EUREKA Bespoke IT Solutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a marketplace for professional services: call based, or session-based, such as education, legal advice, coaching, etc. We connect people via video calls where they do sessions online and clients pay automatically through Apple Pay or by linking their credit cards.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with EUREKA Outsourced Solutions?

I only had an idea when I approached EUREKA and was trying to find expertise and people who would be able to help me develop the product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped a lot at the initial stage, and we are still working with them after about two years of this project running. They provided us with specialists who would be able to develop the product, which we started by developing a mobile app for iOS. Later we developed the website as well, for which they did the backend in terms of logic and server-side programming.

They developed the mobile app, and at the same time, developed the backend of that software. The technology we used was WebRTC, which is basically video calling and VoIP technology. We also integrated Stripe for payments. We used our own designer, but all the technical tasks like software development were provided by them. Later, they also helped us to design the website, and after that, a web app. They used React; we now have a cross-platform video and text-chat feature so people can call from their iPhone to web and from web to Android.

What is the team composition?

They assembled a whole production team of existing workers that they already had and then, over a couple of years, they were changing people within that team according to our needs.

At different stages of the project, there were a different number of people involved. We started with three or four, and when we were at the highest level and spending a lot of money, there were about 15 people on the team. They also supplied us with business analysts to help with the business logic, as well as a project manager and an Android developer.

How did you come to work with EUREKA Outsourced Solutions?

I got in touch with them initially. I was quite happy.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent roughly $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started around September of 2018, and they are still involved.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I would say that the best achievement that is an indicator of their work is that we went through a couple of rounds and are now trading business and cash-generating with real customers. We are signing contracts with S&P 500 companies. They have managed to develop a product which is now live.

When it comes to reliability, they’ve been great. I’m always pushing for deadlines and sometimes I asked for impossible things. I realized that they obviously couldn’t do it. Generally speaking, I would give them eight or nine out of 10.

How did EUREKA Outsourced Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

I think in projects like this, you never have it always delivered on time so there are things here and there. Perhaps 5% of the time they were slightly late, which was absolutely fine with us. Sometimes we also added extra things to do and that was causing the delay. It is hard to say whose fault it was, but, generally, they always tried to meet the deadlines and whenever they didn’t meet it, there was a valid reason for it. In terms of the budget as well, we were really strict about that. In most cases, they met the budget.

Communication was fine and I can’t think of anything to complain about. We mainly use Atlassian products like Jira or Confluence. There were some misunderstandings because I am not a technical person so it was difficult for me sometimes to understand what they wanted. When I tried to convey my message, it wasn’t always interpreted 100%, but I guess that would happen with anyone. I stayed with them for a couple of years so you can judge from that. I’m really happy with most of their work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think the most impressive thing is their expertise in communication apps. It isn’t easy to find specialists in video calling technology and architecture. We were not using any third-party software to build a video calling app and that was amazing. I have been trying to find an alternative to compare them to, and most companies I contacted couldn’t even help. They all recommended using Twilio or some other third-party software.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The main thing would be meeting deadlines 100% of the time but I don’t think it is possible. It’s hard to say because they are really decent people. Price-wise, comparing them to other companies, we were able to save a lot of money. I am sure we would spend much more money going elsewhere.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They might offer specialists at different prices, but I would suggest going to the most expensive ones because they are only marginally more expensive. In terms of their expertise and experience, they will save you a lot more money than you spend. Don’t try to save money on each person; it is better to go for the top specialists. Even ask them specifically for senior developers. They are only a little bit more expensive, so it makes perfect sense to do that.