Distillery

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We offer a video-on-demand platform specializing in film and video game trailers, as well as videos about lifestyle and tech product launches, and live events such as concerts. We offer a video-only experience for previews. I am the founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

Each developer has different types of incentives and agendas in terms of nudging the client towards certain packages and development approaches. One firm may have a focus on HTML5, so they will steer towards hybrid development, while others may have good iOS or Java developers, and so on. I had done a smaller-scale project using a competitor of Distillery, who wanted to nudge me in a direction that I didn't care for. I searched for a better fit and found Distillery.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked with Distillery to build our platform on iOS and the web, and they also provide occasional bug fixes. We don't have any in-house developers, so all the work is done by Distillery. Although they're not cheap, the advantage of choosing a premium development shop is the guarantee of working with good talent, instead of bringing in mediocre in-house resources. This is a good solution, depending on the circumstances. We've had an overall professional experience with Distillery.

I brought some work done through my previous engagement with another firm, thinking that it could help save time, but Distillery pretty much started from scratch, redoing everything. The final product was much better, especially given that the previous engagement was much smaller in scope and had to be rushed. Distillery has a very high in-house standard.

I worked with 2 product managers, one product owner, one UX [user experience] and one UI [user interface] designer, a full-stack developer, and a number of backend developers who were probably offshore. In terms of senior, decision-making personnel, Distillery assigned 6-7 people to my project, on top of the main resources writing the code. I met with Distillery's team every 2 weeks, which is how long our sprints were. We would set milestones, have reviews (usually at their office), write detailed critiques, and go from there. Everything went through Distillery's project manager and product owner, but I also interacted with the UI and UX designers.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

I looked up some of the best firms in LA through Google, looked at portfolios, and spoke with them, talking about budgets and types of development. Reputation was a factor. Some firms are known to outsource much of their work to certain countries with a less-than-great reputation, while others made promises which they couldn't likely keep. Since I couldn't just use places like Yelp, much of the process consisted of going to meetings, feeling them out, and moving on from there.

How much have you invested with Distillery?

The cost of Distillery's services has been around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Distillery in November 2015. Our main engagement ended in April 2016, but we had another minor project in the fall of this year, for a couple of weeks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Distillery has an emphasis on hiring talented people, who aren't afraid to suggest things that push back against the client's wishes. Many of these turned out to be much wiser decisions, mainly because, as a client, I lacked industry insight. I was often pleasantly surprised by the deliverables.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

There was a bit of a communication issue with our first project manager. Distillery nipped this in the bud, terminating that person. He was probably a recent hire being tested out, and Distillery let him go when it was discovered that he wasn't communicating properly. From there, everything was smooth.

Distillery isn't the right firm for people with a tendency to micromanage. Other shops encourage active daily client involvement for every step of the process. In the case of Distillery, I trusted that they have talented people, and only gave broad strokes, empowering them to fill in the rest. Critique can be done afterward, changing things in the next sprint, but the overall experience isn't as hands-on as some clients would want.

What did you find most impressive about Distillery?

I can't think of anything in particular for Distillery. Many shops have gimmicky marketing products, but it all comes down to how talented their people are.

Are there any areas Distillery could improve?

In terms of communication, there could be more expedient processes than email. Distillery could use Slack or something else which could prompt immediate responses. It's understandable wanting to favor using email, given that there will always be times when they won't want to get back to the client right away.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Sixgill provides proximity data services to enterprises operating mobile applications on their employees' phones and other devices. We also allow clients to track assets in their IoT [Internet of Things] infrastructures, detecting when proximity conditions exist and triggering a response. We're based in Santa Monica, California. I am the chief executive officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Distillery?

After acquiring the company and rebranding it, I came to act as the founder of the business that exists today. We were getting started on a redirection of our business from consumer end-play to enterprise B2B [business-to-business] and had to create all-new digital assets. I needed an app-building partner to provide initial and ongoing code development for our website, given that we only have back-end expertise. Out of all companies within our time zone, Distillery had the best combination of software development, data science, design, and product management skills.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We've used Distillery on multiple projects, and have had 4–6 open ones at any given time. Our open-ended projects have been the most challenging, given that we never know when they're done.

