Distillery

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the BI manager at AutoNation Mobile Service. We offer mobile mechanic services for customers’ automobiles. Our technicians drive their work vans to maintain or fix customer cars at the locations designated by the customer. We’re a subsidiary of AutoNation and are incorporated with AutoNation dealerships.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

We needed additional team members. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Distillery provides recruiting and HR management services. They work with multiple teams, not just with my team, but also with the engineering teams, to provide contractors to work for us as offshore employees. For my team, I’ve hired a BI engineer through Distillery. They’ve worked as the recruiter and HR management unit for that employee.

When I need to hire additional team members, I let Distillery know our requirements for a certain role. I believe they have a pool of candidates they look through, and they recommend a few top candidates. Then, they provide their information to me, and I review their resumes to decide who to proceed with for further rounds of interviews.

In the end, I pick the top candidates, and Distillery facilitates the interviews and communications between the candidates and me. When I make a final decision, they sign the contract. Once the employee is on board, Distillery transitions to working as the HR unit, managing the employee’s pay and benefits.

What is the team composition?

Brenda is my main point of contact. 

How did you come to work with Distillery?

I inherited the partnership from my former supervisor. He and another director from the engineering department started the partnership. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent under $500,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement started in January 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The BI engineer has been working for my team for the longest time, and he’s been solid.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

They respond fairly quickly when I communicate with them. Usually, whenever I have feedback, they come back to me in a day or two. We communicate via email. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They provide good candidates, and they’re willing to work with us and the candidate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Provide detailed requirements as much as possible, and work with them swiftly. Make the communication efficient and current.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Attorney Share, a marketplace for attorneys to automate the referral process of cases between each other.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

We needed a development team to get our company off the ground.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Distillery provides staff augmentation and development services for us. We initially had low-fidelity mock-ups of our platform and wanted to launch an MVP within a few months. Distillery’s design team worked on those mock-ups and created high-fidelity designs. The team then built the platform on top of those designs.

For technologies, Distillery has used Vercel for the frontend with React and Next.js. For the backend, the team uses Node.js, and we host the platform on our AWS infrastructure. Distillery is still part of our team, and we’re engaged with them in the long term. 

Our platform is only available to attorneys. When they sign up, they must provide their license information, which we validate. They can then look at the platform like a marketplace, where they see potential referrals in their practice areas and the states where they practice. They can propose on the referral, and the attorney who posted it may receive multiple proposals. If the proposal is accepted, we consider the referral matched, and the attorney will contact the client and sign them up. We collect a match fee at that point.

What is the team composition?

We have four engineers from Distillery. We also have an account manager assigned to us.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

I had worked with Distillery in a previous role at another company. When we were starting Attorney Share, I contacted my contacts at Distillery because of my last experience with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent almost $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2023, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The four engineers we have from Distillery are very experienced. Their ability to take full ownership of features is the most significant measure of success for me. I appreciate they’re not just people who read the ticket and do what’s described; they also build the requirements for everything. Distillery is a great partner, and they’re part of my team.

We have a QA process. If we need to address something, we typically file bug reports, and Distillery fixes it for the next release.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re not managing a budget; we consider them long-term team members. We set our goals for feature delivery for the entire team, and Didoesn’ty doesn't have a project management responsibility. We use Jira and GitHub as project management tools and communicate via Slack and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Once they felt they were part of the team, we gave them big responsibilities, and they embraced that. Distillery understands we’re not treating them like contractors; they’re a key part of our team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had a couple of hires that we ended up not keeping. It was hard to vet their quality, so we had to ensure their interviewing was up to speed. They’ve changed it since then.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Focus on getting senior engineers on their side, preferably ones who have been on staff with them rather than new hires.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of engineering at a global consultancy company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

We needed help with staff augmentation. For this project, our goal was to build the MVPs of different products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Distillery provided us with software engineers in various disciplines to help us expand our team to build software for both our own company and our customers. For every project, we usually had a product idea or product workstream that we wanted to build for ourselves or for our clients. To create these products, we ran an agile development process, and Distillery's engineers were able to participate in this process, helping us accelerate our development work.

The main skills we were looking for to augment our team were related to professional software engineering. We were looking for engineers with experience building software, launching websites, and creating services being used by millions of users. We wanted these resources to know the nuances of developing software.

