Exygy

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

B Lab is a non-profit that is leading a global movement of people using business for good. I’m the chief B keeper. I oversee the community of certified B Corporations. This is a global certification that has more than 2,000 businesses who have verified business performance on the dimensions of social/environmental, worker and governance practices. We do a holistic business certification.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Exygy?

We are building a movement, and we have 2,000 companies that have become certified, so we’re seeking to create a global network where they can build community and do more together than they can alone. We have an internal-facing digital community called the B Hive. We have the 1.0 version that we use, which extends off of Salesforce technology. After running this platform for about two years, we wanted to step back and understand how to direct for the future, for the 2.0 version of the community.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a great initial engagement, just to understand what the possibilities could be and what would be the next step for an engagement. First, there’s an intake of understanding where we are, where we aspire to be and what’s the next stage that we should invest in to figure out how to move forward. Once we did that, we decided to engage them for a strategy project, and we particularly needed a partner who knew our community. Exygy, as a certified B Corp, is in our community, and they also bring expertise to the table. We needed somebody who could do strategy that knew the technical side of the work, and somebody who could help us see around the corner. The primary engagement was to learn from our current and future communities. They ended up researching our B Corps who were on the current platform and some who were not. And since we’re a global network, they spoke with our global partners in different regions around the globe, and then also with companies that are not in our community, but that prospectively will be someday, because they’re measuring impact through a tool that we offer for free. They did a very wide landscape of listening and surveying users and prospective users to help us understand more about what they want out of a digital platform or community.

The deliverable was finding, from these interviews, a recommendation about what’s the next step for us in terms of investment. We were seeking an opinion on where to make the next investment with a sort of an openness. Do we continue to invest more in the platform that we have now? Or do we need to accomplish it through some other company that has a community offering? Or do we need to build something ourselves? The deliverable was to understand what users want and then what’s the right technical solution to get there, recognizing our constraints as a non-profit that we somehow need to go get resources in order to then do the next development.

There were about seven teammates that ultimately touched the project. There were three who were core to it, and then there were other people. We had some technical people that were doing the research on other platforms and understood the underpinnings of the technology. Those were some people who I didn’t interface with. And my colleague, who reports to me and is in charge of digital platform, was the project lead. I’m the senior person in this component of our work.

How did you come to work with Exygy?

We put out an RFP on the B Hive, the current platform. There are a lot of B Corps that are already on there. We went out to our current community of B Corps, but we also widened it to other players in the field: systems, strategy firms, and some were technically-oriented firms and B Corps who were somewhere in that mix. I think we had about 30 proposals.

We thought Exygy brought a great balance of both the ability to provide strategic guidance, but also know the technical side of what we’re trying to do. We needed strategic strength and technical prowess. We needed someone with technical knowledge to really understand, because these are expensive decisions, and if we make the wrong one, there’s a considerable amount of resources that could go to waste, and we have to, as a non-profit, really use our resources effectively.

How much have you invested with Exygy?

It was a $75,000 project that they gave to us at a considerable discount. They contributed really substantial pro bono components of the project. They wanted to bring their capabilities to support a movement. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2016, and the project was completed in February 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

What you hope for when you engage a consultant is that they’re going to bring a different perspective that will help you see something that you would never be able to see on your own, even if you put all of the resources that you could to bear on it. And that was truly the case here.

Part of the result of this is that we, as a convener, bring people together and create community. There’s an amazing relationship that results, and there are some amazing experiences that people have when we have events. People want to extend the spirit of that in between the times when we bring people together. Initially, we created the B Hive as a place to create community. What Exygy helped us see is that, as hard as we try, we’re not going to be able to foster that same thing online, but what we can do is use the digital platform to do matchmaking around relationships and content and questions and answers, so that we then can spark new relationships and opportunities offline.