Distillery provided crash development for a website with a mixed codebase, migrating the old version to WordPress, optimizing its SEO [search engine optimization], and performing graphic design. We continue with monthly evolution projects for it on an open-ended basis.

We had a large repository of migration data collected from 4 million people during the course of 5 months. From a software standpoint, we have a process-oriented and transactional approach. In the long run, the work will have strong analytical implications, and provide a revenue opportunity in this sense. To get started on understanding on what we could offer analytically, I needed to have a data science view of the information that we collect. Distillery has a highly qualified and affordable data science team that has provided the analytic possibilities for the data that we've collected on the migratory patterns of a population as well as their proximity instances.

Our data science project involves 5 people at any given time. The ongoing development project has had a fluctuating team of graphics, UX [user experience] and UI [user interface] designers, coders, a project manager, and a product manager from Distillery. It ranged from 3 to 10 people. We use the project manager on our side to interact with the one from Distillery. Most firms like theirs don't have product managers, but Distillery has a primary software vendor-grade resource onboard.

How did you come to work with Distillery?

I met one of the senior staff members at a networking dinner in Los Angeles three years ago.

How much have you invested with Distillery?

The total cost of Distillery's services has been more than $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I began referring people to Distillery 2 years ago [2014], but our own engagement with them only started in January 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our involvement with Distillery is somewhat different than their projects with more traditional customers. There is no measure of whether or not our website is successful because we're still a startup. Distillery did a great job of packaging our use cases, brand marketing, and product marketing, giving us a coherent design language, packaging our offering in a website that showcases our digital assets to potential customers.

On the data science aspect, Distillery was tasked with telling me what I didn't already know. I can't say what that entails, prior to receiving Distillery's reports.

One of the business offerings from Distillery is a rent-a-developer service with a staff of engineers in the United States and Russia, available to companies on a monthly basis. They're high-quality coders that are affordable and readily available. They can be secured for either long- or short-term engagements for companies having trouble finding or can't afford local talent. Distillery's other offering is referred to as app-enabled business services. A founder can have an idea for a mobile or web app-based business, but they don't have the engineering team to build it. Distillery can take that person's idea and work with them in order to develop a product spec, engineering schedule, and full agile development sequencing. They manage those and go from an idea to a post-beta deployed product, typically in around 13 weeks, unless the project is larger, and needs more development cycles. Distillery offers full product-managed projects, with the same engineering resources and project management available from a primary software vendor, at a price that someone with seed funding can afford.

I haven't used Distillery for this, but I've seen the results that it can bring, and they are outstanding. We partner with clients who don't have the means to build a solution themselves. We supervise the process and use Distillery as a development partner. I've seen the quality of work that Distillery can give to people I've referred to them, and this tells me that I can use them for Fortune 10 companies that need an application for connecting to our proximity services back-end. This work will be fully credible and accepted.

How did Distillery perform from a project management standpoint?

I am a bit removed from the project management process, but I know that Distillery uses JIRA and GitHub. They also use Flowdock for light project communication.

What did you find most impressive about Distillery?

I appreciate the scope and combination of services provided by Distillery. They offer uniform quality across the board. Vendors like Distillery will usually be mediocre in terms of coding if they're great at design, and vice versa. The project management may also be a little loose. Most agency businesses like Distillery also don't have the same level of quality and conduct management. Distillery's work is not sharply differentiated with respect to individual components, but the combination that they offer, with a uniform quality level and accountability, makes them especially recommended.

Are there any areas Distillery could improve?

From what I know about Distillery's business and market, I would say that they could make further progress on recruiting a broader scope of engineering skills. If someone wanted to develop a project using the Go technology, Distillery would need to find those developers before taking the job. It can be done, but it takes a bit of time. For what Distillery's business is, and how they define it, the opportunity for growth would come from expanding the capacity for the same work and keeping the quality level at the same degree. Small companies can offer a uniform level of quality but, as they get bigger and need to expand the talent pool, the quality of individuals available starts to decline. Distillery has to demonstrate that they can navigate that challenge.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Distillery?

Nothing comes to mind, but Distillery has the ability to make these recommendations through their sales pipeline.