GLOBALDEV

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

BoardNotebook is a board portal service for nonprofit organizations. It does things like meeting management, document retention, and governance aspects for American nonprofits. A web-based app used in nonprofit board meetings is the best way to describe it. The company is comprised of three people. We've been around for about 18 months.

What is your position? 

I am the chief technology officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

I had done some Python and Django work on the minimal viable product for this startup, and I'd done about 50 percent of the total codebase at the time. I went to SteelKiwi and showed them what it was and what I needed to add in terms of features. They then handled the development of the additional functionality and configuration.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We were paying them by the hour but, because they were integrating new things into an existing codebase, and helping me with getting the changes up to my staging and production servers, I ended up using four or five different people at SteelKiwi, including Julia Titova, my main contact and project manager. I'm not sure if I explicitly hired all of them, but we ended up working together throughout the course of the project.

We started the engagement with them at about this time last year [December 2014], and they worked through to April [2015]. All of their work has been custom Python and Django development.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi Development?

I'd worked with them once before, on a different project, so I knew that the company was good. I didn't participate in finding them. I'd been impressed with their skill and capability in Python and Django development work, so when the current project started, I thought of them first. They had the necessary capacity, and we started right away.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was between $20,000 and $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was completed in April [2015]. That's when we finished all the small work, with testing, cleaning out little bugs, and so forth. Just recently, I found a bug and asked them to work on it for me. They said no problem. Less than a day later, they came up with a solution.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I have a small core of devout users. They use it a couple of times a month. There will be board members who come in, get their meeting agendas, documents, and everything else they need to run their board. I would say I have happy users. We're now opening it out, taking it out of beta, and doing more marketing for it.

I'm very happy with their work and where the app stands. Like any minimally viable product, as soon as I start generating revenue, I will discover new things I want to add to the platform.

How did SteelKiwi Development perform from a project management standpoint?

We used GitHub extensively and a Python bug tracker that they host. In the early stages, we were using it to address tasks, and make descriptions of everything that needed to be fixed. At some point during the process, we switched in large part to GitHub, where they would do code deliveries via pull request. There's a lot of back and forth through email, but it was well done all around. It works very well.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

They're based in the Ukraine. Russia invaded their country. I don't mean to get political, but one of the cities in which we had developers was occupied and controlled by the Russians. Some of the developers moved to Odessa to get out of the war zone. In spite of all that, they were very responsive and professional through the ordeal.

Another thing revolves around working successfully with English-speaking clients. Their English is very good, and there were really no instances of misunderstandings due to the language barrier. I worked with companies that had that problem. They're able to speak English far better than I can speak Ukrainian.

I'm a developer myself, so the translation between the business goals and technical ideas was something largely done by myself. Technical person to technical person, we had a fine time. I would definitely hire SteelKiwi again without a doubt.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a startup with less than 10 employees. We are in the retail logistics business, and we essentially compete with Square. Everything they do, that's the space we are in.

What is your position?

I am the co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi?

Before we went to investors, we wanted to build a robust prototype and, therefore, we were looking to get a number of skill sets in one place at a price point that was not possible within the U.S. We were looking for an offshore team that could provide us some of these skill sets at an affordable price point. We looked everywhere outside the U.S., so it wasn't limited to Ukraine. The basic challenge was to get a number of skill sets under one roof, at a lower price point. The technical development didn't have to be industry specific. It really was more about the platforms that they had experience using.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

If I ask a company the develop something, I would expect them to do QA [quality assurance] testing, integration testing, some amount of DevOps [development operations]. That's part of the package. Everything other than design, they did from the beginning. Only recently, we hired one of the designers to help out with the design of the UI [user interface]. Initially, we were working with a U.S.-based designer and, just recently, we hired their designer to complement our designer to reduce the turnaround cycles, because their designer is sitting in the same room as the front-end developer and our local designer is not. This helped to get around the communication challenges.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi?

At the time, we used two of the leading online platforms for finding freelance developers because initially we would find developers with specific skill sets, and manage them in-house. Find the best available developers for A, B, and C, and then they won't necessarily need to know each other because we would manage them. We went on Elance and oDesk, and then from researching the skill sets that were available, we concluded that it would more efficient, if possible, to work with a firm that had more than one skill set under one roof, rather than working with multiple freelance developers directly.

The task was to build a website and then mobile apps that had the same back-end platform. We considered all of the popular platforms every time, from Python to Ruby to PHP and others. We decided on a Python platform for a number of reasons. Once we decided on Python, then you're talking about Django, so then we ended up looking at companies on Elance-oDesk who had expertise using Django; that was the core skill set.