After providing our requirements, we interviewed the candidates that Distillery provided that best fit our profile for the project at hand. For example, for some projects, we were looking for more junior engineers, whereas we were looking for more senior profiles for other projects. We were also looking for specific tech stacks and programming languages.

For every project, we usually had a week or two of interviews to ensure that the candidates had the necessary skills and the right seniority. Once we decided to move forward with a candidate, we then signed a scope of work (SOW). This SOW has a monthly model, so the contract was written on a monthly basis, providing the engineers with a 30-day heads-up of the upcoming work.

After signing the SOW, we went through an onboarding process, which usually took about two weeks to properly onboard the developers. During this period, we set up their accounts, Slack access, and access to our systems, including our source code and repository. We basically ensured that the engineers were ready to go. After onboarding, the engineers started to join our ceremonies pertaining to the agile development process.

What is the team composition?

We worked on a lot of projects together, so Distillery's team varied from project to project. For our biggest project, we had up to 25 engineers working with us at one point. As for their titles, we worked with two senior frontend developers and some backend developers as well, mainly focusing on Python and Java. We also worked with several manual QA engineers who helped us manually test our software as it was developed.

Distillery also provided us with a few DevOps engineers who helped us with the cloud configuration and setup. Lastly, we also expanded our team with one or two data engineers to help us with our data processing needs.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

I've known them for 12 years, so this wasn't the first company that I used Distillery for. I've actually used them for four companies thus far. They've been a constant service provider that I rely on whenever I need engineers.

How much have you invested with them?

Our customer directly paid Distillery for their work, so we didn't know the agreement terms. We only worked as the master builders.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in early 2022, and the project lasted around 14 months. Throughout the engagement, we ramped up or ramped down our efforts.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The main result of this project was that Distillery's work helped us save a lot of time. Thanks to them, we were able to hit our deadlines and quality bar, which were the two most important metrics. After completing this project, the customer continued working with Distillery on developing the MVP further.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

Distillery's engineers hit their deadlines and the scope. Thanks to their timely delivery, everything was within our estimations, and the end customer was very happy. We mainly communicated via Slack and Zoom. Zoom was used for our daily stand-ups. We also communicated via email and used Source Code to collaborate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would like to congratulate Distillery's whole team, as our projects have taken a team effort. One of Distillery's strengths, and the reason I've worked with them for over 12 years, is that they have a really high minimum bar.

Distillery provides really professional engineers who perform as expected from a full-time employee. I rely on them whenever we need to deliver high-quality MVPs on time, which are the most important things for us when delivering software. Their whole team always delivers on those two aspects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Given that our project got fairly big, we were struggling to staff quickly enough at one point. We were hitting the limits of what Distillery could offer, so at one point, the project was put on hold because they weren't providing enough profiles for us to review.

However, this issue had to do more with Distillery's size and some of their growing pains. Still, this issue was also acknowledged when we first engaged with them. As they scale and get bigger, having more resources is an area of improvement they're probably already focusing on.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

There are a lot of similar companies as Distillery. One thing that really stands out about them is the quality of their engineers. Thus, my only advice, if you're looking into companies like Distillery, is to interview the resources they provide and get a good understanding of their skills yourself to avoid being tricked by their marketing or sales departments.

If you interview the candidates yourself, you'll assess how far they pass your bar. For me, Distillery's resources have always come out on top.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m CEO of a makeup company that’s building a sophisticated makeup and e-commerce app. We've got the biggest catalog of makeup in the country with users all over the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery? 

The business has been around for about 3–4 years. We decided to rebuild the app from scratch when I joined just over a year ago. We needed high-quality iOS engineers to help build our app. They needed to be able to work within our time frame and budget.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We have a robust in-house tech team. We've got a full team of UX/UI designers and visual designers. We did all the UX, testing, wireframes, and design elements ourselves. Then we gave everything to Maria (iOS developer, Distillery). She’s building the iOS app from the ground up. It's a collaborative structure, so she provides a lot of input. We share the wireframes and don't just hand over final designs. She identifies problems early in the process if something doesn’t work.  

The app features consumer-generated content. Users upload makeup looks to the app. They can also tag and share those looks. We’re adding the makeup catalog so users can tag a variety of brands and products in each visual. Other users can then buy individual products or an entire look with one click, which is truly unique in the market. We brought on an additional Distillery developer to work on the e-commerce piece. 