It was a real repositioning of how we think about what we’re trying to accomplish and how we go about managing it. It was a total revelation. It completely changed how you would invest or what you would invest in. It was a booming success and required all that hard work and the laborious interviews and research. You need to live and breathe it in order to then step back and have that independent third-party view, taking into account all of the vast amount of information that was collected.

How did Exygy perform from a project management standpoint?

We had a very smooth project management relationship, and my colleague, Jessica, was the point person on that. We had a tight timeline because of budgetary reasons. We had urgency to make this happen, and Exygy was very, very responsive to our unrealistic needs.

What did you find most impressive about Exygy?

Our community of companies, the certified B Corps, have a view of making positive change in the world. As part of that change, there’s change that results from your work, but there’s also change in how you run the business and how you treat your employees and how you do business. That is something that distinguishes Exygy, and I think it’s very affirming to the kind of work that we do. They’re walking the walk in how they build culture and create community in their company, but also in terms of how they leverage that to have broader social impact. I think that’s very distinguishing about who they are and what they bring to the table.

Are there any areas Exygy could improve?

I was ecstatic with where we ended up, because it’s beyond over-delivering on what we were looking for. There are different constraints and challenges that a non-profit will face, versus a for-profit. We chose them, in part, because they had both experiences. We’re a non-profit serving for-profit. They’re a for-profit that serves for-profits and non-profits. I think that’s always a careful balancing act, as you’re making recommendations, and no organization is the same. That’s sort of the operating environment, being aware of different constraints of different types of organizations. I think we all can do that more.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Qure Healthcare is a physician engagement company working with practicing physicians, health systems, payors, pharmaceutical companies, and diagnostic companies to measure virtual patient simulations' variation in clinical practice. We report back that variation to physicians through individual and group feedback to change behavior and align practice with evidence-based guidelines and cost-efficient care. I’m the vice president.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Exygy?

We have physicians caring for online patient simulations; we receive feedback on the care that they deliver in those simulations. We had an existing platform, and we sought out Exygy to help us maintain the simulation and feedback platform and then to improve it. We’ve been working with them over the last four years on both maintaining the platform and improving it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In many ways, they are our software development partner. We don’t have software development expertise, so they have played the role as developers. We’ve gone through two pretty large scale improvements, redesigns and re-engineerings of our platform and user interface. They have done the development work for that. They’ve also helped us with user design and user experience. The number of resources from their team have flexed up and down depending on whether we’re doing maintenance support or we’re doing a full redesign. I would guess we’ve probably had ten different people at Exygy working in some capacity or other on our projects. We have currently two main contacts, a project manager and software developer, and then they’ll pull in additional software development expertise when we’re working on a fairly big project or redesigning the platform in some way. They’ll bring in designers and user-experience people as well.

How did you come to work with Exygy?

They were hired before I started here.

How much have you invested with Exygy?

We’ve spent between $200,000 and $300,000 over the course of our relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2013, and our work with them is ongoing. We’re just finishing up a large redesign project of our platform. We have users on it now. We’re getting feedback from users and making additional adjustments and tweaks and planning our next project with them as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The feedback from users is that the platform is easy to access. Exygy has really been a partner throughout the whole process. They know our platform very intimately and certainly are talented developers but have also made very insightful recommendations as we’ve co-developed it. They help us think in ways that we don’t necessarily think about. We’re not user experience people. We’re not software development people. They’ve helped us develop a methodology and mindset for how we want to prioritize what we’re working on and how we want to make sure the tool is solving real business problems and real user experience problems and solving them in the most efficient and clear way possible. The product looks great. It is easy to use and it’s impressive to our end users. They deliver both patient simulation environment and also the individual feedback reports that clinicians get. The projects we’ve done with them have been very successful.

