Divelement Web Services

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Supreme Executive Leader of Square Wave and Consulting in Particular of Square Wave Pty Ltd

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a niche firm offering specialized consultation, training, custom report development, and bespoke SaaS solutions to the event production industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Divelement Web Services to accomplish?

• Collaborate with us to develop our vision into a viable plan.
• Devise a suitable engineering architecture for our product.
• Develop our SaaS product(s).

SOLUTION

How did you find Divelement Web Services?

Referral

Why did you select Divelement Web Services over others?

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

What was the size of Divelement Web Services’ team?

20-30?

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

Via a comprehensive discovery process, Divelement assisted us in refining the vision for our product and defining the scope of an MVP. They then provided UI/UX Design services for the MVP. They advised on engineering architecture options and recommended one that would be suitable for our needs. Once we had finished refining our exact requirements, they provided start-to-finish development of our SaaS product including QA and project management. They continue to develop multiple products for us as well as providing consultation as needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• JIRAs completed per sprint
• Product modules delivered into Alpha/Beta on time
• Time to resolve bugs
• Vendor responsiveness

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

They delivered on time. They were very communicative about timeline expectations and extremely responsive to our questions and needs.

What was your primary form of communication with Divelement Web Services?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Strong technical expertise, lightning-fast responsiveness, friendly and positive culture.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Divelement Web Services could have done differently?

As software professionals, sometimes I felt like they had a more developed vision for my product than I did. I wish they would have been a little less "yes no problem" and more "have you considered..."

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Forward Thinking Fitness; we provide personal training and nutritional counseling services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Divelement Web Services?

We needed help developing an app for our clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Divelement Web Services has helped us develop a mobile app for iOS and Android. The team has managed the development process and helped us translate our vision into requirements. They’ve also provided customer service for the challenges we’ve faced throughout the development process. 

Our mobile app has a slew of features, including a food log, workout log, scheduling tool, and exercise prescriptions. The app also houses data from our clients’ heart rate monitors and body composition analyses. Additionally, the team has built a communication feature to facilitate connectivity between our clients and trainers. They’ve also developed a news feature that shares ongoing updates with our clients.

Since launching the mobile app to the public, Divelement Web Services has also helped us revamp the UX/UI.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three teammates: a project manager, the owner, and a developer. 

How did you come to work with Divelement Web Services?

I found them on Upwork and saw that they were a small business. I appreciate working with other small businesses that align with my values as a business owner, so I decided to partner with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent roughly $100,000 on the development project so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Divelement Web Services has performed above and beyond my expectations, and it’s clear that they care about helping small business customers, which is rare. 

The app acts as a one-stop shop for our clients and has a five-star rating on the Google Play Store and App Store, which is great. The feedback from our clients has been positive; everything is spot on, and they love the app. 

How did Divelement Web Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Divelement Web Services is incredibly effective when it comes to meeting deadlines. They always provide accurate time estimates when scoping the work, which is excellent. We communicate through a panel they created for our app, which connects us with the developer, project manager, and owner.

Additionally, they really own their work, so when something goes wrong, the owner figures out a solution and reaches out to make things right. He also shares great quality suggestions to make the app more effective for our users and improve the scalability of the product to enable growth.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed by their passion to help us succeed from a development standpoint. They’re also very communicative and responsive; the team is quick to text us back, and the owner is willing to speak outside regular working hours. They’re very engaged, and they never leave us hanging, which makes us feel appreciated. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their internal communication and organization could be improved, but that’s nothing major.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you communicate your vision and what you need help with, so they can figure out how best to help you. If your project requires personal attention, Divelement Web Services will do an excellent job providing it.  

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Online IT training. My position is a designer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

Our blog was built and maintained in wordrpress. We partnered with Divelement to execute a new blog design and move it from wordpress over to our Contentful CMS.

SOLUTION

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

We chose to move forward with Divelement because they fit our budget and their reviews were compelling.

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

We had a kickoff call to align on the scope of the project. Divelement set up a project dashboard in Jira Cloud to help manage the project and all of the moving parts. We handed off sketch files for the new Blog and Divelement developed the new look and feel of the Blog in our Contentful CMS. They successfully migrated all our old content to the new management system.