What is the team composition? 

Maria has worked with us for over a year. We engaged the second developer for about three months. We requested not to have a project manager since I've built other apps before. 

How did you come to work with Distillery? 

They were a word-of-mouth referral. We were interviewing engineers, and no one met the timing, budget, or skill level that we wanted. A friend mentioned Distillery, so I got in touch with them. 

What is the status of this engagement? 

The project started in January 2018 and is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're still in the beta testing phase because the app is only now starting to get to its core proposition. There's still a lot more we need to build. We haven't really been marketing it yet or pushed AppStore reviews. The reviews are mostly five stars, but there’s only a small number of them. 

One of our backend engineers used to be an iOS developer. He says the code and the structure look great. The app’s stability is incredible. I’m prepared to accept some bugs, especially if I push out a release in a rush. However, almost every release has been crash-free. We’ve only had 1 or 2 releases that had crashes. It's a very stable, high-quality app. 

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve had stand-up calls twice a week since day one. We'll schedule a special call if there's a need for it. Maria is awesome. She’s always available even though we work in different time zones. She’s responsive, so it works well. Most of the day-to-day communication is through Jira and some email. 

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Overall, their professionalism is what stands out. Maria is disciplined, engaged, and committed to the project. The same goes the rest of the management team, but obviously, I spend the majority of my time with the two developers. The quality of code and the quality of engineering input is exceptional. I'd love to work with Maria forever; I never want to let her go. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

Initially, some of the communication was rough, especially in terms of cultural nuances. My team is from many different countries. It's not Distillery’s fault; it just took us all time to get used to each other’s way of working. Everything else has been really good. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

The process we went through to select our developers was great. We got to look at resumes and conduct interviews. We got to test the engineers. We gave them code tests, and then we picked the ones that had the right experience and were the right fit for our project. Also, be very clear in communication—particularly at the beginning—until you get used to their way of working.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and director of Laniakea Continuum. With our app, users can publish and post pictures of a location on a map and filter them. They can also watch what people posted in the past and how a particular place changes over time.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

After traveling through different countries, I found it hard to find historical pictures of several places, and Google Photos wasn’t helping much. I came up with the idea of an app that could store user uploaded pictures and use them to fill an entire world map. This way, when a user travels somewhere, they can open the app, pick a year, and see photos of a certain place at a certain date. It shows how a place has changed over the years. For this, I needed help with web and app design. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I told them about the app and showed them the first version we had already coded. They took on the design portion of the work and delivered the graphical and user interface design for the website and iOS and Android applications. They delivered wireframes and mockups as well.

What is the team composition?

I worked with one manager and one designer.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

I found them by contacting other bigger companies that didn’t work with small budgets like ours and happened to partner with them. We received eight recommendations, and I chose Distiller because they had an impressive website and portfolio. I also liked the manager’s approach, their attitude, and the fact that they could work within our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $20,000–$30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2017 until June 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I didn’t have any problems with them. I’m very satisfied and I’ll definitely work with them again. Our lead programmer was totally pleased with Distillery and felt comfortable working with them.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always in touch with us, and though we changed a lot of things during the process, they delivered everything on time. We used Skype to have weekly conference calls with the manager and the graphic designer and were always in touch via email. They responded within one to two hours whenever we contacted them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They meet deadlines and the price was very good for the design they produced. When I asked them to change something, they didn’t charge extra.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. Everything was great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of U-Nest. We’re a mobile app that helps parents save for their kids’ education with a tax advantage (529 plan). We’re a Fintech solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

We had another team make a prototype of the iOS app and the website, so we partnered with Distillery for the actual execution. My background is business and finance, so I needed a partner with extensive experience in Fintech solutions. They needed to complement my skill set, add some technical expertise, and help me execute my vision.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We looked at the prototypes and determined what would be a feasible scope for our budget. I had to strip down several features to get it to the minimum viable product (MVP). We agreed on the scope for the MVP and then they started working.