We short-listed about 15 firms from a number of countries, and we looked at whether they had complementary skill sets under the same roof. For example, the database we work with PostgreSQL, so we wanted that expertise, we wanted iOS and Android expertise. It would be a huge plus if they had designers. If we needed designers, we needed people who knew front-end languages like AngularJS, and other Java-based front-end technologies.

SteelKiwi was one of the 15 firms who had all of these things, so then we short-listed them. We sent them invitations to respond to our RFP [request for proposal], and we interviewed about five and went with SteelKiwi. This was last summer [2014].

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I'd rather not disclose that information.

What is the status of this engagement?

It's an ongoing involvement, and I fully expect it to continue in the near future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or user feedback from this engagement?

We are a startup, and the service that we provide does not have widespread benchmarking available in the industry yet. Since January [2015], we've gone through a number of iterations, so we've had many, many versions pushed out there. One way to measure the quality of a developer's work is the number of critical bugs in their deliverables. From my experience with this firm, and from my experience with working with other firms previously, I would say that the quality of their development expertise is extremely high. That's half of the story.

The other half is, some bugs are unavoidable. That's just part of the process. Another way to measure the skill measuring how quickly they can diagnose why the bug happened, and how quickly they can fix it. That just comes down to the experience of the person who's actually on your team. Currently, we are working with two developers, one senior and one junior developer. We are working with a front-end guy or designer, a DevOps guy, like a sys-admin, and a project manager. That's the composition of our team from SteelKiwi.

The senior developer is as skilled in Python as I've ever seen anywhere. His ability to resolve bugs is just phenomenal, and that would be an important reason why we are working with SteelKiwi. They are able to provide people like that guy, who have that level of expertise. This gets down to not just how well you can design an algorithm, it's also the experience he has in the field, and they have a very talented QA [quality assurance] testing team. If you go by metrics, such as the number of bugs and the critical bug turnaround time, they are very good. As good as what you would expect anywhere in an offshoring situation.

How did SteelKiwi perform from a project management standpoint?

On that front, they are probably best-in-class, although the side of project management that we have seen would focus less on being strategic because we are a young startup and our horizon is not years, it's not even six months – it's every two months. Now, the side of project management that we do see, and we have seen from the beginning, would be one of three reasons why we are with SteelKiwi now.

If you think broadly about the landscape of people who are in the offshoring business, a lot of them are in India. There are also a lot of them in the former Eastern European countries, Ukraine included. There's also Poland, and there's Russia itself. When I was looking, I was surprised to see how many options there were in China. Now, because of the language issues, China was a nonstarter for us. We just couldn't get over that. Because of a number of reasons, we ended up not going with India. Now, in Eastern Europe, you then have the language issue because the developers speak Russian or Polish and we don't.

What becomes critical, as soon as you step out of India, and work in any other country that's non-native English speaking, is that the project manager really has to be the glue. The project manager and the communication have to be at a level where he or she is able to understand what you're asking of them clearly. We are very hands-on, so our involvement is on a daily basis. We participate in some of the end-user testing on a daily basis. It's not like we define our projects, "Hey, build this, and come back in two weeks." We are really hands-on with them.

The project manager has really been a partner to us, in perfect sync with us not just in what we're asking them to do, but also at times in connecting the dots. That works in two ways: one way is at a very basic level, the language issue. I speak to the project manager, not the developers, who were OK with written English, but not so okay with verbal skills.

I, being on the user side, obviously have the best understanding of our vision, and where we are going with all of this. I also have a technical computer science background, so I can get fairly deep at the algorithm level, and can hold a conversation with anybody. What I'm not good at, because that's not what I do, is, what is, for example, the current state-of-art in JavaScript practices? Is AngularJS any better or worse than Backbone.js or Node.js, and what the difference between them? I could speak high level, but I would not know the details.

Then, the project manager's role becomes very critical in translating what I'm asking to what could be changed, or should be changed to build a platform better. This project manager at SteelKiwi has been phenomenal with that as well. Sometimes I'll say, "Build me this," and then she'd talk to the developers. All of them will discuss it as a team, and then come back with, "We could tweak this slightly. It could reduce the timeline by three days." That really is the role that the project manager has played, which has been so critical to the success of this relationship.

We're also kind of following an agile development methodology. Our company is even younger than young. We are a baby company so, sometimes, we react even faster than agile would recommend. We do follow some sort of an agile shell, but it tends to be more chaotic than that, as you can imagine. We change direction frequently, even more frequently than what agile would allow.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi from other providers?

