Fingent

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager of Cru, a nonprofit Christian organization headquartered in Florida. It’s a global organization that has a presence in a large number of countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fingent?

We needed to build a native Android app for sharing videos that kick-start spiritual conversations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had already created a vision document and visual design, and they built and implemented the actual app. They had a lead developer and then perhaps 3 full-time employees working on it. We had weekly meetings and they had some QA people outside those numbers.

How did you come to work with Fingent?

Fingent had a good history of producing Android apps, so we decided to go with them.

How much have you invested with Fingent?

Initially, the price was lower, but we had some hurdles along the way, so I think we paid about $25,000 USD.

What is the status of this engagement?

Starting from when we handed over UX design and that stuff, it probably took about three months, including QA and several revisions. We began at the end of February of 2016 and the app went live in June. We’re also considering asking them to make a bid on our iOS app because we need it redone in Swift instead of Objective-C.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re just now starting to ramp up our advertising, so I don’t have a ton of statistics available at this time. But we have a rating of 4.6 in the Google Play Store and we average about 20 new users per day, which is good considering the number of ads we’re doing.

How did Fingent perform from a project management standpoint?

We offered to bring them in on our JIRA boards, but that would have been a duplication of what they were already doing on their end. We weren’t too involved with their internal project management systems. But we held 30-minute weekly progress updates over Zoom to go through what they’d done, and we’d ask for improvements if need be, and they’d go off and improve them. They’re experienced and they have good processes in place. Their strength is their commitment: we were continuing to make adjustments to our API, and they did a really good job adjusting to changes as we went along. They’re easy to work with and flexible.

What did you find most impressive about Fingent?

They’re an honest company to deal with. There’s more than one way to build an app, and they were always willing to go the long way around or to do things that took extra time. They were always fair and reasonable. We didn’t have our API fully built out, so they were building against a moving target, and they were very reasonable. Their charges were reasonably well priced.

Are there any areas Fingent could improve?

They can be fairly subservient. If I asked them to do something, they’d confirm multiple times that I wanted it done. I think it’s a cultural difference, them being Indian; they tend to be cautious and they want to check and get clarity. Perhaps the culture that I live in, those things are obvious, but for them, money is involved and they want to make sure that the customer is really satisfied.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History is located in Pacific Grove, California. We offer a number of educational programs, one of them being a science program, which has been running locally for 5 years, and for 10 years outside of the museum. I am the LiMPETS program coordinator for the institute.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

We needed to migrate our database from an old system, as well as to update the user interface and graphic design of our system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fingent Corporation worked on our custom-built database. I was in communication with three team members regularly, but there may have been more resources from Fingent Corporation working on our project. 

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

We posted a request for proposal on a number of job sites. We received dozens of responses and narrowed the selection to 5 teams, which looked solid. Fingent Corporation came out on top when we concluded to final vetting. 

How much have you invested with Fingent Corporation?

The cost of our project with Fingent Corporation was around $23,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Fingent Corporation in March 2016. The project had a 7-month duration.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new database is up and has been used by teachers and students. It's receiving a lot of good feedback. The system is easy to use, and its graphing application looks very nice. We're very pleased with the final product.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

Fingent Corporation's team was timely. They went above and beyond in making sure that our needs were met and that we were within budget. We used Redmine as a project management tool. In addition to it, we also communicated via email.

What did you find most impressive about Fingent Corporation?

We had frequent conference calls at different points in the project, spending a lot of time going through the details and understanding the various needs that we had. I found that very helpful.

Are there any areas Fingent Corporation could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of an aluminum dock provider for residential cottages. I manage all aspects of the business since it's just me.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

I don't have technical expertise when it comes to online things. It was well outside of my wheelhouse, so I needed to find a supplier. That's where Fingent came in.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fingent Corporation provided coding for our project, as well as some interface designs. I mostly interacted with our US contact, as well as with the Indian team's project manager.

