GeekyAnts

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a cryptocurrency payment app. We primarily deal with Bitcoin cash cryptocurrency and enable payments to merchants.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GeekyAnts?

The app was only for Android, and we needed to extend the support to iOS and web. We were having certain issues with getting our app on the App Store and trying to get cross-platform support for the web.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

GeekyAnts provided cross-platform support. They didn’t code, but they enabled the functionalities to work on iOS and web.

What is the team composition?

We worked with five people, but two were there briefly.

How did you come to work with GeekyAnts?

We were looking for Flutter developers. When I did a quick Google search, they were one of the ones that showed up, and they were the most cost-effective option.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April–May 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered what they agreed to, but the work speed was a little slow. Initially, I expected both the iOS and web development to be completed within four weeks. It took 5-6 weeks, but that was partly due to Apple. Other than that, they were great.

How did GeekyAnts perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication was good. All the details were presented and the invoices were sent to me on time. The communication between the developers and me was set up in a proper manner. We used Slack and had meetings 2–3 times a week through Google Meets to discuss the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There aren’t a lot of Flutter or Dart developers available in the market. It was impressive that they catered to the smallest niche right now. They had enough experienced developers to build a Flutter app on multiple platforms.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could get the work done a bit quicker.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set out proper deadlines.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Jupiter is India's first & only co-created banking experience dedicated to Millenials. We're building Jupiter hand-in-hand with our users, one thoughtful feature, honest feedback, and genius idea at a time. I lead the frontend efforts at Jupiter.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GeekyAnts, and what were your goals?

We were short of frontend developers to implement the features we wanted to. We reached out to GeekyAnts for additional React Native developers who would work with in house developers.

The goal was to get help in building multiple features in our app within stipulated time.

SOLUTION

How did you select GeekyAnts and what were the deciding factors?

We were looking for a company which had a lot of experience in building cross platform apps, preferably located in India. One of our developers had worked in GeekyAnts earlier, and another developer had attended multiple GeekyAnts events and had been familiar with their offerings.

Their open source contributions were also a decision factor.

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

We use React Native to build our cross platform banking application. GeekyAnts developers helped in multiple parts of the application, including rewards, app settings, and pods sections.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We started with one senior developer and two junior developers worked with us. After a few months we reduced the count to only one junior developer due to reduced workload. We are now getting one more junior dev for another project as well.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

GeekyAnts helped deliver multiple app features in time. We are launching soon, and it would be difficult without the helping hands from GeekyAnts.

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

We directly integrated GeekyAnts developers into our teams where they had to work with our product, design, and backend teams. Sprint planning happens on JIRA, and communication happened mostly via email & Slack.

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

Their deep knowledge of cross-platform application development using React Native and Flutter is impressive.

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

The cost is slightly on the higher side compared to competition.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of a small company that focuses on SAT and ACT test prep camps around the world for students aiming to attend college in the United States. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GeekyAnts?

Because of the pandemic, we needed to find a new way to facilitate our classes. We wanted to develop a remote learning app with them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The intent was to use their services for both the design and development of the mobile app. However, we ended up using their services for UX design only. We didn’t have teammates with design backgrounds, so they took the lead in fleshing out our core idea to create a full scope of UX designs for the final product. 

What is the team composition?

We were working with about four people, including two designers and two project managers.  

How did you come to work with GeekyAnts?

We found them on Clutch and selected them because they seemed like a reliable, mid-sized company. Our team was confident they had the resources we needed but weren’t too large on a corporate level. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $9,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from August–September 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very happy with the full suite of designs they created for our web and mobile apps. They captured our idea well and expanded on it in useful ways. Our initial idea for the product would’ve been pretty simple, but they gave us recommendations for making a more useful, professional product.  

How did GeekyAnts perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated mostly via Slack, and I found them to be extraordinarily responsive. Our time zones are more than nine hours apart, but they responded to me on my time. That made them extremely easy to work with. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were flexible, easy to work with, and able to bring new ideas to the table.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no criticisms of their work. It may have been helpful to start with a proposed schedule because the stages of the project weren’t super clear in our first weeks.   

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend them to request a schedule upfront and ask about how tasks will impact the timeline and budget. Minor changes ended up compounding and costing us much more than we planned.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

millimetrika offers reliable IT solutions and end-to-end project management to help our clients grow their business, implement new ideas and manage processes more efficiently. As project manager and application architect for the concerned project, I ensure the delivery of solutions in time and with high quality.

Furthermore, I guarantee the long-term maintainability and stability of the application by maintaining high code quality.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GeekyAnts, and what were your goals?

