First Factory

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Patient Studio

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We build software for the healthcare space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire FIRST FACTORY to accomplish?

• Fix issues with emails not being sent out
• No regressions in the tool

SOLUTION

How did you find FIRST FACTORY?

Referral

Why did you select FIRST FACTORY over others?

• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from FIRST FACTORY were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Our application, which serves thousands of users, had an issue with on our key features. We need an experienced developer to root cause the issue and address the problem.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The issue was resolved and no new regressions were introduced.

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

First Factory excelled in this aspect. They invested the necessary time to grasp our fundamental requirements, crafted and effectively communicated a comprehensive plan, and executed it. Their communication was truly commendable. Throughout the process, I received consistent updates on their progress, and they ensured that any pivotal decisions were promptly brought to my attention.

What was your primary form of communication with FIRST FACTORY?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The degree of engagement and communication exhibited by their team was remarkable. I sensed a genuine commitment to making my problem their own, and their dedication to finding a solution was palpable. They comprehended the significance of the situation and methodically navigated each step to address the issue.

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

It's not often that I express such satisfaction when collaborating with a third-party agency, but I can confidently say that my experience working with First Factory left me entirely delighted with both the process and the end result.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive for a property management company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

We hired them to develop a new platform for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

FIRST FACTORY built a public-facing platform that brings everyone involved in the property buying process together; this includes real estate agents, inspectors, and other service providers. The platform was built from scratch using Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and React. FIRST FACTORY also designed the UX/UI with Figma and Adobe XD.

The team from FIRST FACTORY provided us with technical guidance and helped build our virtual infrastructure within AWS. They also performed a security review and helped address everything that came up within that review. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with about 10 people, primarily with a team lead, two developers, and a UX/UI designer. 

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

I believe we found them through a referral, but I started working with the company after they had already been hired. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between October 2020–November 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

While the platform itself hasn’t been as successful as we hoped, we don’t attribute that to the work that FIRST FACTORY performed. The property business has been challenging in the last year, but we’ve had several thousand people sign up for the site. The application is incredibly well-designed and has some of the highest-quality work we’ve seen. 

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

The team was punctual and worked quickly, and we had no issues with the budget. We were also in roughly the same time zone, so that was helpful in communicating with them. We used Jira as a project management tool and Slack and Google Meet for communication. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team was made up of really good people, and although we did have some turnover during our engagement, overall, we had great people who did high-quality work. We were really impressed with their grasp and understanding of the problems we brought to them. FIRST FACTORY was flexible and accommodating to ensure we had the right individuals working on the project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

If I had to identify an area for improvement, it would be having more visibility into what everyone on the team was doing. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take an interest in interviewing the people working on the project. If you don’t think those consultants fit, then say something about it. Although you are hiring a company, remember that you will be working with individuals, and they need to be a fit for your needs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a department VP for an outsourcing company in the financial services sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

We engaged with FIRST FACTORY to augment the staff in our software development group.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

FIRST FACTORY has provided us with a few resources over the years to work remotely on our software development projects. Their resources integrate into our scrum and development teams and work alongside us as if they were our employees.

Initially, FIRST FACTORY’s resources had to learn about our applications and how we did things internally, so the ramp-up process took about six weeks. Since then, they’ve been contributing to our development efforts.

What is the team composition?

Currently, we work with three resources from FIRST FACTORY. Still, they’ve had some turnover throughout the engagement, so we’ve worked with around six different developers from their team in total.

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

We found them by doing research and a series of interviews with various companies in their space — technology firms offering near-shore staff augmentation services. Throughout the process, we talked to six different companies that we either found or got referred to. After that process, we felt the most comfortable with FIRST FACTORY, their proposal, and the teammates we spoke to during the interview, so we decided to move forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000–$225,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with FIRST FACTORY since around March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t track any hard metrics to demonstrate FIRST FACTORY’s success. As for performance, the resources have been able to fill the role of mid-level developers for a greatly reduced price. Moreover, we’ve been able to seamlessly integrate their resources into our teams as other onshore resources have left without experiencing a decline in productivity.

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

Given that we work with FIRST FACTORY in a staff augmentation model, budgets aren’t really in play. We basically define the number of hours they work. Additionally, their resources are part of our existing project management infrastructure, so we don’t require them to perform project management activities.