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

I put out a bid in a handful of different places, including Upwork. I received at least 15 responses, which were all over the map. I also did some Google research, finding some US companies that interested me. Many of them were very expensive and somewhat unresponsive. When it came down to it, the choice was pretty clear, although I did interact more closely with around 5 of the candidates. Fingent Corporation came in as one of the less expensive options, and they also did a lot more upfront work than other candidates. Fingent Corporation put together quite a nice proposal and seemed to have significant interest in the project. Pricing was comparable to an overseas developer's, but I had access to a US-based project manager.

How much have you invested with Fingent Corporation?

The total cost of Fingent Corporation's services has been around $12,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work is completed, but there are still a few things which I want to add down the line. I plan to have an ongoing relationship with Fingent Corporation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Fingent Corporation's work has had a huge impact on our business. I run daily operations with the help of one other person. The only way in which I could sell more products without hiring more people was to extend myself. I had to speak to the customers and get all the details from them, trying to understand what they wanted to do. I had to type in all the parts, make sure that I got them right and that I understood what they said. Besides this, I was always getting calls asking for pricing. All of this is now available on the website, so customers can find the information themselves. They're getting their own pricing and layouts, so I don't even have to speak to them in many cases. I'm confident enough in the system to simply copy and paste the information into my billing software. Being able to understand what they're getting and for what price is a huge benefit for the customer.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

We had bi-weekly project meetings in which I saw all the updates. Fingent Corporation stayed right on schedule. We used GoToMeeting for communication. I think that Fingent Corporation also used Basecamp, but I never had a need for it. All the information was passed down to me by email.

What did you find most impressive about Fingent Corporation?

I appreciated being able to receive US-based service and confidence, with Indian pricing.

Are there any areas Fingent Corporation could improve?

For bigger projects involving people that are more technical than me, it may be different, but I didn't see any room for improvement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a third-party administrator for the independent contractor transportation industry. We handle back-office and support functions for over 12,000 independent operators throughout the country. I am the Vice President of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

We have programmers on staff and handle a lot of our own software development internally, but didn't have a resource with enough experience in building mobile applications. When the time came to provide our drivers an application for their phones, we reached out to someone with more expertise in the field.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fingent Corporation developed our mobile apps using a hybrid approach. We developed Android and iOS versions. We developed an API service for Fingent Corporation to use, given that our apps are database-driven. Users need to authenticate before doing anything else.

We had a back-and-forth process between Fingent Corporation and our own developers, who were handling the API and database ends, in order to make them more responsive for the user experience.

I'm not aware of how many developers worked on our project. We interacted with a project lead.

Fingent Corporation assisted us with publishing our apps on the stores, but we were mainly in charge of the process. There were no issues in approving the apps.

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

We put a bid out and received a tremendous amount of interest from around 20 different companies over the span of a week. We narrowed our choice down based on resumes and submissions to about 5 companies. We interviewed each candidate, had them sign non-disclosure agreements, and gave them schematics for our project. We received bids, went through some back-and-forth, and settled on Fingent Corporation.

How much have you invested with Fingent Corporation?

The total cost of Fingent Corporation's services was between $15,000 and $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project has been completed. We manage the applications ourselves.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There's a lot of technical jargon in our industry. Sometimes, when dealing with developers, they'll know their own jargon, but not that of our industries. We've had communication problems with other companies which we didn't experience with Fingent Corporation. The quality assurance process went smoothly and Fingent Corporation delivered functional versions of our apps out-of-the-box quickly.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

My biggest compliment for Fingent Corporation is regarding their flexibility. After starting the project, we went through an internal 6-week process for developing the API endpoints. Due to some personal reasons, I didn't have the capability to assign a developer to the work as early and as often as I would've liked. The real delays in the project were our fault, not Fingent Corporation's. While I can sense that they were a bit frustrated with this, given that they scheduled multiple projects for their developers, Fingent Corporation was tremendously helpful and flexible with us. Fingent Corporation worked well with our project lead and we had no major issues. Fingent Corporation estimated a 12-week development period. It wasn't met, but they came pretty close. Having done this type of work with multiple other companies in the past, I can say that Fingent Corporation was definitely the most flexible.

We used Trello for tracking our project with Fingent Corporation, at their recommendation.

What did you find most impressive about Fingent Corporation?

