GLOBALDEV

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an executive at our startup, it is an e-market place that helps streamline the process between vendors and clients in the event place.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Steelkiwi to develop our application, frontend and backend. Our goal was to have a detailed yet user friendly application and dashboard for both our customers and our vendors.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

After countless hours and meetings with various companies, we decided on Steelkiwi for a range of reasons. Significantly, our first point of contact, Igor the business development manager was exceptionally accommodating of even our most ambitious plans and continued to be so throughout. He went as far as making the trip over to Jeddah to meet in person and spent many hours over zoom patiently answering all our questions and always ensuring that the decisions regarding our application were made in our best interest.

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

Our key deliverables were the main application for customers and the vendor dashboard for our vendors, as well as our admin dashboard. The frontend was developed using Flutter and Python. While the backend was developed using Django.

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

We started with a business development manager Igor, as well as Oksana our project manager and a business analyst Igor. We mostly interacted with Oksana and Igor as well as a team of frontend, backend developers (approximately 4 or 5) all who were excellent and quick to adjust to any changes in specifications that we had.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

While we have yet to launch, the quality tests amongst friends and family have gone very well. They understood our desire for a clean interface that flowed very well together and at all stages surpassed our expectations.

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

Oksana was very responsive at all stages of this project, she was very clear and ensured that we were kept abreast of all aspects of development and finances. She was also quick to adjust according to what worked best for us, for example while the bulk of communication between us and the development happened on slack, she quickly adjusted to the fact that our team worked better on WhatsApp and without hesitation continued the conversation there.

There was never a moment where she felt unreachable or difficult to work with. Deliverable timelines were met on a timely basis. In short Oksana is and has always been willing to go above and beyond.

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

While there are many ways in which we could answer this question about Steelkiwi our most standout experience with them happened towards the end of the project, when they should have been planning to wind down and cut down on resources spent on our project. Due to a personal matter that had occurred on our end, our ability to work at full capacity was hindered significantly.

Without hesitation the entire team significantly Igor and Oksana ensured we were taken care of, they safeguarded our interests while simultaneously allowing us the space and time to work out our issues. This situation also occurred in the backdrop of significant instability and turmoil in Ukraine where most of the team operate and reside. Incredibly this situation did not for a moment hinder their synchronicity of their team as a unit and their ability to work seamlessly with us as clients.

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

This is a very pleasant and rare situation in which we can confidently say we have no complaints. In fact we look forward to continuing our relationship with Steelkiwi and recommending them to fellow startups.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a financial services organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Steelkiwi?

We originally needed help with developing our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Steelkiwi has developed our website. Still, their work has expanded since, and they’ve also been responsible for developing the software platform for the customer-facing side of my business from scratch. Initially, we went through a strategy identification process, after which I provided them with some documentation for how I wanted the site to function.

Among its core features, our site presents our branding, presents information about our company, and handles the collection of loan applications for our customers. Additionally, the site contains a customer portal where users can log in and get account information.

This app operates both on Linux and Microsoft. Still, it also has a mobile app component where users can use their iOS and Android mobile devices to access all the functionalities of the desktop version.

Currently, Steelkiwi is developing additional capabilities and features on the web-based platform to deal with a variety of different services. These features include fleet management, automatic notifications on mobile devices, payment processing, and more.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked directly with the entire team from Steelkiwi.

How did you come to work with Steelkiwi?

Our CEO found them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around April 2020, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Steelkiwi provides us with what we need and works the way we need them to work.

How did Steelkiwi perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a periodic project status meeting throughout the week. I also meet regularly with Steelkiwi to introduce new projects and identify priorities for their work moving forward. Then, their team breaks those priorities down into tasks, and we collaborate on the definitions, confirmations of completion, and validations of said tasks. We use Jira and Slack to manage the project and collaborate, as well as Confluence for document management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like how Steelkiwi functions. They take full ownership of the projects, and they handle them from start to finish. Unlike other organizations that only provide resources for the clients to handle internally, Steelkiwi takes ownership of entire projects and executes them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. Over the last two years, we’ve found areas of improvement. However, we’ve discussed those areas with them, and they’ve addressed them effectively. Whenever something arises, they’re very quick to respond.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the technical director of Hocmai, which is a Ed-tech company in Vietnam. Hocmai provides pre-recorded courses as well as live-classes to K12 student in Vietnam

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

When we start our live-classes businesses, we have problem in organizing live-class section between students and teachers. With nearly 2000 live class section per day, we need an Operating System to help operators schedule the class section.