We hired GeekyAnts to support our internal developers to realize custom web developments in React and Laravel based on specific customer requirements. Technically our goal was to have additional resources and expertise available.

Organizationally our goal was to utilize the concept of working in different timezones and ensure continuous development.

SOLUTION

How did you select GeekyAnts and what were the deciding factors?

We searched online for companies that provided the required services. After interviewing several companies, we decided on GeekyAnts due to their responsiveness, competitive prices, and willingness to commit to a long-term collaboration.

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

Services include implementing specific functionalities in the applications that were developed together with GeekyAnts from the ground up. The GeekyAnts team performs specific development tasks, provide their technical input and expertise, perform general testing tasks and deliver the implemented code for review.

Design, application architecture and rollout are handled directly by our company. This might be different from other customers who ask for a complete solution without doing development themselves.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We have one full-time developer assigned during the implementation sprints and one project manager who takes care of overall planning if required. Additionally, we are constantly in contact with Business Support for invoicing and resource planning.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The final product is very well accepted by the users and provides the intended process optimization.

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

We have daily update calls for the ongoing development sprints. Trello is used for defining new tasks and keep track of everything. Slack is used for chat communications. Calls are handled via Skype. All code is managed via Github.

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

The GeekyAnts team is very responsive and delivers in time under given circumstances. Their punctuality in attending the daily standup meetings is outstanding and exceeded all our expectations in communicating across the globe, in different timezones and outsourcing development work.

We appreciate that they always adjust their availability according to other time zones for the calls.

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

When we first started the project, we needed some time to get used to each other's working style and understand where each other's strengths lie. In the beginning, we outsourced everything to GeekyAnts but then learned that it's better for our specific needs to keep some reviewers and planning work on our side.

Due to personnel changes on their side, we also had to adjust some things and train new developers on the same application again. However, they always ensured that the process went as smoothly as possible.

As we do code review and rollouts on our side, we've learned that it is crucial to be clear on development style expectations since the beginning of the project.

There has been a noticeable improvement in the quality of code over time, which in our opinion also shows how GeekyAnts improved their internal training and selection of resources over the years.

We feel that the quality of the delivered React and Laravel code in general is very high. In our opinion, code that affects the application's visual appearance (Bootstrap, CSS, SCSS and Laravel views) could still improve in terms of clean code and reusability.

However, this might also depend on the developers assigned to specific projects or the resources one requests. In general, we feel that the GeekyAnts team is always open to suggestions and reacts very well to any ideas which could improve the cooperation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a cofounder and CEO of an internet startup that is giving people back the control of their data.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GeekyAnts?

Create a completely encrypted peer-to-peer file sharing app using our new internet protocol.

What were your goals for this project?

This was one of the first apps developed on the protocol, the app is intended to show people what is possible with the protocol and the GeekyAnts helped test our SDKs. The app is just now getting into the App and Play stores.

SOLUTION

How did you select GeekyAnts?

Cofounder and CTO, Colin C. happened across their flutter dev and documentation and was impressed. Since our first SDK was Dart and Flutter they seemed like a good fit. Also, usability and design is super important to us and they clearly had those skills. We are working with multiple developers so we decided to do a test project with them. We now plan to engage them in many more projects.

Describe the project in detail.

We had very little for them to start with, a very light-weight spec document. We worked with them daily on the design phase. They quickly honed in on a workable design. In the development phase they worked very closely with our core development team to build on top of our new protocol. We provided a logo, but they did all the designs.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a project manager and design lead in the beginning and then worked with the same project manager and a development lead. Everyone was extremely good at their job and a real pleasure to work with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The app is just now getting into the app and play stores. But it was finished on time and on budget. Which is amazing given what we gave them to start with.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had an extremely effective workflow. The communication was great and they adapted to our preferred communication methods and tools. We are located on the west coast of the US and they are in India, but we were able to meet with them on a daily basis.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was used to having to spec things out in a lot of detail when outsourcing. But they worked like part of our team, creating an excellent design and workflow with realtime feedback. They also went above and beyond to meet our deadlines, the whole time being an absolute pleasure to work with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, we gave them a big challenge - develop a new type of app on a brand new protocol - and they came through with flying colors!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Core Sports Technology, a startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GeekyAnts?

We wanted to develop a game.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

GeekyAnts created an entire game platform that involved integrating Raspberry Pi tablets, Wi-Fi connections, and Bluetooth connections. They created a soccer training game that I’ll be using for my startup.

What is the team composition?

I worked with about nine teammates in total.

How did you come to work with GeekyAnts?