Fingent Corporation employs local US resources who understood our way of doing business. There was no language barrier and concepts were much easier to communicate to them. They could then relay the information to the development team overseas. The fact that we had a middle person able to work within our time schedule was tremendously helpful and critical to the success of the project.

Are there any areas Fingent Corporation could improve?

Trello was a pretty basic project management tool. I don't think it's meant for complex development projects. I don't know if it would have helped or hurt us to use something different, but we didn't come to build a general workflow due to the limited functionalities of the tool. We use Jira internally and are used to its workflows.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a captive finance company working as a subsidiary of NEC Corporation, which is a global technology company. We provide financial services for customers through our NEC and independent business channels. We service in excess of 1,000 nationwide technology providers and we have been in business for 30 years. We are a small organization, consisting of 35 people.

We rely on technology for processing operations and maintaining productivity in our business offerings. It allows us to offer an efficient product without taking on more overhead. We're located in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, which is an expensive area in which to operate. We don't outsource our business like other financial services companies. All of our staff members are physically located in our office, with the exception of a few remote sales people. We wouldn't be able to do this and still be cost-effective without deploying good technology.

I am the president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

Three years ago, we had a need for replacing a legacy technology product. It was a homegrown solution which was built by a third-party developer. That person passed away, unfortunately, taking the password to the crypt with him. We decided that we would go out to the market and find a company that would help us replace our technology.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fingent Corporation developed our platform, which includes ASP pages and SQL databases.

We've given Fingent Corporation another technology project after our first engagement. It consisted of converting our intranet to a SharePoint server. I was open-minded about the technology, even though I wasn't a huge fan of it, but Fingent Corporation showed us some samples of work they'd done using SharePoint, which convinced me that that was an infrastructure that we could manage ourselves.

Fingent Corporation has recommended different solutions to us. We don't always agree and we do go through multiple iterations in order to understand what Fingent Corporation is trying to provide to us, but we do approve some of their suggestions.

There are many behind-the-scenes resources on Fingent Corporation's team. We work with a project leader and with Fingent Corporation's Chief Executive Officer, who has always been involved in our work, actually making good recommendations. Our project lead went on maternity leave at one point, but Fingent Corporation put a very good person in her place. Our current resource is a programmer himself and he acts as the lead engineer.

We have weekly meetings every Thursday at 10 AM, which is dinner time for India. Fingent Corporation has been very effective during these calls. We also use a web-based tool for keeping track of our projects, so there's good communication overall. The time zone difference has never been an issue, which was one of my main concerns. Being owned by a Japanese company means that we also have conference calls at 8 o'clock at night, so I'm used to that routine.

It has been hard at times for our staff to understand members of Fingent Corporation's team, because of their accents, but we've gotten accustomed to them. We have the same issue when we visit our parent company in Japan. It's a global economy, so we have to deal with it.

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

We were working with a college intern which we asked to post a project on guru.com. We talked to 3-4 companies and created a shortlist in our mind. Fingent Corporation turned out to be the winner.

It was the first time that we'd be working with a completely offshore developer. Even though we'd worked with companies which had developers in India, they still had a major physical presence in the US. We met with Fingent Corporation at their local office and I expressed my concern about working with an overseas company. Fingent Corporation got me to a level that I was comfortable with. I liked their representative and saw some of the work done by Fingent Corporation. They'd worked in the financial services space, but they were relatively new to the leasing industry. Lending money is the same everywhere in concept, even though the transaction methods may differ. Fingent Corporation listened to us and started to understand what we did. We had a few conference calls and started talking more about our business and learned how Fingent Corporation processed information. We asked for a proposal, which was presented within a week. We had some negotiations, made some tweaks and signed on the dotted line.

Our parent company does own a technology developer in India, which is probably the size of 100 Fingent Corporations, but we haven't worked with them yet. I don't want to put all my eggs into one basket, so if I can insource certain tasks, I will do it for economic and political reasons.

How much have you invested with Fingent Corporation?

The total cost of Fingent Corporation's services has been between $200,000 and $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Fingent Corporation 3 years ago, and have had 3 revisions of our platform since. Our most recent milestone was reached last week, for our SharePoint project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I think that Fingent Corporation is a good partner for our projects and I've enjoyed working with them. The process has been a lot smoother that I would've thought.