How did Exygy perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve worked with a handful of project managers. Some I’ve been more impressed with than others. There’s a little bit of variation. Our developers have been very consistent. Because we’ve been working with them for so long, I don’t get the sense that there’s a high turnover. The project manager that we’ve been working with for just the last year has just been spectacular. He’s smart and really knows our product. He gives very good advice and keeps everything coordinated and does that all very efficiency. We use Pivotal Tracker through Exygy. We’ve used a few different tools over the years, including Base Camp and Trello, but Pivotal Tracker has shown a lot of value in the relationship.

What did you find most impressive about Exygy?

I just want to reiterate that we really see them as a partner and that’s been a very important part of what we’ve done. We’re both based in San Francisco, so the proximity has been really nice. They’re responsive to our concerns and our needs and their fingerprints are all over our product in very positive ways. I think they’ve brought together a nice set of skills for user experience and development that. It has been very much what we’ve needed, especially on the big redesigns, to make sure that our product is meeting the needs of our users.

Are there any areas Exygy could improve?

They’re not the cheapest option. A long time ago we looked into offshoring some of the work potentially and we never found a group that we felt that we could partner with. That’s been a really, really important part of what we do with Exygy. We haven’t done a whole lot of comparison shopping. I don’t get the sense that they’re way out of line, but there are cheaper options out there, I know. They’ve certainly proven their value. I don’t know if it’s something I want them to improve. I don’t want them to cut their prices if they can’t keep up the same level of service.

BACKGROUND

Could you provide a brief description of your organization and your role there?

I work for TRX, otherwise known as Fitness Anywhere. We are a fitness company based in San Francisco. We have a couple of different divisions to our business. We have products that we sell. We also sell commercially to gyms. We sell to the military. We also sell education courses to train trainers on how to use our products with their clients. I’m the Web producer for our e-commerce and engineering departments. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address when you contacted Exygy?

We sell the TRX Suspension Trainer, which is a suspension training strap. A big part of what we do is also content; videos to help users train better and use our equipment. We had built our own internal entitlement service whereby we can assign TRX users the content that they’re entitled to. We built the backend infrastructure for that. But, we didn’t have a very good way, visually, to deliver that. We had this sense that we wanted somewhere called the “locker” where you could go and watch all your content, get your PDFs and things like that. We also have a membership program called the TRX Core, which trainers can join and they are going to this locker where they can download logos and business cards that they could use.

Exygy helped us from the very beginning, information architecture stage through the design and the development to build that front-end platform called “My Locker.” That was one project they worked with us on.

The other project is the Trainer Directory. If you want to find a personal trainer or a gym in your area that teaches TRX or has TRX classes, you could go to the Trainer Directory to find that. It had been a few years since we designed and built our directory, so we were looking to do a complete overhaul on that. We looked to them again to help us with that. They helped us design, and they developed our new Trainer Directory.

Then, we’re in the middle of redesigning all of our blogs on our main site. In the next couple of months, we’ll kick off a new project with them to help us do that.

SOLUTION

When did you start working with them?

We launched the Locker in June of 2012, so probably in the beginning of 2012.

How did you select Exygy as your solution partner?

We’d been looking at a couple of different companies, some offshore. We decided that we wanted to stick with a local company so we could meet with the team and be on the same time zone. We had gotten a reference. Our e-commerce director had been working with a company that had worked with them before, so we got linked to them through that.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms?

The directory was probably around $100,000. My Locker was around $150,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any metrics or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

I don’t have any metrics on hand. Everyone internally and our trainers were really happy with My Locker and the directory. Everyone that uses it loves it. We’re very happy with it.

How would you describe their performance?

It’s great working with them. They’re a small company, so they’re all very hands-on. Even Zach [Berke, founder and CEO of Exygy], he’s very involved with all of the projects. I had direct contact with their developers, so you’re not going through a long line of project managers where it could take a few days or a week to turnaround a specific request. They’re always very responsive. I really enjoyed working with them. That’s why we keep going back to them.

Is there anything you’d consider unique or special about Exygy compared to other companies?