Although Hocmai is an ed-tech company, we do not have enough human resources to invest in this project, so we decided to hire InvestIdea Technology to work for us.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The main factor is InvestIdea Technology already has experiences in ed-tech, with their contribution, our BOS project can finish sooner and better. The second factor is their working attitude, the staffs are very professional and all committed to the deadline and quality

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

The project has 3 phases:

• 1st phase: build a system that help operator schedule live class timetable manually (instead of using Google Spreadsheet), auto create account in 3rd party software (like Zoom, ClassIn, Customer Support...)
• 2nd phase: Control the timesheet and payroll of teacher 3rd phase: Auto scheduling and optimizing teacher resources. Technology stack: JAVA with springboot, Postgres DB, ReactJS

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

about 10 people, depends on each period of software development, including:

•  Business Analyst
• Frontend Developer
• Backend Developer
• QA/QC
• Scrum Master
• Project Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At this time, the 1st phase has been released into production. One of the importance outcome is: the number of complain from customer is reduced by 50% in the first month.

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

The project management was great, especially compared to other vendors we've worked with. They always met deadlines, and we never had unexpected turnovers. We communicated through Telegram, Zalo, Jira, and BitBucket.

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

We work like one team, not like clients and service providers. And InvestIdea staffs always provide feedbacks when they found problems in designing, like they are doing product for their own, not outsource.

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

I can't find anything to mention this time

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Director of photo & video equipment distributor. Over 15 years carrying the brand.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We envision a platform where our consumer can easily go online and monetize their content. Our goal is to create an easy to use all-in-one platform allowing anyone even with no technology background stream and catalog their creation. The ability to set restriction to content access and receive payment is very crucial as well.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Mostly by referral and successful delivery of other client's projects

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

I gave them the concept and provide basic way of achieving the goal. They did the detailed architecture and we go from there. As this is a startup project, things did change along the way. Deliverables : working platform & apps.

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

At it's peak up to 15 people. Main key person: 1. Philip : project manager 2. Alex : solution architect 3. Duc Trung : DevOps, backend

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were able to deliver the working platform. Some hiccups during large video stream happed but managed to solve eventually.

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

Seems like good management, well communicating with me as project owner. Timeliness were quite accurate with small only few small delay which I was informed ahead.

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

Good communication and willingness to listen, learn new things and find solution together.

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

Video streaming was new to them at that time, a more thorough study before development might slightly improve early performance.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Beestromed is ecosystem in the healthcare domain which provides a connectivity solution to customers(clinic, doctor, patient). I am the CTO and also one of co-founders of Beestromed.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We want to focus more on the marketing and the customer relation management and we don't have much effort to manage a technical team. Investidea gives us a good self-control technical team as the expectation which is matching to our company roadmap.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Investidea has a strong team and a rich experience on many large outsource projects.

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

Investidea give us a full technical solution for our product. From the infrastructure to the application development.

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

A team of 12 members worked with me everyday. A project manager, a business analyzer, 2 QA, 2 mobile developers, 2 web developers, 4 backend/devops developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

20 clinics, more than 100 doctors, 10000 users/patients joined our ecosystem after 1.5 years with positive feedback.

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

We apply Scrum to system development process. Some main working tools: Slack, Jira, Confluence.

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

All team members are able to work under high pressure. They are carefully and attention to detail at work.

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

Nothing to worry about the Investidea team. But they work at another office, it's better if they are able to work at the same office with us.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there? 

I’m currently the CTO of STG Solutions. We started the company roughly two years ago.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Investidea?

We needed to develop a custom educational platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Investidea Technology has designed and developed an education platform and its mobile application for Android and iOS. We initially provided our requirements, and they made several recommendations. They were responsible for everything from start to finish, including implementing primary features. They’ve used JavaScript with Spring Framework and React for frontend and mobile development. 

The platform provides learning materials, flexible schedules, and internal management for different learning centers, such as those that teach English or soft skills. The two main features allow students to create flexible online classes and learning centers to manage their classes and teachers through the platform.

