Flux Technologies Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of a consulting company offering web, marketing and custom development services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flux Technologies Inc., and what were your goals?

One of our customers required the development of a custom application to facilitate the scheduling of cases for their customers. The company is a dental laboratory that had specific needs, not available through currently available software on the market.

We wanted to ensure a seamless experience for the dentists to be able to submit their cases to the lab quickly, while providing the required information.

SOLUTION

How did you select Flux Technologies Inc., and what were the deciding factors?

We had previously worked with this vendor and had a good experience. It was therefore an easy choice as they had the expertise to deliver our product.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

A mobile ready design of the application and the development of custom features that included a dashboard where cases are clearly identifiable for the lab administrator and a user friendly experience for the dentists to see the lab’s availabilities and schedule their cases based on a pre-defined logic.

Custom notifications to inform both lab and dentist on case updates were also developed. The cases at the lab follow a specific lifecycle which needed to be implemented.

How many people from the Flux Technologies Inc. team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 2 developers (front and back end) as well as a QA and a project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We were able to launch the project on time. Although requirements changed as the project progressed, we were still able to stay on time and on budget.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Communications were through slack and email with regular cadence calls to discuss the project’s status and progress. Flux’s team was readily available to address issues as they came about.

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

The team is available and efficiently addresses issues, ensuring no downtime and friction for the application users.

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

The quality of both the work and the team were exceptional. For future iterations we have asked for more thorough documentation to make sure the client is set for success and has all the information readily available to understand the logic and architecture of the application.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm CEO of New Startup that deals with employment testing

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flux Technologies Inc., and what were your goals?

we hired them to build a custom platform for our Software as a service business

SOLUTION

How did you select Flux Technologies Inc. and what were the deciding factors?

We decided through a mix of quality in the proposal, pricing and previous feedback from other customers.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The work is a platform that does employment testing for companies looking to make better hiring decisions. We have done many iterations with this company to prepare us for the final release of our product.

How many people from the Flux Technologies Inc. team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 4 members in the team, the company owners and two project managers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

It's not released yet. General feedback is positive.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We worked with 2 different project managers and had better results with the 2nd project manager called Lusine.

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

They generally seem to be trustworthy and someone you can count on to deliver results for an adequate price.

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

Project manager processes were different. We had issues with the first, but did well with the second, maybe standardize processes more.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is in the manufacturing and sales of hardwood lumber, for use in residential and commercial construction finish-out. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flux Technologies Inc.?

We hired Flux Technologies to build a custom website and mouldings database from scratch. I started with nothing more than a vision in my head, and some visual design in Photoshop, and went from there.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a website that would be able to include not only general company information, but also a large and easily customized database of our trim and mouldings, as well as give us the ability to add, remove, change, and update the catalog in a user-friendly way in perpetuity without the continued need for development professionals, as we are continually adding new profiles to our database.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I interviewed several web development companies before deciding to use Flux Technologies Inc. for our development, both in the domestic market and abroad (we are based in Texas, USA). I decided to go with Flux Technologies Inc., because of a combination of competitive pricing, availability of resources to work on our job as needed, and the project manager, Sona, who was assigned to us. It was not only important for his project to come in under-budget, but also that we had someone to work with who was able to take ideas and vision, and communicate that directly to the development pros that would be building the website on the back-end.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

This project was for a ground-up buildout of a company website. The most complex part of the project was creating a user-friendly database to house all of our thousands of custom profiles we manufacture, as well as a back end functionality for us to easily add, remove, edit, and change profiles on our own, without the continued assistance from a developer day-to-day.

What was the team composition?

My direct contact, Sona, had the responsibility of communicating with me to determine my vision. Unfortunately, I personally have almost no technological knowledge or terminology to assist her, so she was tasked with understanding the vision and ideas I was trying to convey, and then translating that to her development team to create what I was wanting to end up with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This project was necessary for over a decade. Unfortunately, in our industry, it is difficult to find people who clearly understand web development and as such, it is nearly impossible to pull off a successful project. The best benefit for us has been the ability of our sales staff to work with our customers to efficiently and effectively choose and order the proper moulding products required. Before Flux Technologies Inc. built out this website, customers would have to physically drive to our location. Now a lot of work can be done remotely, which has made us a better vendor to our customers.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our project manager, Sona, and myself would communicate in the mornings (my time), which was near the end of her work day. That gave us adequate time to have daily (as needed) conversations to make sure the progress was as we intended it to be and we were heading towards the same goal. English is not the primary language for Sona, but she has a fine command of it and we were able to work effectively together. We typically used Skype to do our communication via chat and video call.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

My favorite attributes of Flux Technologies Inc. is that they seemed to be able to problem solve when needed, in order to achieve my desired goals and end-result. I also like the skill and availability of my project manager. The importance of that cannot be overstated. Without the go-between taking my vision and communicating it to the development team, there would be no chance of a successful project.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The only area that I believe could be improved upon, would be the increased availability of development resources for continuing minor needs and tweaks down the road. All issues eventually get resolved, but sometimes it requires several weeks before a developer can be freed up to do small tasks. I completely understand this though, so I am not bothered by it, and believe this would be a similar constraint with nearly any development vendor I would have worked with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We own a portfolio of SaaS businesses in various niches, ranging from database backups to marketing software. I am the owner/CEO of these small businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flux Technologies Inc.?

We hired Flux to redesign, grow, and improve the existing products. We often had tough engineering problems that we needed to overcome.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals for the project were to breakthrough engineering problems, and to redesign a new interface for the userbase.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found this vender when their CEO reached out to me on a job platform. He was eager and wrote a personalized reply - along with the CTO we had a call and we moved forward.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our project involved myself providing designs of the new interface, as they planned out the project and to rewrite it. This project was also quite technical, and they would often give feedback on where to improve.