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

We worked with a project manager and then directly with the developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our blog views have been increasing and our QA process has been reduced because of the new blog.

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

The Divelement PM used Jira cloud to manage the project, we had weekly checkins to align and keep the project moving forward.

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

The quality of work and great project management.

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

No, we are very happy working with them and plan to keep partnering with them in the future.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a co-founder for an education technology company. We make law school easier through a revolutionary web application.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

Our app needed some work to become a true minimally viable product. We hired Divelement to implement additional features to both our core app, as well as supporting services, like shoring up our checkout flow.

SOLUTION

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

We searched online for web developers. After shortlisting a few, we contacted Divelement. Eddie was responsive from the start. We hired Divelement because it is a US-based company; it is an agency, and not a single developer; it’s rates are competitive; and because it has experience improving existing code bases.

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

We asked Divelement to complete four deliverables in our react app:

1. to implement a drag-and-drop feature in a text editor
2. to implement a custom algorithm that displays flashcards to students in a certain order
3. to implement proper handling for expired web tokens
4. to complete integration for Stripe checkout

They took my vague guidance and transformed it into a detailed scope of work, along with corresponding timelines and milestones. We had a planning meeting to discuss it. After I approved it, we had our kickoff. They assigned a full-time junior developer to our project, with a senior developer guiding him and doing reviews of his code. A project manager kept everyone on track. We met weekly at a time convenient for me. In these weekly meetings they showed me what they had created, discussed challenges, and then I gave guidance on next steps.

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

The project manager was my main point of contact. Midway through our three-month project we got a new one. We worked with a single senior developer. About a third of the way through the project our junior developer was switched. At all times I had every confidence in the abilities of the team I worked with. They all had excellent communication skills, could think and devise solutions, and were eager to improve our app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have not launched yet. But one of the features Divelement completed was the most-requested feature of our beta testers.

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

We had weekly meetings at a time convenient for me over Google Hangouts. Daily communication was through slack, with Jira tracking user stories.

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

Their ability to walk into a complicated, existing code base, make sense of it, and then improve it.

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

Stability in the team is important, especially with short projects. Divelement handled the changes in personnel well. Nothing got dropped and the project was completed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of e-commerce for Rachio, a smart home technology company that sells irrigation controllers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Divelement Web Services?

Our in-house developer was too busy to take on our project, so we needed someone to implement a headless CMS into our retail website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially enlisted the help of Divelement Web Services to integrate a headless CMS into our e-commerce website because our in-house dev was busy on other projects.

All of our websites use the JavaScript framework Gatsby and integrate with Shopify so there are direct revenue implications. Divelement was able to learn the codebase quickly and integrate the CMS on deadline.

Since then, our in-house developer moved into a new role and Divelement was able to take on more responsibility and provide us with ongoing maintenance and support. This also allowed us to save money instead of immediately hiring another in-house dev.

What is the team composition?

I work with Eddie (CEO), Manuel (Full Stack Engineer), David (Frontend Developer), and Pepe (Project Manager).

How did you come to work with Divelement Web Services?

Someone from our engineering department reached out to their company.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested somewhere between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in January 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have any hard metrics to share but when our developer left, Divelement Web Services easily picked up our tech stack and ran with it. Working with them has been crucial especially since it’s hard to find web development resources right now, so we’re able to maintain our agility as an e-commerce store.

We’re able to sell our products without interruptions, and they’ve probably saved us more than $50,000 in employment costs.

How did Divelement Web Services perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a really good job of sticking to the timeframes, communicating consistently, and being responsive to our concerns. If a project is off-track, they’re very open and transparent about the difficulties they’re experiencing and discussing alternative solutions.

We typically use Slack for regular meetings and JIRA to manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with their ability to come in and adapt to our tech stack and provide value for our company almost immediately.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve on learning and adapting to the client's operations with more agility.