They currently provide ongoing maintenance and support.

What is the team composition? 

We work with a team of 3–10 people, depending on project needs. The primary resources are developers and analysts.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $30,000–$60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in March 2019, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re currently seeking investors to continue building the company; we already have a few clients waiting to use the system. The team is adaptable, working hard to meet all the requirements. Overall, we’re satisfied with the partnership so far.

How did Investidea perform from a project management perspective? 

They do a great job. We work in two-week sprints, which gives us the ability to shift requirements and schedules as needed. Initially, we communicated in person, but now we use Slack daily, email for confirmations, and Google Meet video calls a few times per week. In general, they’re communicative and responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

They provide excellent service and assistance, as well as cost-effective solutions. As a new company, we need that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes their team members seem to have a lot on them, so it would be nice if they expanded their team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

To achieve the best outcome, define your requirements clearly and ensure they fully understand your wants and needs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a peer-to-peer ecommerce platform designed for resale and vintage.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to develop a mobile app for fast & efficient buying and selling between users.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We used Clutch to find a highly-rated app development company with a large portfolio and experience in this area. After much research, and many calls with varying agencies, we decided on Steelkiwi. Their level of professionalism was top tier, and the questions they’d ask about the project were surprising in their depth and interest.

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

As the designer of the project, I required a lot of back and forth with the development team. I was surprised with how quickly they were able to estimate every feature, as well as how detailed they were with why each feature would require the amount of work that it did. Along the way, several changes were requested and they were quick to respond and change what was asked. Most impressively, they put in so much work to integrate an API from PayPal (our payment provider), which required several weeks of in-depth communication, and an eventual meeting to review the app with PayPal engineers for approval.

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

A project manager was assigned to the project, who would quickly respond to any update requests, questions, etc. I also worked with members of the development team to provide needed designs, prototypes, etc. And lastly, I worked with their very thurough testers to deliver a bug-free build.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app was delivered on-time, and with almost zero hiccups. I’ve worked with one other agency in the past, and the level of professionalism Steelkiwi exhibits is above and beyond.

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

We used Slack and email to communicate regularly, and the occasional Google Meeting to review progress. Their communication skills were the best I’ve seen.

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

The thoroughness with which they code and test was what impressed me most. This was alongside their ability to quickly change what they’re doing to accommodate a new request.

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

I could not have asked for a better development team, and hope to continue working with them on future updates.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a mobile gaming company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Steelkiwi?

We needed help to create a software piece from scratch. The game we were making had not been done before, so it was very challenging figuring out the best way to bring it to market while iterating on the go and breaking into a new wave of gaming.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Steelkiwi has been helping us create the software we need. First, we used iOS native technology, but we then shifted over to Flutter, which allowed us to create the product for iOS and Android. This decision was great because we’ve had great cost savings while being more efficient.

Still, it was important for us to provide a native experience, and Steelkiwi has been able to accomplish that goal in a great way — we really can’t tell the difference. Overall, they’ve provided a lot of good context and experience to help guide us through the process.

What is the team composition?

In total, we’ve worked with around 20 people from Steelkiwi, and most of the time, we’ve had anywhere from 5–10 resources working for us at a time. They have a lot of full-stack and Flutter developers, so it is a full-team effort on their side.

How did you come to work with Steelkiwi?

I found Steelkiwi on Clutch. I did a lot of research, vetted out many companies, and talked to several of them. What made me go to Steelkiwi was that I felt the most comfortable with the promises that they made. They demonstrated great openness and willingness to commit to the project and do what it took to get the job done.

When talking with other developers, I often felt that if something went in a different direction, they wouldn’t be flexible or able to adapt, and they would simply claim the changes as outside of scope. As this was not a fixed-scope type of project, I needed someone that could really adapt on the fly; they would basically become my full-time development team. Steelkiwi gave me that confidence.

I also looked at some of their previous projects, and they showed me other projects that weren’t included in their portfolio, which also gave me comfort. Finally, I got to talk to their developers directly and ask them a lot of questions. They were also very transparent and open, so I was sure that, even though they hadn’t done this type of project before, they would get us there.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together over three years ago, around 2018, and they’re still working on the project. We are one of their long-term clients.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In terms of the quality and efficiency of the product, we haven’t experienced a lot of issues or bugs, and we’ve had a lot of great feedback from customers and users who play the game. Every time we release an update, the game keeps getting better.