What was the team composition?

The team was 3 people, 2 developers and 1 PM. I was in contact with the PM.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Some of the engineering problems they solved allowed me to decrease hosting costs by 80%, which was phenomenal.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was communicated via Trello, and weekly meetings through Skype. Breakdowns of work done each week is included in the email.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

For me, it was definitely the technical side, in 3 things: vision, implementation, QA. They are very smart and have very good ideas for solving engineering problems. Everything is also implemented quite nicely which ties in with the QA. From a technical point of view, everything is great.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The project management was arranged in their own way. This is the only thing I think they can improve on. A lot of the project management is done behind the scenes, so it can be a blackbox in terms of their communication with developers, etc. I have also had some issues with their project estimations and timelines, that things would go over the planned time. However, they have always made an effort to resolve things and are very understanding. This is one area that if solved, would make this vender a no-brainer.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a consumer information platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Flux Technologies Inc.?

I engaged Flux Technologies Inc. for two large web development projects. The most recent project involved creating a digital database for vehicle manuals.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Flux Technologies Inc. converted hundreds of thousands of manuals from TBS files into HTML so that Google can index them. The team then built a custom CMS and a frontend with Elasticsearch and filters to make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for. This project was especially difficult because the team had to work with a tricky server that is based remotely.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with Gor (CEO and Co-Founder, Flux Technologies Inc.), Sona (Production Manager, Flux Technologies Inc.), and a lead tech. For day-to-day issues, Sona is my project manager and main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Flux Technologies Inc.?

Flux Technologies Inc. applied to the job through Upwork. They interested me because they responded to my job request with pushback about the logic and requirements I’d put in the listing. They suggested a different workflow that would better accommodate their needs and the project. That willingness to speak up is one of the reasons that I still work with them today. We started the engagement with a small project and then went from there.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $20,000 on this project. I expected to spend only $15,000, but we kept asking for additional features, so it’s not Flux Technologies Inc.’s fault.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in February 2018 and is ongoing, despite some stops and starts.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site performance is excellent and now sees 4,000 users and 20,000 impressions per day. Flux Technologies Inc. has done a great job wrangling with our server admin and hosting set-up, which were difficult bottlenecks for them to overcome. The team has done everything I’ve asked them to do, and I can’t point to one area where I can say I’m disappointed.

How did Flux Technologies Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

Sona schedules a call once a week and sends an end-of-week email that summarizes what the team has completed. That email arrives the same day every week to the hour. I always feel like I know everything that’s happening. I get notified whenever the team completes something, is going to work on something next, or ran into a problem or a delay. That communication is critical to me—I feel like I can pass on a project to Flux Technologies Inc. with total trust and peace of mind.

Flux Technologies Inc. offered to have me use their internal Jira system. However, I prefer to send requests over Google Docs, Google Sheets, or a quick phone call. They then pass the task onto their developers. I only ever have to talk to Sona.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Flux Technologies Inc.’s project management impresses me the most. I’m not able to judge their development and technical skills, but their project management is excellent. Whenever the team sets a deadline, they meet it. If they know they’re going to go over the date we agreed on, they’ll let me know right away. Getting those pieces of information fed back to me consistently. I appreciate this level of transparency.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of any reason I wouldn’t use them.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have a strong relationship with your project manager.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO of EditStock.com a company that sells stock film footage for students to re-edit. Our customers include many of the world's most prestigious film schools and universities. EditStock footage is not like a single clip from a film, but rather full sets of footage from real film festival quality projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Flux Technologies Inc.?

I have hired flux several times over the years -- each time to build a bigger and bigger project. This culminated in our partnering to form a new company, EditMentor.com.

First the small stuff: Flux designed a couple applications that plug into Shopify and allow my users to view the film footage they want to buy before they buy them. Flux added an automatic component to this so that pages are created automatically when new products are added to the shop.

Now to the big stuff. I engaged Flux to build an editing training application called EditMentor, my new company. My trust for Flux is so high that they have become equity partners in the venture.

What were your goals for this project?

To create an application for millions of students to learn how to edit film. Flux is handling not only the dev, but the UI, web design, quality control, and beta tester support reporting. They are invaluable to this effort.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I have known Flux for five years now, each year they were assigned a project or two of various sizes for EditStock. They began building EditMentor through this viewing application in Shopify.

I found Flux through typical out sourcing websites, but now refer to them as friends and partners. Their thought adds so much value to my companies that I couldn't imagine not using them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

This would take hours to answer, and more technical knowledge than I can muster. We have a staff of developers building browser based editing software from scratch using React, Node.JS, and Mongo DB.

Flux is literally building a video editing tool like Adobe Premiere that students can use in a browser, with a timeline that can be set by teachers to answer questions, and scores that can be recorded and integrated with learning management systems (LMS) like Canvas and Moodle.

The tool can detect when a student edits a timeline correctly or incorrectly and records the answers for the teacher. Now students can be assigned editing homework. This is obviously a large engagement. And this description doesn't cover 1/10 of the details.

What was the team composition?

The size of the Flux team is as followed: Two full-time senior developers, two part-time junior developers, one part-time UI designer (soon to be full-time), one quality control person, and a co-ordinator. Occasional other moving parts come and go.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The impact?! I literally wouldn't have a business called EditMentor without them.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It is excellent. I have a day to day co-ordinator who I speak to. There is no problem with language. She wrangles notes and comments from me and sends them to the developers, who in tern ask her more questions to have me answer.

I speak to development once a week over Skype. I speak to the owner as often as business needs demand. They do use Jira, and do hit deadlines as often as is technically possible. We haven't missed one yet.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The owners are accessible, interested, and care about the projects. They began work on EditMentor before we even finalized all the terms, such was their ambition to build the application.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are none.