eCodile

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and sole employee of a startup that aims to help project managers have successful IT projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with eCodile?

I needed to develop a basic version of a tool meant to help project managers and scrum masters ask questions to their teams, collect answers, and present the questionnaires in a useful way. The next step is to implement AI components that can use the stored information to project questions so that the project manager or the scrum master won’t have to pick the questions themselves. They’ll receive notifications in cases where the questions have been asked before.

The platform is meant to gauge the temperature of a project and to determine what is wrong. From my experience, if an IT project is going badly, the triggers will usually have occurred two to three months before things start to degrade. If we can identify those reasons earlier, we can act on them before the situation degrades.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

eCodile developed a minimum viable product (MVP) version of my platform. After providing them with a short, initial description of the product, they developed detailed drawings of the system navigation based on their understanding. We developed user stories based on this framework.

It has a responsive design so it’s usable on both desktop and mobile devices. It sends users emails, which they can click in order to send direct answers. They can see an overview of both current questionnaires and past questions. It’s not a complete product but it’s a start. The only improvements I have for it are functionalities that I initially decided shouldn’t be part of the first version.

What is the team composition?

I have interfaced with the Co-Founder/CEO and one other person from their team.

How did you come to work with eCodile?

I found different software providers from an online search. I developed a short description of my requirements and asked them whether they could build it. I assessed them based on their reactions and feedback. eCodile proved to be the best choice, based on my parameters.

How much have you invested with them?

It cost slightly over $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with eCodile in August 2017 and we finished the MVP in November of that year. The development has stopped for the moment but I plan to continue it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I have a very good platform. It’s being used in pilot testing and it’s working well. It’s stable and people have found it easy to use. It fits devices’ screens well so people have found it simple to navigate, both on the web and on mobile.

How did eCodile perform from a project management standpoint?

They were quick to respond, getting back to me almost immediately. It was easy for me to tell them what it was that I wanted. They understood things well very quickly.

Aside from running this company, I have another job through which I have experience dealing with project managers and other resources. Compared to other specialists, I find eCodile’s skills to be very high. They know how to run scrum and they were very good at giving me instructions on how I should write user stories. Their feedback is very clear in terms of what I should and shouldn’t do.

What did you find most impressive about them?

eCodile stood out in terms of competence. I didn’t encounter a lot of errors, which distinguished them from others. I’ve worked in the financial and health sectors in Denmark and have seen more errors with other developers who are also very highly skilled. It was obvious to me that they’d been testing the tool’s functionalities before they delivered to me. I did identify elements that didn’t exactly match what I described—but only when I hadn’t been clear about what I wanted or we had misunderstood each other.

They care about delivering proper work and their skills are strong so they don’t make errors. The work was high-quality and they were quick to respond when I did find an error. They know what they are doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

My only suggestion would be to have more visual guidelines and user stories available. Because I have a day job, I tested in the evenings when their team wasn’t at the office but I often forgot what they’d told me by the evening. They did sometimes answer late in the day but I would have liked to have video or other content to interact with so that I didn’t have to disturb them with questions when I forgot something.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have strong development skills. Even if the client has worked on other projects, they should acknowledge eCodile’s approach, listen, and try to understand. If the client doesn’t believe they have anything to learn, they won’t have the best collaboration. Be prepared to listen and learn—and do it in the way that they ask you to.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

StorySpot AB is a small startup in Sweden that developed an app for crowdsourcing audio guides for different places. Anyone can register to become a user and record a story spot, which is similar to a podcast or a sound file. Users upload these files to our app and connect it to a specific spot. Together, these stories become an audio guide to the whole world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with eCodile?

We needed help making updates to our iOS app and developing an Android app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had an iOS app built on an Objective-C framework, but it required major updates. I realized we probably need to do it in Swift, and a lot of people in Sweden told me to use React Native. eCodile agreed to use React Native to build the app so that it would work on both Android and iOS.

What is the team dynamic?

Initially, I spoke with Anna, the project leader. Since we began the project, I mostly have contact with Jakub, the lead developer. Recently, my CTO has been more involved in the project.

How did you come to work with eCodile?

We were looking for new developers to work with because I wanted to have a company that was similar to Sweden in terms of time and culture. Since our project can sometimes be hard to understand, we wanted communication to be easy. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find good developers in Sweden. If you do find them, they’re very expensive. After I spoke with several companies, we saw that eCodile met our criteria. I looked at their past work and spoke to Anna, and she understood what we wanted to do.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve paid €12,000 [$14,088] for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It has been launched in the App Store. We haven’t done any marketing yet, but there were over 1,000 downloads during our first week. eCodile also did a great job of adding functions and developing the Android app.

How did eCodile perform from a project management standpoint?

It takes time to build up a good workflow with an offshore company, but the project management has been good. It’s been very easy to communicate with them. Before, we mostly had conversations via email as well as weekly Skype calls, which worked well for us. Currently, we are having a lot of contact on Trello for updates.  

Since we are in different countries, it’s important to be very specific about what we want to avoid misunderstandings. Fortunately, they let us know if something we want isn’t going to work well. We have not experienced any language or time difference issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s been easy to work with them. They are very responsive, so it’s easy to get updates. Even with Swedish companies, it can be hard to feel like you’re on the same level on everything. eCodile understands what we want to do, which is very helpful. It feels like they are proud to have us as customers, and they make us feel our business is important to them. That’s the best way for a customer to feel.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While our initial project estimates were low, we soon realized that the app required much more time. We have discussed that and have adjusted our plans.

Do you have any advice for anyone considering using eCodile?

Be specific about your goals for the project. Don’t just tell them what functions you want, but why you want them. This way, the developers can better understand your purpose and prepare for the next step in the development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a meal delivery service in the United States. I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with eCodile?

We were developing our B2C platform. Initially, the biggest challenge was to find technology which would allow us to easily edit on the backend.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

eCodile consulted us when we were first determining how our website should look, and what functionalities it should have. They wrote the custom website from scratch using PHP, Java, and HTML. They were only responsible for development, not marketing, but they helped us make it as customer-friendly as possible.

The subscription functionality is still under development. We changed our mind about how it was supposed to look.

What is the team dynamic? 

We interfaced with their co-founder, Jarosław, on a daily basis, communicating by phone, Slack, and Basecamp.

How did you come to work with eCodile?

We developed specifications for the website and sent them to different companies to check their prices. eCodile made us a good offer, which included free additional development time after we’d made the site with them. We also knew their co-founder as he was a friend of a friend so he came highly recommended.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work has been between $35,000 to $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with eCodile in February 2016. We have an ongoing relationship, developing new items based on our knowledge and customer feedback.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve reached 1,000 registered users and 50,000 page visits per month. eCodile did what we requested. We’re continuing to develop the site based on customer feedback, for example, changing the size of buttons and so on.

How did eCodile perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Basecamp and Slack for communication. Usually, we received replies from them within an hour.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their reaction time and the speed at which changes were made on our website. We started a new company, so there were some major changes to our legal items, shopping carts, and payment methods. eCodile did this in a day, which meant that we didn’t have to stop doing what we were doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not at the moment.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to compare prices and determine what can be achieved for a certain cost. Response and reaction time, feedback, personal contact, and advice are also important things to consider.