They began with a month and a half of extensive research and development to understand the project. Afterward, they researched possible 529 providers and identified third-parties we'd need to integrate the make the app workable. They chose Quovo for bank account authentication, which allows users to connect their bank accounts and make monthly deposits into them. Additionally, we use Stripe for billing services.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with a project manager, one iOS developer, one backend developer, and a QA specialist. My main point of contact is the project manager.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

We went through an extensive due diligence process before picking our partner. My senior technical advisor and I talked to 10 different companies. We wanted to ensure the company had a US presence and Fintech expertise, and that they could deliver good quality for the price.

Distillery had already built a couple of other financial services apps. After collecting references from other companies who’d worked with them, I talked with five CTOs and CEOs that used to work with Distillery. These people were great references and helped solidify our decision.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $50,000–$199,999 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since April 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app is live, and I’m quite pleased with the results. We ran a beta test with 100 users and got great feedback. They thought the look and feel was slick and that it was easy to use. The onboarding process only took five minutes, and there weren’t many bugs for us to fix. There was one issue during the beta, but that had to do more with Quovo, the third-party provider. Distillery helped me effectively resolve the problem in a short period.

Since we launched, we’ve gotten a lot of installs. Because we’re asking for a lot of private information (social security numbers, bank accounts), we have to gain the consumers' trust. Our app looks solid and established, which makes that much easier.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform well and respond quickly. When we did R & D, we realized there was one piece missing from our team: a product manager. I brought it up, and they immediately found a solution and brought on an additional resource.

We have a daily standup with either the whole team or just the project manager where I can get updates, and we can prioritize together. They’ve also done a great job dealing with the third parties and looking at the APIs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re responsive and react quickly to my business’ needs. The project management is outstanding, and their iOS developer is awesome. They’re invested in our success and are as happy about launching and hearing success stories as we are.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They ought to identify the resource needs of the project upfront. It took us a couple of weeks to realize we needed a project manager.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a conversation about what resources you possess and what resources you need from Distillery before you start any work. Take your time to interview each team member that they provide, because the quality of work will only be as good as the person performing it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an audio platform that allows radio listeners to search for any live broadcasts, including news, sports talks, informational podcasts, music, or user-generated content. Our system indexes all spoken word in real time, which enables users to discover broadcasts with keywords.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

Initially, we were trying to create a speech recognition software on Amazon Alexa. Although we had some in-house technical expertise, Alexa was still a relatively new platform at the time. We faced the complex challenge of building intent and creating a logic for our system. As a result, we needed resources to develop a voice operated search engine solution for live audio, which also involved an accompanying iOS app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked on the Alexa voice-recognition skill, developing the software from scratch. In order to allow seamless voice-operated search, they connected about three different APIs that we had acquired through licensing. The Amazon Echo app responds to specific vocal commands; after giving an introductory tutorial, the app allows users to search over 120,000 live radio stations in real time with keywords. As for the iOS app, they used our provided wireframes and documentation to develop the mobile platform, which has the same capabilities as its Echo counterpart.

They’ve recently delivered full minimum viable products (MVP) for both apps, and we’re currently live on Alexa and the App Store. We’re planning to engage them a few more times for ongoing development work.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager for the Alexa software, an assistant project manager for the iOS app, and about four developers throughout the process.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

We met their CEO when we joined a local media startup accelerator. He was a mentor in the program.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work began in January 2018 and is currently ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Although we’ve only just launched both apps, we’ve seen a thousand percent increase in downloads. According to our Apple statistics, we haven’t had any crashes so far, which is a testament to Distillery’s technical skill. We’re excited about how clean and simple the iOS app looks. They’ve done a great job of keeping the interface accurate to our original designs.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve managed the project well. While there have occasionally been conflicting project deadlines, their team did everything they could to help us figure out what was necessary for the release. Even if they couldn’t deliver on everything in our wish list, we appreciated how they pushed things live in the App Store. Their great relationship with Apple allowed them to get our apps lie on the same day. In terms of communication, we talked mostly through email, Zoom, and in person. We used Jira and Google Sheets to track our work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their professionalism separates them from the competition. I’ve previously worked with a lot of development teams where I’ve had to be upset to get the desired results. There are a lot of little things that an inexperienced team won’t do or don’t think to do, and I have to explicitly instruct them through the process.