Still, FIRST FACTORY’s responsiveness to our requests and issues is excellent. They’ve been very timely and easy to get a hold of, and they’ve been easy to work with to get any issues resolved. However, we haven’t had many issues.

Initially, the onboarding process was easier than anticipated. The initial resources from FIRST FACTORY were very technically proficient and had great technical bases. Although we thought that language would be a barrier, we weren’t right; they did a great job in that regard.

Moreover, FIRST FACTORY’s engineers were able to align their schedules with our own corporate schedule to ensure that we worked simultaneously and that they could attend our different meetings. As for collaboration tools, we use Microsoft (MS) Teams to communicate, as well as Azure DevOps for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

FIRST FACTORY’s resources are very technically skilled. Additionally, they provide strong customer service and are very adaptable to our processes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of something FIRST FACTORY could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear about your requirements, and don’t be afraid to let FIRST FACTORY know how you want things to go. They’re very good at adapting and meeting your expectations.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of technology at Bellator MMA, a mixed martial arts (MMA) global promotions company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

We wanted to integrate our website with an Android and iOS app so that they could work together to promote our product in the best way possible and keep our customers engaged.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

FIRST FACTORY helped us develop our website and a mobile app for Android and iOS using AWS as the main technology. They streamlined our platform around YouTube so that we could share videos and keep our customers engaged. To achieve this, they built a responsive cloud-based architecture using AWS in the backend. The website side of our platform has a responsive design and provides information about our fighters.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 6–10 teammates from FIRST FACTORY from conception to delivery. Our main points of contact were the lead technologist and the project manager. I also communicated with their CEO.

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

I learned about FIRST FACTORY and their nearshore development methodologies, so I reached out to their CEO. I was intrigued by their methodologies and thought that they would work well with our team. Eventually, hiring them was a great decision.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2019–June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since launching our platform, our audience has been growing exponentially.

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

FIRST FACTORY’s communication was great, and they delivered on time, on target, and within budget. Overall, they did a great job through every phase of the project. At the tail end of the engagement, we went through the typical testing phase, and we didn’t see many bugs or issues. Still, they fixed most of those before delivering the platform.

Throughout the project, FIRST FACTORY shared their workflows, boards, and other assets they created. We communicated via email, phone, Google Meet, and Zoom, and they were very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

FIRST FACTORY’s agility and development speed were their most impressive assets. Whenever we requested something, their turnaround time was commendable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was nothing FIRST FACTORY could have improved on. We had a good experience from beginning to end, so we would definitely go with them again for other similar projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do your research, compare them to people in the market, and get feedback from their other customers to see what they can do for you. Our initial discovery process was eye-opening, and what they were able to do was outstanding.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Crummy Cake, an automated system for preparing, storing, and sharing IRS-required Crummy letters.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

I needed help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

FIRST FACTORY is building our entire internal system. I've provided them with the specs and documentation, and they're developing the product accordingly using React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, and AWS as their main tools. In addition, they're building the frontend's design — they're choosing the architecture, and we're giving them the mockups of the screens.

What is the team composition?

We work with around six members of their team, including a frontend designer, four developers, and a manager who oversees everything.

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

A friend who worked with them on other projects referred FIRST FACTORY to me, so choosing them was an easy decision.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we've spent around $150,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2020, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

FIRST FACTORY is very competent and easy to work with compared to my previous experiences with developers. FIRST FACTORY's team is very pleasant, hardworking, and diligent — I like how they run the business, and I'm a very big fan of them.

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

FIRST FACTORY's project management is good. They have constant meetings with us, deliver on time, and quickly fix any bugs that arise. Regarding tools, we communicate via Google Meet and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

FIRST FACTORY's team is very knowledgeable and nice.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The better description you can give them of what you're trying to achieve and what the business is, the better the product they can deliver.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of OneWorld Inc. We develop customer engagement solutions for the pharmaceutical industry, sometimes using AI.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

We used to have our own in-house development team and then we decided to outsource the work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

FIRST FACTORY does the majority of our development and production work. The team does custom configurations, which involves going into an admin model and making adjustments and changes. They’ve worked on all of our SaaS and AI solutions. They also help us with information architecture, but most of it comes through an agency.

What is the team composition?

I've worked with Jason (CEO) and Don (COO), and they also have a team of about over 100 developers. 