Their talent pool is a huge factor but also their project management approach. I've really appreciated SteelKiwi's ability to think outside of the box and offer us key suggestions around process improvement or bug fixes or feature designs. That's not what I would call typical of offshore developers.

Is there anything SteelKiwi could have improved or done differently?

If I'm not mistaken, they have about 50 people, give or take. For a company of that size, we have been happy with their ability on the things I've mentioned – the outstanding DevOps guy and the outstanding Python guy. We asked for a designer, and they've come with a great design guy. One limitation of their size is the fact that they are in only operating in one time zone. It's a problem not for today, but it's a problem for a different day. Right now, we ourselves have fewer than 10 employees, so we are not that big yet. If we ever got to hundreds of employees or if our platform ever blew up, then we would probably grow beyond them.

If SteelKiwi had a presence in the U.S., that would be a game changer. If SteelKiwi had a presence in other time zones, so that we have a 24/7 team out there, that would be a game changer. It's not really a problem for us, for what we need right now. I have no regrets with going with them. We did a lot of due diligence, we did not take this position lightly. I can see how we might someday go beyond what a company in one time zone can offer, but that's unfair to hold it against them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work at a design and development agency from Salt Lake City. We operate and run multiple platforms and products. We support quite a few clients, but on this project specifically, we've engaged SteelKiwi on some Django and AngularJS work.

What is your position?

I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

They have augmented our team in the past. One product that SteelKiwi has specifically helped us on a property management platform built in Python. We needed to enhance the platform and we worked with them to add manpower and hit a few key deadlines together.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

With their help, we developed and implemented some general features, enhancements, a lot of bug fixing and QA [quality assurance]. Generally, they were involved in a lot of the platform's core functionality, rather than implementing a significant number of new features. Their work was comprised of a lot of enhancements, bug fixes and small iterations. The development methodology we were using was a kind of modified agile. We were doing weekly scrums with their team, but a daily push.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi Development?

We found them using Elance. We looked at the size of their team, the size of the projects they completed, and their ratings on Elance.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We worked with them on an hourly basis, which came to probably around $80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was completed about two weeks ago. We haven't expanded the scope of their involvement yet, but we look forward to that opportunity in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We're happy with them. Our main metrics of measurability weren't user engagement, they were timing out on different API [application programming interface] calls. Really just taking each API call that we have and putting it under the microscope together and making sure it is as good as it can be. I would say that, overall, they met the majority of our performance expectations. 

How did SteelKiwi Development perform from a project management standpoint?

There were no major issues from a project management perspective. We went into it eyes wide open, knowing there's a time delay with communication. They would extend their hours each day to make sure we overlapped a little bit. They gave us a project manager, which was an unbilled manager that seemed to work full-time, if not three-quarters of the time.

We've used a lot of contractors over the years for different projects. SteelKiwi was very responsive and inside our platform, using our technologies, using our systems for time tracking, using our systems for bug tracking, so they just jumped right into our platforms. We used Asana as a project management tool.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

SteelKiwi Development provided a high level of communication – weekly calls, and daily updates – using our platforms, systems, and trackers. They were integrated with our systems fully. Obviously, that's the goal for any team, but we did achieve it with them.

Is there anything SteelKiwi Development could have improved or done differently?

I think we'll always do better with in-house employees, just because communication would be better. But, for an outsourcing team, augmenting ours for a sprint like that, it was a great relationship.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work for an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar. As a young sister company of a bigger group company, we operate much like a startup. We develop products using an agile methodology, and have a distributed team that leverages the best tools for the job. We aim to disrupt the market by offering a product that is easy-to-use, robust and transparent. Our target market is Asia Pacific and, therefore, the software is fully internationalized and localized.

What is your position?

My role is as a software architect and developer as well as project manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

The challenge with software development is being able to move with speed while balancing architecture and code quality.

The challenge in working with an outsourced partner such as SteelKiwi rests in communication and trust. We need to communicate the desired outcomes not only in terms of how the product looks or works, but also in terms of the implementation details because of our nuanced business logic. At the same time, there is a lot of overhead associated with specifying every single detail of every feature that we want included.

We see an opportunity for a product targeting the Asia Pacific region that offers ease-of-use, transparency in pricing, and localized UI [user interface] and content, payment options.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We collaborated closely with them on custom development, integration, configuration, and testing. We use a combination of Python, Django, a micro framework for REST services, and a robust RDBMS. We then stitched them together using micro-services architecture.