Just having people available, that if need be, they could go to our office or we could go to their office and we can have a sit down meeting or talk through the problem. That was really helpful.

In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?

Not offhand. I can’t think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Could you give some background information on your work with Exygy?

To give you some background, I’ve worked with Zach [Berke, founder of Exygy] a number of times over the years on a variety of different things. 

I have always done tech startups going back to when I left college. I started my first company just as I was leaving in 2006. I was not a software developer at that time. Fast-forwarding to today, I’m actually a proficient full stack engineer myself. Prior to that, I really needed a technology partner on the things I was doing to convert the business objectives and goals of the product that we had designed into an actual functional piece of software. That’s more or less what I’ve done with Exygy during the years on three specific different occasions. Now that I build software myself, we just pulled most things in-house and I hire and manage my own teams.  

SOLUTION

Can you be a little bit more specific around what type of software was developed?

Most of what I’ve done with him in the past has been web application specific. I think we built a PHP app at one point, as well as a full Ruby on Rails application. The last full project I did with them was in 2012. We had an application we needed developed, and they went from a simple HTML prototype along with requirements to an actual functional piece of software. Most of my experience, if not all, has been on the Web application side.

How long did that most recent project take?

It was about a three or four month development cycle.

Can you give a sense of the size of the project by giving a personnel work hour figure or a general cost range?

I think all-in, we probably spent about $100,000 on that project.

Through the years, I’ve probably spent a little north of a quarter of a million dollars with his shop.

Why did you select Exygy to work with in the beginning?

I’ve been working with Exygy ever since it was just Zach Berke, the founder. I have more or less watched him grow his business from the beginning. I was able to build a good relationship with him. He’s a really easy guy to work with. We get along on not just a social but also a professional level. I’ve gone back to him again and again because I think there’s just definitely a good measure of transparency and honesty with respect to defining what they think it’s going to be and what they’re going to deliver. They’re very open to ongoing communication. The more I got into the software development field in terms of my own knowledge and ability to do it, the more I was able to be actively involved in the project management, in day-to-day management of the engineering team. That was good. But, to work with them, you don’t actually have to be an engineer. They do have a very multidimensional skill set in their ability to lead. I’ve been able to really get to know Zach and trust him with what they say they’re going to deliver and when and on what budget.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of the results of the work that they’ve done, are there any metrics or any feedback that you can share that indicates the effectiveness of their work?

A lot of times, software either meets your objectives or it doesn’t. The better job the client does defining what they’re actually wanting to build and how they accomplish, the better the end deliverable is. I think generally they do a good job of getting to that point before they start, that it is a fairly good metric to be able to look back and say, “Here’s what we defined the app was going to do at the beginning, and here’s what it’s actually doing.” It’s hard for me to say [specific metrics], but I’ve been reasonably happy with the quality of work that I’ve received.

Is there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies?

They spend a good amount of time upfront getting to know what it is they’re going to build, and are not afraid to give you an honest quote. A lot of times software shops will underestimate the time it will take to finish building it. There’s a difference between what you can build in a day and what you can fully test and have ready for production and put out there. I think Exygy does an honest job of really bidding projects. Some shops will bid you one thing and then it’ll just balloon from there because you didn’t do a good enough job really defining what the software was going to do in the first place. Exygy forces you to do that process ahead of time, so that everybody is on the same page with respect to the budget and deliverables, which in the software development field is very critical because it can get really expensive really fast.

I think they do an especially good job with people that don’t [have experience with software development], being open and honest with them so that there’s definitely a happy ending. You need somebody that’s actually going to be honest with you about scope and really take the time to figure it out because most people that don’t know development don’t have enough concept of the level of granularity you have to go into when you’re designing a piece of software. If you don’t go into that level ahead of time at least from a scoping perspective, that’s where your budget is just throwing darts at the dartboard. If I were to point to the best thing about Exygy, it would be their transparency in defining and scoping and then delivering to that scope.