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

We did some research and a friend of mine recommended Jason. So I met with him because he’s based in New York. I liked the idea that FIRST FACTORY was nearshore and had the expertise in Java, C++ and C#, and AWS, which is what we’re built on. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spend between $500,000–$700,000 per year. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in 2015, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re always on time, and they’re committed. When we first met with them, we were able to get the developers’ contact information. Additionally, FIRST FACTORY is creative and they come in on budget.

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent. We get 300 million records of data per week, and FIRST FACTORY manages that. We have a lead who does a great job of managing the project and bringing in resources when we need them and getting rid of them when we don’t. Their flexibility is great. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their flexibility and project management are the highlights of working with them, especially because you never know what will happen in our industry.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have two working methods: a project-by-project model and a continuous engagement model. I would recommend potential customers to use the continuous engagement model, especially if the business is complex. 

The team has to understand the data sets and everything, so the onboarding process is a lot of work. FIRST FACTORY is also great at keeping the team together. In fact, no one has left our team in five years.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a large retailer for perfume, cologne, and beauty related items.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

Our CEO refers to us as a technology company because we spend a lot of money on software development in-house with the help of FIRST FACTORY for everything that powers the business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with one project in 2014, where we engaged them to create an email marketing engine. The project was successful, and we’ve since been using them as staff augmentation.

What is the team composition?

We work with six people from their team based in Costa Rica. They’re considered an extension of our team and they have varying skillsets.

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

We didn’t have the staff or expertise to complete the email marketing engine. They seemed like a good fit, and we gave them the project as a test. We were extremely happy with the results.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re spending about $500,000 per year for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2014, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been very happy. I’ve had other offshore engagements at my prior company and they were always extremely challenging due to a language barrier, a time difference, or an understanding of the requirements.

This is the first offshore engagement that I’ve been a part of that works extremely well. Our time zones are very compatible and makes things easier than if we were working with someone in California. The town in Costa Rica where they’re located has several colleges and universities there, so they tend to hire highly educated developers with excellent communication skills.

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very tightly integrated with one of my development teams, so we have daily standups and communications to make sure they understand the requirements. It’s very similar to the requirements we give to our own developers. Since everyone is working remotely due to COVID-19, there is no difference at all between how we work with our own employees and the way we work with FIRST FACTORY employees.

They use whichever communication tools suit us, and use our project and time tracking tools so we can see how much time is being spent on each initiative. The most senior person on the team actually acts as an on-site lead for us. She assists the other five developers and helps with any challenges that they may have. If she can’t resolve the issue, it gets escalated to the developer that works with us directly. We use Gemini for project management, where they can log their time and their projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

My favorite part is that I don’t have to think about it. I’ve had very challenging experiences with outsourcers in the past and there was a lot of overhead and it was much less productive. None of that happens with FIRST FACTORY. It’s just not necessary. They work extremely well with our team and get the information they need. It literally works as well if we had employees working for us directly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We tend to add more junior people to the team since they’re just out of college. They’ll work with us for a couple of years and then want a bigger challenge. A couple of times over the years we lost people who we really enjoyed working with. We face the same challenge in New York sometimes, but that’s the only negative thing I can say.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’m a fan of them being an extension of our workforce. They’ve got developers with good knowledge and communication skills, so I would advise other companies to follow that model, too. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of a telemedicine provider based in the US. We are a B2B service, but our end users are the employees of our enterprise clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

FIRST FACTORY developed our member-facing mobile application

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and built the app from the ground up for both iOS and Android. They used React and React Native to develop the platforms and all of the features that we had requested from them. From there, we rolled into a monthly maintenance contract that they are continuing to uphold.

What was the team composition?

We worked with 2–3 members of their team throughout the project.

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

They emailed me to ask if we needed help, and the timing just worked out extremely well. Their CEO was very responsive, is based in New York, and understood our business needs very quickly, so we decided to move forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent a total of around $75,000–$90,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in June 2019 and is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to successfully launch or mobile app because of the work that they provided, which was a huge cost savings driver for our company. On top of that, they significantly boosted the user experience of our customers so that we became a much more intuitive and enjoyable platform to use.