We started our collaboration by keeping tight metrics of Fingent Corporation's progress, but it wasn't something that we liked. We've since agreed on working through an open flow, which has worked out. If our projects were more complicated and involved more people, tracking milestones would probably be more sophisticated. We only have a 25-people group. I have a project leader who is also involved in marketing and many other tasks, so working in a loose manner has been ideal for us.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

Fingent Corporation is good at hitting milestones, but things have gotten lost in translation, which I think is typical for any technology project. They've always bounced back and caught up on any task. No one from our team ever felt that Fingent Corporation compromised our projects. From a pricing point of view, we'd have higher expectations from Fingent Corporation in terms of speed, if they charged more. Their scheduling and budget fit within our limitations. Fingent Corporation is a fair company and we like working with them.

Fingent Corporation is probably working on multiple projects at the same time and doesn't dedicate resources to us, although I haven't explicitly asked them about this. This is most likely the reason for any delays in our projects. We're okay with this though, and it hasn't affected us. Our requirements are more laid-back than normal.

We use Basecamp, which is a simple, web-based project management tool. We have managed many internal projects using it and it happened to be the tool used by Fingent Corporation as well.

What did you find most impressive about Fingent Corporation?

With Fingent Corporation, I've been able to assign less technical staff to the project. They've been very good at explaining things, not overwhelming us with technical buzzwords. When things do start getting more complicated, and we start talking about APIs and SQL servers, we can include some more technical people in my staff, including myself.

Are there any areas Fingent Corporation could improve?

We should have meetings more than once a week. It's possible that Fingent Corporation will run into issues in a week's time which won't be addressed at the right moment.

It has been hard for us to allow a developer past the company's firewall. Doing this type of work requires a level of trust, otherwise figuring things out will become a project in itself. As long as both parties feel that the relationship is economical, there will be a good equilibrium.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a mortgaging services company offering nationwide property preservations and inspections. We've been in business for 40 years. I am the chief information officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

We wanted to create a B2B [business-to-business] mobile application for inspections and property preservation. Previously, the process was done through Windows PCs. We don't have technical staff here to build an application internally, so we needed to contract external developers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fingent Corporation developed our application for Android while the iOS version was created by a different developer. We also worked with Fingent Corporation on creating an invoice aggregation system, which collected all accounts payable to a single spot for approval. Fingent Corporation created another quality control application with photo capabilities as well as a property valuation software for broker price opinions. Our apps have 10,000 to 20,000 users at a time. I prefer keeping development teams small, so I limited the resources from Fingent Corporation to three to five persons. Also, the developers working for us should be consistent and exclusive to our projects since getting new programmers to continue work on the code could cause problems. Fingent Corporation honored my request.

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

I don't recall how I found out about Fingent Corporation.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with Fingent Corporation for a decade.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Through our involvement with Fingent Corporation, we've been able to cut our quality control costs by about 70 percent for the current year.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

It is rare to be able to develop complex systems while staying on time and on budget. Given this situation, I have no complaints about Fingent Corporation's project management. The communication was good, compared to other Indian firms that I've dealt with previously. Indian companies usually don't have the same mentality as United States ones when it comes to rewarding and keeping good resources. In contrast, Fingent Corporation has been able to hold on to their developers, which was a key issue to us.

What did you find most impressive about Fingent Corporation?

Fingent Corporation is based in Kochi, which is a very different place to the rest of India, culturally speaking. Their team is a bit different, more laid back than typical developers in India.

Are there any areas Fingent Corporation could improve?

I don't think there are any areas that Fingent Corporation needs to improve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a religious media company and one of the largest ministries in the world. I am the digital media manager and responsible for our internet initiatives, including the website and apps for mobile and smart TVs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

We are a non-profit, so we are careful with how we spend money. Fingent Corporation understood that fact and came up with solutions that enabled us to get things done quickly and at a lower cost. We have developed multiple apps in several languages for our video and radio content. The Bible and all of the content that we produce are mapped to those apps.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our third and biggest project with Fingent Corporation involved developing Android and iOS apps for children. These apps support our Superbook animation series, which has aired in the United States and other countries. The original series was created in the 80s, but we created a new version in 2011. The Superbook website and mobile apps are interactive tools through which kids can learn about the Bible and play games. We used Adobe Flex to build the Superbook apps for Android, iOS, and the Amazon App Store. Initially, the project had 2 developers and a project manager assigned by Fingent Corporation. At its peak, we worked with around 4 developers, a quality assurance specialist, and a project manager. In addition, Fingent Corporation developed a website for us, praise.com, 5 years ago. They also helped us build a Bible app for Android and iOS.