On the other hand, is there any area that you think that they could improve on or that you’d do differently looking back?

This is maybe just the difference between having an in-house team and not having one, but it’s hard to do the iterative process in real time when you’ve scoped the project [in advance]. One of the reasons why I don’t do outsourcing anymore, now that we have our own team, is that we can do sprints on a very defined level, where we’re spending the amount of time on a particular feature that a whole project might command for an entire application. You can really get better user experience on certain things rather than trying to get so much done in a confined amount of time.

If I were to say one thing that I think they could do better, it might be forcing clients to think more concisely in the early days of new application development, to pick out the one or two features that are really valuable in the first initial product. Think about what’s really required for a minimally viable product and get that done 100 percent right. Really just relentlessly focus on the user experience there and optimizing it.

BACKGROUND

Could you provide a brief description of your organization and your role there?

We are the Department of Human Resources for the city and county of San Francisco, the centralized HR department for the entire city and county.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenge you were trying to address when you began working with Exygy?

The city has a standard website that the departments use for their Web page. However, we needed a different platform that we could manage on our own. With the current, standardized city platform, we didn’t have as much control on how it looks and what we could put up there. I was looking for a different platform that I could maintain and control the look and feel and the type of documentation or videos that would be posted. 

Who’s the audience for that type of content?

It is the entire HR community [employed by] the city and county of San Francisco. Every department has HR personnel that report within that department. What our department does is a lot of outreach, guidance, forms, and orientation videos that we provide centrally for the city, for HR folks. 

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of the project?

At the time, our IT staff didn’t have the skill level of the Web platform that we were using, WordPress. We enlisted Exygy’s help to create and design that Web page that we could then continue to build from. They did a lot of the design and build work.

Did they keep it in WordPress?

Yes.

Can you now post the content yourselves and maintain the website on your own?

Correct.

How long did the project take?

It took about six to nine months, probably closer to six months. We had a time schedule in mind. Unfortunately, on our side, we were going through a lot of transition in terms of, conceptually, what we actually wanted to see. On the Exygy side, once we nailed down the look and feel, the rest of it happened pretty smoothly.

How did you select Exygy as your solution partner?

They were recommended by a colleague who currently is the chief innovation officer. He had done some work with Exygy before. When I told him of our need, he recommended Exygy, and so we met with them and they really impressed us.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

Cost range did not exceed $25,000. It was a two-step process. There was a basic page that we had designed, and then we added a splash page that was brilliant and just a lot faster because we had a much better, clearer idea. Once we had a clearer idea of what we wanted, Exygy’s work was perfect. It was the second phase of the project that was most impressive because, once we gave them ideas of what we wanted, the work that was done was fantastic.

It was completed in 2012?

Correct, 2012, and then Phase 2 was 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

I don’t have any metrics. But, the big takeaway was that the clearer the customer is with their requirements, the better the product and the faster that it can be accomplished. We realized that in phase two. Once we gave them the idea of exactly what we wanted, the work done was efficient, and it was done perfectly as we wanted it. It was a lot easier, a lot smoother. The first phase, we went back and forth, mainly because of us, and that we kept changing our mind. In any project, you can’t really do that, but we did, unfortunately. Once you provide them a clear idea, it will go very smoothly and efficiently.

Do you feel that the solution that they delivered is effective for your needs?

Highly effective. Correct.

When working with Exygy, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about them that distinguishes them from other companies with which you’ve worked?

Customer service, and again, it got even better in the Phase 2, once we knew what we were doing. They were really attentive to us and really gave us a lot of personal attention. It was very impressive, the type of attention that we received and the focus.

In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?

The main thing that we would do differently is start with a clear idea of our vision. As far as working with them, the only thing would be just allowing for that contingency, if the client does not have their clear vision in mind, they need to work with the schedule to make that more flexible. Once the schedule is set, it’s hard to deviate, because of the work that they have to put into it, too.