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team members were all extremely professional and responsive. They made the collaboration easy for us to manage because of how well they knew the technology and were able to demonstrate that they could be trusted to handle the development themselves.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their grasp of the technologies involved in the functions that we wanted to implement was exactly what we needed. They made it possible for us to stand our development team near shore in a way that we would never have been able to do either on- or offshore.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they really did an incredible job with everything we gave them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of EnergyFunders, a FinTech company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FIRST FACTORY?

We have a platform for oil and gas investing for direct access to energy projects for investors. We had a working platform with a good set of features, but we wanted to expand that. We were looking for a development team that could help us continue to work on it. We were deciding between hiring resources ourselves or hiring a company like First Factory so we could get started quickly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They allowed us access to developers with different skillsets and experience levels, including the technologies our platform was built on. In a little less than one year, we rolled our many new features and functionalities including a UX/UI refresh.

What is the team composition?

Initially, we started with a mid-tier developer and a senior developer. The mid-tier resource worked full-time with us and the senior developer began as a sort of project manager as well as a senior developer. He was part-time for the first 2–3 months and then dropped up. We kept working with the mid-tier developer for just under a year.

How did you come to work with FIRST FACTORY?

Initially, one of their business managers sent me an email describing the services they provided. Generally, I put those in my junk folder but theirs piqued my interest. I looked at their website, and it was right at the time we were looking for developers. Our platform is built on Node.js and React, and we engaged them because they had a lot of developers with experience in those technologies.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2018 until May 2019. The project ended because of our finances and budget. We’re investor-funded and were in a tight place with capital. As soon as we get more funds here shortly, we’re going to pick services back up with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measured success based on the speed and quality of the developers' work, and they were great developers. They were quick and wrote good-quality code. When it came to projects, we always had a roadmap that laid out new features and improvements. Every two weeks we had development releases following the agile methodology. Our CEO and a lot of our executive team were pleased with the speed with which we were rolling out new features and functionality. FIRST FACTORY made sure everything was tested and working well before they released it.

How did FIRST FACTORY perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m going to break this into two parts. First, there was management from the developers in that they kept up with deadlines and were willing to put in extra time if they had to. They made sure planned releases were prioritized and shifting what they were working on to reflect timeline realities. As a small company, we sometimes had to make small changes frequently based on issues that arise. FIRST FACTORY was great at switching their focus when those things happened.

The second part is FIRST FACTORY’s management. I had direct contact and access to their COO and CEO. Every week initially, and every two weeks after that, we had a designated meeting time to go over how the project was going and if I had any issues or complaints or praises to give. They would take that information and pass it on and address it however necessary. They were spectacular at getting what I expected out of the development team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication was top-notch. They were fantastic to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

To be honest, I can’t think of anything I’d ask them to change. Their communication and technical skills are great, and those are the main things. If anything, they’re a little more expensive than I would hope, but I couldn’t tell you if that was a fault in any way.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have everything scoped and designed and pre-determined. FIRST FACTORY’s developers are great, and they excel at following set guidelines. They have some capacity to come up with things as well, but you want to make sure they’re building what you’re anticipating they’ll build.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of technology for a financial real estate firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with First Factory?

We were looking for an offshore vendor to do some web development work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a portal for us, using React on the frontend. The backend was done in Spring, Java, and Sling with a MySQL database. The portal has login capabilities; different users can see different things such as the movement of loans from one place to another, such as underwriting, funding, etc.

What is the team composition?

The team size varies depending on the need at the time. I interact with Jason (CEO) and Don (COO), who is my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with First Factory?

Our CPO found them through LinkedIn.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $500,000 - $1,000,000. We pay $10,000 - $50,000 per month, depending on the work required.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in April 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They know how to build an appealing aesthetic. Their UI is excellent; it gives a 2020 look and feel to the portal. They’ve dealt with problems and issues in a timely manner, and have high-quality resources. Overall, I’m satisfied with their work.

How did First Factory perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re a small company, but they do a good job. Don really stays on top of developers and is accessible and responsive when I reach out to him. We use Jira for things like prioritization, task lists, code review, and listing who is working. We communicate via Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really shine on the UI work; it sets them apart. In my experience, I haven’t found many people that have the level of expertise they do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their accountability could be a little better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When working with offshore companies, there are things to be aware of; time difference, communication challenges, and the cultural difference. In the U.S., there is a tendency to be rough on people when they don’t perform the way you desire. A lot of the offshore cultures are more polite, and you need to be sensitive to that when dealing with them.