Unlike other agencies, Distillery takes responsibility for their work, which makes it easy to problem solve. They take care of any little details to smooth the process without batting an eye, responding promptly to fix any bugs. The team is just so matter-of-fact. Without a doubt, they’re the best team I’ve ever worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to reach out and speak to their CEO because he’s easy to work with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re providing a platform for college and university students to seek employment opportunities, mostly part-time and internships.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

I had an idea, and looked at a few outsourced development companies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before the kickoff call, we had a two-hour meeting during which we discussed what I wanted, and then built out the idea. We continued the process afterwards with the intention of creating a MVP [minimum viable product]. The brainstorming lasted for three months after that call in January. By mid-April, we had a clear understanding of what we wanted to do.

The product is a custom-built iOS application with six categories: business and finance, homes, services, education, media and tech, and shopping delivery. Users can choose whichever they like, browse through job posts created by employers, and then apply for jobs. They will then have access to a communication section within the app through which they can speak, set up times/dates, and meet with employers in order to complete the task.

What is the team composition?

The team stayed largely the same, with only one or two alterations. I’ve been in constant contact with the development team in Russia, as well as with a couple of people in California who handle marketing. They assigned a project lead, too.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

I shortlisted 5–6 candidates, including Distillery. They sounded as if they could deliver my idea, so I chose them. Some of the research was online, but I also found a couple of groups through a friend’s recommendation. None of them were local—most were based in the U.S., while one was from India, and the other, Australia.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in mid-January 2017, and the development is complete. We will launch some time in mid-January 2018. I plan on releasing an Android version, but I’m unsure if Distillery will be involved.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve begun beta testing, and the website is online. We’re inviting people for early access and collecting reviews. The social media pages are also ready, and we have a lot of content there.

We’ve had positive reviews, some of which we’ve posted on the landing page of the website. We come from a nontechnical background, so Distillery handled anything that went wrong.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

Whenever there was a problem, I could send them an email and have them handle it. They’re good at responding to problems.

We used Basecamp for project tracking, and communicated via email, GoToMeeting, and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This is my first development startup, so Distillery is the first company I’ve used. I’ve worked with others, but only for marketing purposes. Distillery is quite similar in comparison.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve been sufficient so far. Every time I raised a query, they dealt with is quickly. There have been a couple delays due to the development team being in Russia, and the other resources being in California. There are huge time differences, which can lead to a lag in responses from both sides.

They could’ve reduced development time. There were instances when I might have been late in approving decisions, but I would’ve wanted the timeframe to be smaller.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients have to do their research and talk to the development team. Someone only willing to visit websites and go with the first software house they find is basically planning to fail. I liked that I was able to regularly talk with Distillery’s, because other development companies were shy about facilitating this. People in my position should research thoroughly, especially if they are on a tight budget, if they want to find a partner who has the optimal proactive approach.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a startup that provides credit to people in emerging markets, specifically people who don’t have access to credit (typically underserved users), and we do that through various technologies. We determine people’s credit ratings or credit scores via information from their phones. Today, we’re in a couple of countries including Kenya, Tanzania, and the Philippines. My role here is the CTO. I’m responsible for a couple of teams, specifically engineering, data science, data analytics, and product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

There’s been a big crunch in getting engineering hires. Our company has been growing rather quickly, and we couldn’t meet our hiring demands. We decided to get some additional support from contract engineering jobs. That’s how we decided to go with Distillery.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have Distillery team members on both the frontend and backend of the product. Our frontend is an Android application, and it talks to our backend for various features, such as how we send the data across the phone and what kind of treatment to give the user once they’re within the app.

We employ a model where we have their team members embedded within our team’s development cycle. We had one or two of their developers work collaboratively with our developers, so they would work on projects together. It wasn’t secondary tasks—it was very important, all mission-critical engineering development efforts that the Distillery team members helped us with.

The developers working on it from the Distillery side have been a stable team. The size of the team working with us today is about four developers. There’s no project lead on their end. The way we run our projects is we have our own internal project leads, either from engineering or product, and those leads would lead the entire squads.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

It was a referral. One of the biggest deciding factors for choosing Distillery over the competitors was one of our engineering leaders here had previously worked with Distillery and vouched for their work. Cost was not a huge factor. It really came down to quality.

How much have you invested with Distillery?

Somewhere between $150,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together about a year ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In terms of our business growth, if you want to use a milestone, our company successfully raised its next round of funding during our engagement with Distillery. That was a big milestone. In terms of user growth, we’ve doubled since working with Distillery. Those were the two big ones.

