Fish Percolator

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner at BML Creative – a strategic branding agency based in Leeds. We help manufacturers, engineers and industrial businesses to grow, by creating meaningful brands that give a lasting competitive advantage.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Fish Percolator?

We hired Fish Percolator to build a new software application for us called Commscanner. Commscanner software is analytics and measurement software designed to help reduce waste and inefficiency in public sector communications by enabling organisations to prove value for money in the communications work they carry out.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to build a fully functioning version of the application as quickly as possible while adhering to best development practice. We also had to do this within a very limited budget. Our goal was to produce a version of the software that we could start to trial with our clients.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We met with four different suppliers and had detailed discussions about the project. After the meetings, each supplier submitted a proposal explaining how they would tackle the project and how much it would cost. Fish Percolator were on our wavelength from the start and provided a strong proposal at a reasonable cost.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project was a full software design and build. We provided a UI design that was sent to Fish Percolator for review. From that, we agreed on a phased approach to the project, starting with the most critical features. we then reviewed that on completion and after trials were carried out, agreed to work for the subsequent phases. Fish Percolator was superb throughout the process. They provided excellent advice and expert insight throughout the process, making the very complex accessible through clear explanations. Their working methodology was second to none and the final output, superb.

What was the team composition?

Fish Percolator consists of one individual, the excellent Quinn Daley.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The Commscanner Software is still in early trials, but it has been very well received by many parties. We are hoping to roll it out into full production and continue development of the project with Fish Percolator over the coming months and years.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

All communications was carried out through phone, email and Slack. Fish Percolators response rate and clarity of communication was superb.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The level of response, friendliness and depth of knowledge Fish Percolator have is truly exceptional.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Great people are always in high demand, but Fish Percolator are unquestionably worth waiting for.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am an advanced health improvement specialist for the Leeds City Council, which is a part of the UK government. We deal with health promotion, protection, and wider determinants of health ranging from poverty, postcode, and parentage to employment and education in specific neighborhoods.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fish Percolator?

One of the problems we have in the UK is that there are millions of people who are lonely and isolated living alone in their homes. There’s lots of academic, peer-reviewed evidence to tell you what to do when you find them, but there’s very little written about how you go about finding them if they’re isolated in their houses.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fish helped us develop an app to try to present a solution to this problem. The theory behind it is that there’s usually a link between neglect in the built environments of vulnerable people’s households and the citizens that live there.

We wanted to give community development workers the capability to just tap on our app, and by doing so confidentially create a heat map of ideal places for us to knock doors and distribute leaflets to see if anyone is in need of help or support.

They developed a mobile application that would deliver this capability on people’s smartphones, as well as a website that we can access to have that information on a computer as well. They also loaded the about section of the app with animated videos that tell you what it’s for and how to use it. We have the capability to keep all of those resources up to date on our own.

What is the team composition?

Quinn (Managing Director) was the main software architect, but they also brought in animators and designers to the project who all supported the project for really good rates because of the civic nature of the project that we were working on.

How did you come to work with Fish Percolator?

Originally, we found out about them through an urban sustainable development lab. We had an original developer who was an academic, and then they left so we brought their Quinn’s on to help us build out the rest of the architecture and features.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around £10,000 (approximately $12,400 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe the project started around March 2015 and our maintenance and upgrades for the app are still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have been incredibly satisfied with the UI/UX of the application. It is easy to use and looks great, so it met with universal appeal among our workers, which was an important achievement for us. Because of the broad diversity of our audience of users, being able to cater to them in terms of usability was an essential component of the project and something they absolutely nailed.

I’m reliably told that most health apps last about six months, and this has been going since 2015 and has been rolled out across cities in the UK. We’ve also been able to secure more funding as a result of the app’s success, which has helped us to add even more features as we go.

How did Fish Percolator perform from a project management standpoint?

For the most part, we communicated through face-to-face meetings, email, and text. We would use Skype occasionally when they were in America, but no matter what we were using they were always incredibly communicative.

