also add more to it if they want. 

What is the team composition?

In the beginning, we had one product manager, one tech lead, 2–3 backend engineers, and 2–3 frontend engineers. It was always a tight, small team. After the initial launch, we’ve been working with two backend engineers and a frontend engineer with one project manager. 

How did you come to work with Dengun?

I had a friend who owned another company, and they were working with Dengun. At that time, we were having troubles with fundraising, and we were running out of time because the 2020 elections were coming. After they heard about what our platform does, Dengun stepped in to do the work. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $70,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in October 2019, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Dengun has created a complex platform that functions perfectly — it’s almost pixel perfect. The platform is flawless and frictionless, and their team is excellent. Success is hard to quantify unless one works in the industry, but I’ve been a designer for 20 years and worked with a lot of engineers, so I know what to be impressed about. 

How did Dengun perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re amazing. I’m not the most hands-on designer around, and I leave a lot of the guesswork to them because I don’t have the time to write proper documents. Dengun fills in all the blanks and is meticulous about how they organize everything. On top of that, they hit their deadlines.

They’re also super-efficient in the way they communicate. We meet or have a Zoom call every week, but we mainly communicate through the project management task board. They’re on Slack so they answer immediately, and I like communicating with them because they’re nice. For project management tools, we use ClickUp. It has a high functionality but it’s not costly, so it fits our budget. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

There’s a saying about the triangle of time, money, and quality: you always have to give up one. With Dengun, I haven’t had to give up any of those, and that makes them stand out. They’re all-stars all around, and they’re truly nice. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. I’ve never had anything to complain about with Dengun.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As general advice, document everything well so that the Dengun team has a full understanding of the project. Then, they’ll have everything they need to build the deliverable.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder and CEO of JOY Just One You

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

App development and tech company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Dengun to accomplish?

• Help develop a new social media platform focusing on positivity and self empowerment for the user.
• Create a clickable prototype of our app that could be developed into an MVp and then fully functioning app.

SOLUTION

How did you find Dengun?

Referral

Why did you select Dengun over others?

• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Dengun were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

STAGE 1 JOY Just One You: Project Prototype/MVP Research and Mapping 

Identify Challenges/Goals Encouraging Authenticity Over Perfection Balancing Engagement with Mental Well-being Creating a Sense of Community Avoiding Overstimulisation and Burnout Ensuring Trust in Content and Interactions Limited Control Over User-Generated Content Funding and Monetisation Pressure Difficulty Balancing Privacy and Social Interaction Potential Pushback from Influencers Competition from Larger Platforms Maintaining Engagement Without Addiction Adapting to Changing Social Media Trends 

STAGE 2 JOY Just One You: Project Prototype/MVP User Stories and MVP Prioritisation 

Detail A series of questions and answers undertaken between Dengun and JOY and it’s potential users to understand their present daily journey using social media. From this we will define detailed users' stories, epics and acceptance criteria to inform the priority of the MVP features based on impact and feasibility. Partnerships with Brands Integrated Wellness Tools: mood monitory is a key Focus on Positive Content Supportive Community Environment: algorithms that promote positive interactions User Empowerment Gamification for Engagement Emphasis on Community Engagement: #joyof….. communities Safety and Privacy Features Data Analytics: providing users with insights into their mental health journeys and progress over time This innovation distinguishes itself by combining a purposeful focus on positivity and mental health with supportive community features, personalised tools, and an emphasis on positive, enriching content. By addressing the limitations of existing social media platforms, the JOY app aims to create a unique space that genuinely promotes user well-being and fosters a culture of support and connection. 

STAGE 3 Production of the clickable prototype demonstrating the findings and outcomes of the previous stage. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The UK government funded scheme that the project was attached to approved all stages of success to include: 

Fnding a solution to the problem of:

a) how do we make a social media app sticky

b) how do we create a new way to advertise to users in a contextual manner, and be less intrusive. 

The level of success was judged by the response of our Focus group to the final delivered clickable prototype and this was a very positive and successful outcome. 

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

The project management was outstanding. Their level of engagement was superb, and their passion and professionalism toward our project were amazing! Every meeting was engaging and exciting, and they always delivered each stage target. Every time we had a question, this was understood and then explained in a very detailed fashion with an unwavering commitment to the project. 

What was your primary form of communication with Dengun?

Virtual Meeting

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

The ability to totally understand our project and really get into our minds. This wasn't just one person; this was the whole team. To be so invested was a breath of fresh air. Our project is all about being unique, and that's why this partnership worked so fantastic! 

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

Keep being the way you are. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a manager for Sul Informação

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Sul Informação is a regional online newspaper.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Dengun to accomplish?

• New website
• Fix performance errors
• Enhance Accessibility

SOLUTION

How did you find Dengun?

Referral

Why did you select Dengun over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Dengun were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Dengun was hired to remake the website of Sul Informação, considering needed improvements in acessibility, performance and design, and to give technical support in the server migration. 
Previous website was struggling with server overload.
Also, they were hired to improve SEO performance.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new website is better than we expected and a great improvement in many ways regarding the old one. It's faster, has great looks, and prepares us for the future. Also, the team was always open to work and implement the huge number of specific requests that we had, considering our business area,

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

The project duration was always discussed on the go, and the timmings were aligned. Dengun was always available to implement our demands, and there were a lot of demands.

What was your primary form of communication with Dengun?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The technicall knowlege, the culture, and the meetings always went smooth and pleasant to attend. Also, the knowlege of our needs, some of them we weren't aware about.

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

They are great in what they do, so there is nothing I can think of. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Executive at WeLivv.
Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Social media

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Dengun to accomplish?

• App development
• UI/UX Design
• App maintenance

SOLUTION

How did you find Dengun?

Clutch Site

Why did you select Dengun over others?

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

Dengun is very good at making promises and telling stories that make them seem competent and responsible. However, they simply do not live up to any of what they promise. Dealing with them was a catastrophic experience, and it is hard to imagine a company doing worse in terms of delivering against their commitments or even caring about their commitments.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had very specific deliverables and timeframes agreed upon. In not one instance did they deliver against the agreed deliverables.

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

They did not deliver one thing on time. They did not deliver most things at all. And most of the work that they did do remains riddled with bugs, and missing functionality.

What was your primary form of communication with Dengun?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Terrible quality

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

It's hard to know where to start. Truly a terrible experience.