We have a complicated business model, so it took them a while to fully understand how we operate. However, that’s not unique to their company and they did a good job of catching up with our tech stack.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The best practice for any contractor is to start with a limited engagement, so you can get a sense of how they interact with your codebase and tech stack. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior marketing analyst at Confirm Biosciences, a San Diego-based medical device provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Divelement Web Services?

We needed their web development and site migration efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to merge our Shopify site and our business website to optimize our operations and lead generation, so Divelement Web Services came into the picture to help us with site migration and development. Their team identified the ideal integrations and tools we could use in order to build our site in the best technical atmosphere possible.

After the wireframe building phase, we proceeded with the finalization of our tech stack and the actual development phase. We collated the content and web elements that we needed to complete all the web pages, and once everything was settled, the site migration process commenced. We then conducted testings to ensure that there were no bugs or issues that could hinder our main website’s performance.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a senior developer, and two other web developers.

How did you come to work with Divelement Web Services?

We worked with one of their developers on a previous project and found him to be a professional expert who knew how to deliver great services. We then found his company and upon contacting them, we were pleased with their communicative team and reasonable quote, so we went with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $36,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from May–June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Divelement Web Services managed to condense the content from both of our websites into a single high-speed platform. One of our primary goals was to increase the speed and lessen the downtime of our site, and we definitely achieved this through their team’s efforts.

How did Divelement Web Services perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated via Slack and relied on Basecamp for project management. Divelement Web Services was a very adaptable team — they were always willing to accommodate our requests and apply any necessary changes. Additionally, they met all our deadlines even when some tasks took them longer to complete.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Divelement Web Services’ responsiveness definitely stood out in our partnership. I was confident that I could rely on them to accomplish any assignments or show up in our meetings with innovative ideas to bring to the table. They were also honest in assessing our needs and taking our ideas into consideration. Our project wasn’t easy, but they managed to traverse through its twists and turns.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s not a major issue, but they could refine their content curation before informing us that a deliverable is already in its final form.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Prepare a clear scope and relay the design elements that you want to see in the finished product. It will be easier and more comfortable for them to deliver what you need if you provide them those.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm head of development in design and development agency

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

We're working with Divelement team on a few web applications, mostly front-end

SOLUTION

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

We've found each other on Upwork. I liked Eddie, Divelement's founder, from the first call. He is a smart and fast-thinking person and an awesome developer.

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

We worked on a few projects together, but I'll pick one and try to describe it. So, it was a front-end application with TypeScript and GatsbyJS on a front-end and Contentful CMS as a data source. The project went very well and we're able to ship the website to the real users in time.

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

We worked with Eddie and Adriana. They both are Divement's co-founders as far as I know.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We didn't track any outcome on that project.

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

Yeah, so we used more or less a standard setup: Slack as a messenger and Asana as a task tracker.

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

I liked Eddie's way of communicating. He can be direct and polite at the same time, which is quite a rare combination. Their team's direct approach helps solve problems quickly without fail. And politeness helps us to grow good business relationships. We're working together for more than a year already.

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

Nothing I can imagine. Keep going, guys!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Operations at Rugged Coastal - a design-centric creative agency. My job is to oversee our internal workflows, staffing and ensuring projects are delivered with quality, on-time and on-budget.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

We hired Divelement to build the frontend interface of our SaaS project: The Gateway. This was a hard task with a tight deadline, demanding client and very complex technical needs. Divelement stepped in with confidence and quickly begin delivering both technical expertise and guidance to help us achieve our goals.

SOLUTION

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

I met and talked with Eddie Hudson, the CEO, and was quickly sold that they were the right team for us. They had the technical abilities to feel confident in any scenario. Plus, they shared our company's desire for excellent design, and making sure the user's best interests is always in mind.

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

Our project had a 6 month timeline with 5 development sprints intermixed. The project is a React/Gatsby static application on the front end. The backend is an Express/NodeJS service that the front end interacts with through REST endpoints.

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

There were 2 frontend developers, plus network admin and project management support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project has been an outstanding successes. From working with Divelement, to the client's happiness level, we've had a wonderful project and excellent outcome.