I came across them on the internet. I was looking for something very unique, and it was tough to get that for less than $100 per hour for a developer in the US. GeekyAnts had good value, seemed to have their stuff together, and followed through. They had also worked with Google, which was reassuring.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent under $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in February 2020 and the project lasted 4–5 months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of COVID-19, I haven’t been able to take it to the public. However, it’s a new product so people are excited about it. Once the pandemic hopefully ends, I do think we will have a viable business. 

What I asked of them was a little bit out of scope for a lot of companies, so the fact that they pulled it off, even if it took a little bit longer, was good.

How did GeekyAnts perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re a big company, and they’re getting bigger, so we dealt with a wide variety of people including experts and some teammates for whom this is their first job. They have different experience levels, so sometimes it takes people longer than it should’ve. 

It didn’t cost me financially when it went overtime because of inexperience, so it was okay. It was also a bit of a challenge for them to not be able to work in-person with their teammates due to COVID-19. We had a few trials because of this, but they got everything done at the end of the day. They had some good experts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

GeekyAnts’ salespeople were great, and their follow up was good. We got a call from the VP every couple of weeks to see how everything was going. When we had issues, they always addressed them.

You’re always going to have bumps in projects like this, but they always addressed our issues and made sure that we felt good. Their customer service and interaction were great on all levels, but especially on the higher levels. 

When they messed up, they owned up and fixed it. I was blown away by their ability to take care of the problems that we put in front of them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You have to have a plan as far as how you’re going to get them to understand exactly what you need out of the project. My position was unique because what I was doing was out of the box.

If you can communicate your vision and make sure they understand it, that will put them on a better path from a project management standpoint. That’s where we sometimes got off base. GeekyAnts recognized that and tried to put better tools in place to make sure that everyone was on the same page.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder of an early stage travel tech startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GeekyAnts, and what were your goals?

An extended technical team to support us while we develop our launch product. This included frontend and backend software development.

SOLUTION

How did you select GeekyAnts and what were the deciding factors?

I was impressed with the quality of the work GeekyAnts was doing both in services and in the product domain. They were also easy to communicate with.

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

The developers worked on react frontend and node backend services.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We had a team of developers - react and node working with us as an extended technical team who very much behaved like an internal dev team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have been able to build periodic iterations and ship it to production. Our beta site went live in August.

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

The commitment and hard work of the team are very commendable. We use slack for communication and that has helped us achieve very quick comms and feedback cycles. We also had daily standups, technical calls, weekly all-hands etc.

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

The dedication to the client and doing the right thing for the client. We have been able to support each other very well during this pandemic times which speaks about the health of our partnership. They also have been able to ramp up/down engineers as and when we need.

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

As always with technology, there are always areas of improvement of general technical competence and experience but I understand they are continuously improving on it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Pencil is a creative SaaS platform which allows performance marketers at brands and agencies to generate ads using AI algorithms. I am the CTO & co-founder of Pencil Technologies Pte Ltd

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GeekyAnts, and what were your goals?

GeekyAnts was hired by Pencil to augment the development of a new React SaaS platform. The goals of the team were:

1. Development of new React frontend platform based on UI specification and utilising Pencil Platform APIs
2. Development of a HTML5 based canvas editor to allow users to edit content on the platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select GeekyAnts and what were the deciding factors?

GeekyAnts had very strong recommendations from very reliable sources. Their cost structure was transparent and industry standard. Great on-boarding process also helped developed good rapport with their team early on.

Also, ability to screen developer candidates and arranging peer reviews by developers on both sides helped develop good confidence on either side.

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

Scope of work:

1. Development of new React frontend platform based on UI specification and utilising Pencil Platform APIs
2. Development of a HTML5 based canvas editor to allow users to edit content on the platform.

Technologies used:

1. React frontend with Redux and other standard platform tools
2. HTML5 based canvas editor

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Vendor team configuration: 4 Frotend developers - 3 engineers + 1 senior engineer 1 Tech Lead / Product Manager 1 QA Engineer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

100% growth in revenue after the new product has launched. Clients love the new platform and the new editor experience. Has allowed us to target an entire new segment of customers.

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

Daily standups with client, vendor engineering teams and tech leads to track sprint activities. Tools used: Slack, ClubHouse, Gitlab

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

• Excellent developers with great work ethic
• Fantastic ownership of deliverables
• Great communication and timely response on all queries despite teams being completely different time zones and geographies.
• Excellent participation in sprint and good planning of stories.