In terms of productivity and ease of supervision, unfortunately, I don’t have a point of reference there to other vendors.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re pretty reliable. They’re very responsive to our project leads and embedded into our process. I’m generally pretty satisfied.

We use project management tools such as JIRA, and Slack for communication. We do video conferences as well. We’re in contact pretty regularly.

What did you find most impressive about Distillery?

What I like about their model is that the developers initially come on-site and work with us for three to four weeks to learn our process and system before going back to their home country. I like that part because it really helps with the onboarding process and getting them ramped-up.

Are there any areas Distillery could improve?

In terms of improvement, it’s due to our own capacity. Sometimes, if we need more developers, they just don’t have enough. I guess it’s because they have a lot of other clients as well. I would like a more formal feedback group. If we can provide it to them or they can provide it to us, I think that would be helpful, but it hasn’t really been a major issue.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a company that offers an iOS and web-based family scheduling app. The product is a shared family calendar organizer for both scheduling and sharing events. The app also offers shared grocery and to-do lists. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

When we formed the company, 2 of my family members came up with the product idea. They asked me to partner with them to get the product developed. None of us are programmers or engineers, so we needed a third-party to build the first version of our platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were a brand-new startup and just had an idea. We met with Distillery to outline what we were trying to achieve as far as functionality. After that in-person session, they spent a couple of weeks laying out an MVP. We started working on the design, and they gave us a full series of different design choices. We tweaked our selection until we got the right look and feel. After finalizing our approach, we started the building process.

The product needed to have full calendar capabilities, with scheduling functionality for a family as well as shared grocery and to-do lists. Distillery shared their insight as far as which functions would add value to the calendar and scheduling platform. The app also allows a family to share scheduled events with others, such as a grandparent or babysitter. A key part of the platform is that we could keep the family up-to-date with regards to the details of upcoming events.

The app also includes a messaging function. Users can message inside an event, and that message streams live with the event. We didn’t integrate with other social media networks or payment services. We’re about to begin developing the Android version.

We had a 9-person team from Distillery and interacted with probably 5 of the team members—2 or 3 of them on a daily basis, and 5 on a regular basis. We’ve interacted with all the team members at some point. We have a steady project manager who handles all the high-level stuff.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

We did online searches for development companies and requested pitches. We interviewed about 7 different firms around the country to see if they’d be a good fit for the project, ultimately settling on Distillery. Since our idea was for a family-based product, we were looking for a firm that had a smaller, family atmosphere. We wanted to get to know the people involved in the project and work closely with them on our overall vision. Several of the groups we met with were really big firms with lots of people. Distillery is a mid-sized firm and has a lot of expertise in all the right pieces.

We’ve been working with Distillery every day for about 18 months, and they’ve become part of our family atmosphere. We talk every day and are involved in all the planning. It’s been a great relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in January of 2016, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t share the specific statistics, but we’re ahead of schedule and have performed better than expected.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve really stayed on schedule. As with any project, hurdles came up that either delayed the work or changed our direction. I’m impressed with their ability to identify and adapt to possible issues. They always communicate the reason for a delay or potential future issue.  

We had full access to JIRA, where we could monitor their daily activity. We were involved in the development team’s Slack channel. We also had weekly Skype calls and daily email and telephone conversations. We visited them in Santa Monica for meetings probably a dozen time over 18 months.

What did you find most impressive about Distillery?

I was impressed by their ability to respond to hurdles. They have a strong team atmosphere. I felt they really took our feedback, advice, and input seriously. They caught on to our vision and did a great job in fulfilling it. Distillery is the only firm I’ve dealt with, so I don’t have anything to compare, but I’ve been happy with their work.

Are there any areas Distillery could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. We’ll continue to work with them for the foreseeable future. Any problems and issues that arose were corrected, so I don’t have specific feedback about improvements. They’re fairly priced relative to the other groups we interviewed. They were timely in their output, and the product has performed as described.

Do you have any advice or suggestions for potential clients?

Don’t hire the first group you meet; instead, really invest in speaking to several different firms. They all have advantages and disadvantages, but it’s important to get to know a provider well before making a big commitment that could determine your success or failure.