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

We met Fingent Corporation at a conference, where they pitched building a website for us. Although we already had a core team in-house for web development, their focus was on a non-branded project for a specific campaign. Since we didn't have the bandwidth for the website, we tried Fingent Corporation. The cost was the deciding factor in choosing Fingent Corporation. That first project came with many unknowns, so we wanted to limit our budget.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have an ongoing relationship with Fingent Corporation for enhancements and general maintenance. Since the Superbook app is interactive, featuring games and activities, there's always something new to add. We started translating it into 40 different languages for our global audience. We needed to support the broadcast for each of these languages, and the app has enabled us to keep adding language packs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, the work done by Fingent Corporation has been very good. Our app has performed well, and it quickly climbed to the top 10 lists in the app stores when it was first launched. It has risen in the charts several times since then, whenever we had promotions for it. Any issues are related to the technology stack decisions we made at the beginning. It could be better since some features are not as polished as we'd like them to be, but that is more of a platform issue than an implementation one. Whenever we had a tight deadline, Fingent Corporation put in extra effort, working during weekends and at night. We've been very happy with that.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

We had some project management issues in the beginning since things were taking longer than expected. These issues were largely due to communication challenges and mismatched expectations.

What did you find most impressive about Fingent Corporation?

Fingent Corporation's understanding of our limitations has been our main reason for continuing to work with them. For example, we initially wanted to develop native apps, which would have cost 3–4 times more compared with using the Flex platform. Fingent Corporation offered us solutions which we hadn't thought of on many occasions. This helped us take things forward.

Are there any areas Fingent Corporation could improve?

It was our first offshore project, so communication was a bit of a challenge. Fingent Corporation's development team is based in India and they sometimes understood requests differently than we intended them. In addition, there was an extensive feedback cycle, which slowed down the process. Since then, Fingent Corporation has assigned a new project manager to us who has been very sharp. We haven't had any issues with him.

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

We decided to set up an internal team for quality assurance due to a few issues in the first phase of the project. Our team checked the code delivered by Fingent Corporation. Once we set up a rhythm and understood how Fingent Corporation worked, and vice versa, things got better.

BACKGROUND

Please introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a non-profit law firm providing civil legal services for people who are just above or at the Federal poverty level. I'm the Coordinator for Access to Justice for the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

We wanted to develop software for people who need self-help work in courts. For example, in our county courts, most people who have a landlord or collections problem will appear in court by themselves. We wanted to provide a way by which they could represent themselves better. This ended up materializing in the form of an app that was intuitive and effective.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Fingent Corporation developed a web-based, mobile-friendly solution for us, handling both coding and user interface design. It was built on an existing platform, but Fingent Corporation had to make many changes for us. It was also the first time Fingent Corporation worked on a law-related solution. Given that, I think that they did a great job.

The team from Fingent Corporation included 5-6 people, but I only interacted with 3 of them, including our project lead. We never had any unexpected issues with staff turnover.

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

We released a request for proposal and received around 25 responses. One of the things unique about Fingent Corporation was that they did a demo for our company, which I found to be very good salesmanship. We narrowed down our choice between them and another company. The demo made us choose Fingent Corporation.

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

The total cost of our project with Fingent Corporation was $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Fingent Corporation around one year ago. The website was completed on April 21st, 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The site built by Fingent Corporation has been uniformly well-received. We're very pleased with it. It's visually-pleasing and simple to use, while also accomplishing our purposes.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

The project came in within budget specifications. There was a time extension, but it was agreed-upon by both parties. I always knew who to contact from Fingent Corporation and I found them to be very responsive.

What distinguishes Fingent Corporation from other providers?