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

Better use of tools like Clubhouse to make it easier to track progress.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a business analytic in SINAM LTD. SINAM LTD is a leading IT company in Trans-Caspian region that offers the wide range of IT services and products. Recognized as an e-government solutions provider and system integrator SINAM provides turn-key solutions that embody the full value chain from integrated hardware and software complex to consulting, support and warranty.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire GeekyAnts?

We hire GeekyAnts for development of cross-banking application for individuals and merchants in Flutter for Android and iOS platforms.

What were your goals for this project?

Deployment of mobile applications for individuals and merchants. Applications unify clients bank accounts in to single wallet like application.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We select GeekyAnts online. There were two companies were considered. Deciding factors for selecting vendor were experience, estimated project deployment timeline and successful demo implementation.

Describe the project in detail.

Applications included implementation of payment operations thru QR code and TOTP functionality Storyboards and functional specification documentation were provided. GeekyAnts provided detailed scope of work plan for project implementation. Applications developed in Flutter for ios and android platforms.

What was the team composition?

There were 8 people involved from GeekyAnts: Project manager, Senior developer, 5 developers and QA manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Applications currently being intensively tested. Most of the functionalities were developed without any problems. Debugging process was organized well from GeekyAnts .

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was organized productive. We used suggested by GeekyAnts task management platform Trello. Feedback was processed in timely manner. There were no or minor difficulties due to the language barrier.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

GeekyAnts has a good understanding of project goals and is very flexible. Implemented large amount of change requests on the go.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is always room for improvement, especially for any IT involved company. Quality assurance process was significantly improved during our engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Sprive, a mobile fintech application that we’re looking to launch in the UK to help homeowners pay off their mortgages.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with GeekyAnts?

We needed someone to develop the MVP of our mobile app in React Native and a mobile backend in Node.js.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We partnered with them from a development perspective. We engage a different company to do our branding and another company to design our wireframes. We came to GeekyAnts with a bunch of wireframes. GeekyAnts took those and designed the backend and frontend interactions. They built the app based on those wireframes.

What is the team composition?

There’s an engineering manager/architect, a React Native frontend developer, and a Node.js backend developer.

How did you come to work with GeekyAnts?

We knew we wanted to develop a full JavaScript tech stack of React Native and Node.js. We were looking for an agency to help build this. Our COO is in India, so part of our strategy was looking for someone in that time zone if not in India directly. We also looked at a couple of agencies in Ukraine. 

After weighing the initial proposals, we settled on GeekyAnts because they looked as if they were thought leaders in this space, especially around React Native. They have a bunch of open-source contributions in this space. They seemed to have a very good public profile, and they fit into our budget. It also helped that they were in the same city as our COO.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of the product has been excellent. Since we’re new to the fintech space in the UK, quality is of the utmost importance to us. We were essentially looking to launch alongside some very high-profile apps that are getting a lot of publicity. It was critical that the quality of the build felt really good. We’ve gotten some feedback from early testers saying that it feels like a quality application. I’m very pleased with the quality of their work.

How did GeekyAnts perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, project management has been excellent. We defined a fixed scope of work, and my team put together a bunch of user stories alongside some wireframes that we did in Adobe XD. The engineering manager took those and broke down the requirements into more technical specifications. 

We collaborated using Google Drive, Draw.io, and architecture diagrams. We had daily standups using Google Meet, and we worked in 2–3-week sprints. They’d get us a build each week. We adopted the principle of the demo as frequently as possible.

Communication was excellent, and even the junior developers were forthcoming with their communication. Most of our communication was over Slack. Everyone felt comfortable sending messages in the channel directly to my colleagues or me. I’m very pleased with the way the project was managed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team went the extra mile to make sure that they really understood the problem we’re trying to solve. They got up to speed really quickly with the industry. They understood what we were trying to achieve from the ground up, which is helping users pay off their mortgages and become mortgage-free. They took our vision and showed a lot of enthusiasm. They went very far to ensure that they delivered on time. If there were any bugs, they fixed them. They understood the requirements.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The way that we worked evolved over time. It was really important to us that the communication was always flowing; that was always a high standard from day one. I wouldn’t say there’s much to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try and get as much detail down on paper as you can about your requirement. Have a good idea of what you’re asking them to build. This ultimately helps them to estimate out, and it will help you ensure that what they’re building is to spec. 

They’re trying to become thought leaders in the whole mobile engineering space; they’ve been at the forefront of React Native development, but they’re also starting to look at Flutter, an emerging technology. They’ve got some really enthusiastic and bright individuals at their company. Any company approaching them should go there with an open mind and be willing to hear their ideas. They have lots of experience and projects under their belt. Don’t shy away from having really deep technical discussions; I’ve enjoyed doing that with them.