We don’t have any metrics on the game's performance, but we have a 4.9/5 rating on the App Store and over 200 positive reviews from users. This success is attributable to the great work that Steelkiwi has done.

How did Steelkiwi perform from a project management standpoint?

Steelkiwi’s project management is their best asset. They’ve been very helpful, flexible, and agile in changing their model a couple of times to help accommodate what we were trying to do.

I’m in constant communication with a number of people from their team over Slack, and even though there is a time difference between us, they’re always very responsive. Even if it is late at night or a weekend, they go above and beyond to keep me updated — that’s the key.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The rapport and communication that I’ve built with Steelkiwi are impressive. They’ve shown a great ability to adapt their processes to work with us, an American-based customer with a different time zone and a challenging product.

Our communication has been huge, and they’ve been able to step in whenever we’ve needed them to do anything. It’s been a pleasure working with them in that capacity. Additionally, Steelkiwi produces a very solid code, so on the technical side, they’re very strong.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had some challenges, but Steelkiwi has addressed them throughout the project. Initially, they had some design gaps, but we addressed the issue, and they were able to add a designer to their team. They hired him specifically for my project, and so far, this person has been amazing. Honestly, he’s the best designer I’ve worked with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very literal and descriptive in what you want. The more you can do upfront, the easier the process will be, and the more you can fit your company into their structure, the easier the work will be. However, the most important aspect of achieving success is open communication and transparency.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder and also the CTO of an education technology company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Investidea Technology ?

Our company was growing in a very rapid user growth and engagement, while we are still using mostly old technologies where it then turns into a bottleneck in our product stability. We decided to hire a set of team who can help us in reviewing existing system and do major revamp.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We get to know them from a known contact who also has a very good history in working with them and also successfully put their product into the next level.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

The project is about reviewing the whole technology stacks and infrastructure, and also hiring managed set of team to work hands-on on the project.

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

We work very closely with the project lead, devops, and several full stack developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They come up with roadmaps, fully implement agile methodologies into our development workflow, and did major upgrades into almost all of our legacy services.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective, daily scrum calls between team and between project manager. And very active communication on Slack.

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

They were a very experienced team in handling new technologies.

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

Sometimes brainstorming video call meetings cannot be super effective because of some language barrier between our team (Indonesian) and their team. So having a higher level of English proviciency across the team will bring openness into the discussion.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the founders and the COO of a hospitality and entertainment cashless payment platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Investidea Technology?

They help us with major infrastructure support and some occasional custom development. They’re here to grow our engineering team on an as-needed basis.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Investidea Technology has worked on every aspect of our platform. They deal with everything from major server infrastructure and microservices to frontend and app development and build with our core team on our developer API portal. Effectively, they’re part of our core team. For example, we created a whole new consumer-facing product in 2019.

What is the team composition?

It’s a different number of people every time. Overall, we’ve worked with two separate teams with four people each. Now, we have roughly three people working alongside us from front to backend — we’ve worked with the product owner, scrum master, and all the way to the CEO or CTO in some circumstances.

How did you come to work with Investidea Technology?

We met them through contacts that my business partner and I had. Investidea Technology was one of the first companies we outsourced work to, but we’ve looked at other options in India and Eastern Europe as well. Ultimately, their level of communication was the best fit for us, and their expertise was great.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent roughly $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for four years, since June 2017. At the moment, there’s no end date for our agreement with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

If there are problems that would reduce the resource pool, it doesn’t matter. They ensure that the project will be done. 

How did Investidea Technology perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira as a tracking platform and work on a scrum format. The project scope was outlined beforehand, and we have deliverables every two weeks. Overall, their project management is beyond expectations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have an amicable relationship; it’s not just a vendor relationship. We can message them if we want to, and if we have a significant issue, they address it immediately. Our working relationship is excellent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We don’t have anything bad to say about Investidea Technology. Sometimes it’s unfortunate that the people we’d like to have on our team are already allocated to other projects, but that’s the only thing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t be afraid to ask for their advice. They’re experts in their field, and they’ve worked on different products and use cases. The team has a vast knowledge of different types of platform utilization, so they may have come across a similar solution in the past.