We've been very impressed with the end-product. It has exceeded our expectations and was delivered well within the parameters we specified at the outset. 

Is there anything Fingent Corporation could have improved or done differently?

No. I found Fingent Corporation to be very responsive and they delivered the product that we requested.

BACKGROUND

Please introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an innovation lab run out of the University of North Carolina. We engage teams of students to come up with new business ideas and strategies which we prototype, taking a few of them to market. We build minimum viable products that we then try to turn into businesses. I'm a professor of interactive media and acting as the director of the Reese News Lab.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

We received a grant for building a new concept. We ran a small project with Fingent Corporation that turned out well, so we allocated more money for their team, turning our product into a full content management system that could actually be sold. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Fingent Corporation has completed two prototyping projects for our institution. We are starting a third one. Fingent Corporation has used web technologies exclusively like HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL as well as data visualization tools.

Our team from Fingent Corporation consisted of one project manager, one designer – who is used when needed – a front-end developer, a back-end developer, and a database admin. Typically, we deliver requirements for developers and let Fingent Corporation handle the process. However, we've started working with a project manager who I specifically requested. 

How did you come to work with Fingent Corporation?

I posted a proposal on a site for contracted work. Fingent Corporation contacted me. I saw that they had a good reputation and were priced competitively. I have come to use Fingent Corporation whenever I have an appropriate project.

What is the status of this engagement?

I resumed my work with Fingent Corporation two and a half years ago. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've been able to license the product built by Fingent Corporation to other major media companies. From a technical standpoint, they have fulfilled their requirements and made sure that the solution would actually work. We've had engineers review Fingent Corporation's code. They approved the work, so I would say that it has been successful.

I have always been able to document the work and make changes as needed without having to go back to Fingent Corporation. They have provided well-commented code.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

Our work with Fingent Corporation never went over budget. There have been a few delays, but our overall projects ended on time. We have worked on a fixed-price contract with Fingent Corporation. Given that we start projects based on grants, we could not pay for increased budgets.

What distinguishes Fingent Corporation from other providers?

For the price point, Fingent Corporation has been very effective, which is the main reason I've gone back to them. I have been very pleased with Fingent Corporation's user experience and design capabilities. I did not expect the work to be as good as it turned out. Even though Fingent Corporation isn't known for user design, I have been pleased with their skills. I teach interactive design, so I am critical of this subject.

Fingent Corporation has done a great job at working with us as a university. We can be slow to pay, and I've been thankful for their willingness to be patient and work around this. We have slowed them down more than Fingent Corporation has slowed us down.

What tips or recommendations could you share with potential buyers?

Having requirements known ahead of time will help get the best estimates for the developer's effort. If the project is straightforward, this can be done quickly but, if the work is pushing technical boundaries, it's helpful to have people around who can talk to engineers ahead of time. Fingent Corporation has had to go through a discovery phase for what we were putting forth before making a bid. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

K9 Experts offers services for pets in the New Jersey area, including walking, transportation, training, and so on.

What is your position?

I am the owner and founder of the business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Fingent Corporation?

We wanted to create an application. Previously, we'd been using a third-party one and wanted to come up with something better.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Fingent Corporation developed our app for iOS and Android, as well as the web. They also helped to promote the app. Both of our apps have been developed at the same time.

Fingent Corporation assigned a 5-6-person team for our project. We had daily conference calls with them.

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

The total development cost with Fingent Corporation has been between $30,000 and $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Fingent Corporation at the beginning of 2015. The project took around 6 months to complete. We had to stop our collaboration temporarily, but have resumed the work with Fingent Corporation. We plan to go through bug fixes and continue the development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I've used my own staff in order to get feedback for the app. They have been pretty happy with it, but there are a few things which we need to correct, particularly on the web application side.

How did Fingent Corporation perform from a project management standpoint?

Fingent Corporation was able to deliver the work within time and budget. We mainly communicated online, through a presentation tool. 

What distinguishes Fingent Corporation from other providers?

I've worked with a few developers previously. Fingent Corporation was very responsive and fast to address our questions and concerns.

Is there anything Fingent Corporation could have improved or done differently?

No. Fingent Corporation moved fast and was able to keep things together.