Quinn was also very patient and gentle with us because we don’t have the level of expertise that they do but they always made it easy for us to learn how to use it and keep it up to date. They were able to make sure that we understood everything that we needed to.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Working with Quinn and Fish Percolator was fantastic, like a breath of fresh air for our organization. They worked quickly, but beyond that, the technology their team designed was easy to use across generations. Since not everyone is technically literate, it was important that the app be usable while also able to provide the wide range of services that people might need in those kinds of situations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think so. We work within a big bureaucracy for good reason, but because of that, things do take an inordinate amount of time, and Fish Percolator was able to cut through all of that and deliver this solution perfectly and quickly as well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take a moment to explain your real goals for the product or application, and what you want it to achieve rather than how you want it to look. They are able to look holistically and then drill down to the details, so starting with that big picture is going to help you arrive at a kore optimal final result in the end.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Noiiz develop sound libraries and software applications for music producers and distribute these via their subscription based web platform. I'm the founder/director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Fish Percolator?

We hired Fish Percolator to build our web application. Initially a quick prototype MVP, it has since expanded into a full stack platform that we continue to develop to this day.

What were your goals for this project?

Initially we wanted to test the concept of providing unlimited royalty free samples for a subscription. Since then, we've been expanding on this concept.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We spoke to many developers for the position and Fish Percolator clearly stood head and shoulders above those we spoke with.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They built our back end infrastructure in Ruby on Rails, which serves subscribers audio samples and enables them to audition them, download and interact with them. Since then, they have gone on to build a full API that we use to develop additional applications with, including a new frontend developed in Vue.

What was the team composition?

Quinn from Fish Percolator initially built the entire full stack prototype, along with input from product management, design and in some cases another junior developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Fish Percolators vast knowledge and industry experience clearly shone through from the outset and not only did they help us build a superb application, they also helped us improve our approach to product development in general, which is hard to put a price on.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Fish Percolators project management process revolves heavily around testing, which gives a clear source of truth for us as the client and Fish Percolator. This ensured we didn't make wild assumptions and were able to adjust scope continuously to ensure we delivered working software early enough to get critical feedback from our customers.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their entire approach to software development is extremely accomplished and as a team we've learned a lot from them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

As with all large scale projects, there have been many learning processes along the way, but with Fish Percolator on board these have been rapid and resulted in positive outcomes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Improve Your Accent. I help non-native English speakers improve their communication skills. I help people sound more British so people understand them more easily in their work and social lives.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fish Percolator?

They created an online learning platform from scratch to help with this.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I planned out exactly what I wanted. Then we had a couple of meetings, and we worked in phases from December 2018. Now, the project is in a usable stage and is live. The user logs into the platform and chooses their native language. Then, they’re guided through various lessons using references to their native language that tell them what they need to study. There are functions to speed up and slow down audio, as well as play different types of videos – they created all that stuff.

They gave advice on the design. I employed a separate illustrator to design the platform. The platform itself is a Nuxt application that uses Ruby on Rails.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Quinn (Managing Director, Fish Percolator) only.

How did you come to work with Fish Percolator?

Both Quinn and I were in the finals for UK Freelancer of the Year. We started a hobby-type project for free after this.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent £24,500 ($30,400 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2018 until March 2020. The project is live, but there’s still a fair bit of stuff I’d like to do with Quinn to improve it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The final project is exactly what I envisioned in the beginning, and I’ve been getting pretty good feedback from users about the UX.

How did Fish Percolator perform from a project management standpoint?

They always responded to emails very quickly. Quinn is very detailed and easy to work with. I would highly recommend them. We had Google Hangout meetings every couple of months, but otherwise, we exchanged emails almost every week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Quinn went above and beyond with a lot of the stuff that we did. They’re perfect to work with. They respond to emails quickly and have great attention to detail. Throughout the process, they pointed out things I hadn’t thought about from a technological perspective that were really helpful. They displayed clear passion for the project and gave me a demo after each phase detailing what changed and how it worked.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have had fewer clients so they could have prioritized me more! That’s a marker of success, though.