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

Divelement is very communicative and timely. They don't make promises that they cannot deliver on. Our teams worked very well together in that regard.

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

Their technical knowledge and drive to keep on the forefront of the industry are impressive. They aren't stuck in their ways, and are always learning new methods to improve the products they build.

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

I am very happy with the overall results and look forward to our next project. No need for improvements at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CMO of Zyda, a saas company providing restaurants with their own online ordering system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

Our goal was to revamp Zyda's website in a very short period. We hired Divelement to develop using gatsby/sanity frameworks.

SOLUTION

How did you select Divelement Web Services and what were the deciding factors?

Divelement is a top rated agency with a 100% success rate in a fair amount of jobs done via upwork.

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

Scope was to fully own the development of the new website after we provided the required (not so simple) UI designs. they managed to develop it swiftly and accurately. And they managed to successfully migrate the old's website needed functionalities to save time and achieve the goal of launching in January.

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

Mostly 3 Engeneers with Eddie as a manager and Eduardo as an engineers lead and Moises.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was handled with a great sense of ownership and responsibility from Divelement's side and they worked in full capacity to deliver on time.

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

First phase was some kind of waterfall where the guys finished the base UI/UX and then we worked using trello in kanban style to nail down the rest. Their communication was the highlight as they are one of the most responsive teams I've ever worked with via Slack & Zoom.

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

The knowledge, fast development & high responsiveness.

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

They had to develop and ship as fast as possible so there were tiny bugs that could've been avoided if they had more time to QA.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

COO - Kanataplay, CEO TrueNorth.bet, Director - Nation2Nation network.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

We hired Divelement to revamp and redesign some websites in our digital portfolio. The sites were inherited when we purchased the company and initially the project scope was just to redesign the websites.

After Divelement performed a code audit we realized that an out-dated back-end coupled with 10+ years of code meant that sites were in need of not just a redesign but a thorough update and patching.

SOLUTION

How did you select Divelement Web Services and what were the deciding factors?

We searched online for agencies that fit the profile that we were looking for. Divelopment immediately stood out from the pool with quick communication and understanding of our systems. They asked all the right questions. After a couple of video calls it was an easy decision.

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

The majority of our sites are built on a Laravel backend, but a couple of the sites still use an old version of Codeigniter. The backend API that we use from one of our providers is badly outdated and still returns data in XML format! There are a few Node services as well, and due to gaming regulations in Canada, everything still runs on a bare metal server.

The initial scope of the work was to redesign the sites, but each site contained 10s of thousands of lines of bad code, so we had to work with Divelement to identify the bad code and remove it while not affecting the underlying functionality of the site. T

hey also helped us to modernize the stack, and make it as stable as possible despite all of the conditions. They helped us map the current architecture of the sites and backend, as well as helping us to identify any pain points we may find in the future.

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

We primarily worked with two people from the Divelement team. We worked directly with the owner, as well as with one of their senior full-stack developers. They also had a couple people working behind the scenes, namely their COO and project manager, but we mostly interacted with the owner and the developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The redesigns of the sites were completed and they did an excellent job. Divelopment removed all the bad code, and future-proofed the sites by using modular components so that we could reuse them when scaling.

They also fixed a lot of bugs and other issues and were communicative throughout the process. The sites are now working optimally and are stable. We haven’t experienced any major issues with any of the sites since the completion of work.

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

We primarily communicate with the Divelement team through Slack, though they are always open to jumping on a call or into a Zoom meeting. I would say their PM style is Agile focused.

They managed the project using JIRA and were always clear about timelines and estimates. We use GitLab for version control, and the deploy pipelines are set up using Ansible to the server. Great communication and PM work.

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

Their experience and depth of knowledge were outstanding. Second is outstanding responsiveness - a member of their team is almost always available, especially for emergencies.

Even after hours and weekends, if we had an issue all we had to do was reach out to them in Slack and they'd looked into the issue within minutes. Third, is their pride in work and genuine understanding of our business. They took time to understand the use-cases and anticipated potential pitfalls. More than a vendor, Development is now a partner.

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

Documentation and logging.