On the front end, we utilized Bootstrap and JQuery. The technology stack was mostly selected based on our competencies and experience, evaluated against the use cases and deployment strategies.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi Development?

We found SteelKiwi through Elance, and did a bit of researching to find out that they have a focus on Python. This was a big plus for us.

What's the status of this engagement?

The project is ongoing, but it took about eight months starting from February 2014 to deliver the 1.0 release in October 2014. We have been working with SteelKiwi actively developing the product since.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback from this engagement?

The software performs very well, is very robust, and easy to use. It has the engineering qualities of an enterprise-grade solution and scales very well to the number of visitors and transactions.

How did they perform from a project management perspective?

We had zero issues whatsoever. We found that SteelKiwi would assign a project manager, who would translate business requirements to the developer – should language be an issue – which is also a welcome value-add. In the end, the developer assigned to us is extremely competent, is diligent and works with integrity, communicates well, and possesses more than sufficient level of English.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

SteelKiwi Development's approach to project management was excellent and reliable. We never had any critical issues with them. We also found their developers to be extremely talented.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a smaller company, and we have developed an online collaboration platform for students primarily.

What is your position?

I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

In most startups, you have some challenges around economy. We're based in Denmark and, as you know, that's a pretty expensive country to live in and to hire people. We actually had our mobile applications developed in Denmark, and we got the foundation, but it was too expensive. When we needed to extend our mobile applications, we looked for some freelancers, and SteelKiwi popped up and it seemed like the right fit for us.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They built our mobile app for iOS and Android. We're delivering all the back-end, and they are delivering all the app's content. It was primarily coding and not so much front end.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi Development?

We did an online search for freelancers.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The cost was set to $25 per hour for 50 to 60 hours.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them about one year ago. The project was completed, and it has been a very good process. We hired them just for a small project of about 50 to 60 hours to see what it was like to work with them. I will say they delivered more than you can expect, ahead of deadline, and on budget. They were extremely responsive. They delivered a  good job, so we decided to hire them again for some other projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We're very satisfied. We don't have any statistics or metrics. We are not looking into that. The primary thing for us is that they are very responsive and that they deliver high-quality work. Normally, they are able to start a new project within a few days.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

The price and the quality that SteelKiwi Development delivers, and their agility – those things would be difficult to find, especially regarding the pricing. We could have found somebody in Denmark, and we could get the same agility and the same quality, but the pricing would way ahead of what SteelKiwi charges.

Is there anything SteelKiwi Development could have improved or done differently?

I don't think we would have done anything differently. Generally, people think differently in various parts of the world, and being from Scandinavia, we probably often challenge our customers and come with suggestions and feedback. "What if we do this? That would be really awesome. Shouldn't we just do it?" Whereas in Ukraine, where they're based in the Eastern part of Europe, I guess they're more used to, "This is what we were asked to deliver," and they deliver it. A good feedback would be to challenge their customers and give some input to what would be some great functionality, or something that would really push the product that they are supporting.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work for a small company that produces furniture, and sells it online through their website. Last November [2014], the company had problems with the website and they were urgently looking for a company able to help with that. I connected them with an IT [information technology] company. It was a small project, but it was very urgent. I looked for a company that could redesign the furniture company's website.

What is your position and responsibilities?

I was an intermediary between the furniture company and SteelKiwi, so something like a project manager. It's a small project, and we're still working with SteelKiwi on this particular website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

The owner had a website and a web developer, but there was a conflict and the web developer left. As a result, the owner was left with partially completed work and no expertise to finish it alone. I was brought onboard to help salvage the situation. I evaluated what was done previously and went out looking for a qualified developer to continue building the website.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The website had an old CMS [content management system], and SteelKiwi effectively rebuilt it from the ground up. They made the design responsive, in compliance with mobile requirements. They first reanimated the old website and fixed all of the previously existing bugs. They then redesigned the site for mobile compatibility. SteelKiwi allocated a project manager and a couple of programmers, I think. I'm not sure how they did it, but they did it in time, which is important. They delivered the project very quickly.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi Development?

I found them through online research.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was between €2,000 [approximately $2,200] and €3,000 [$3,300] a month. It depended on how much work needed to be completed. There were about five months of intensive work.

What is the status of this engagement?

At the moment, it's mostly done, so we're just updating a few items and doing some basic maintenance work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We have Google Analytics, and we see that organic traffic is growing. I can send you reports from October last year, when we started, up until now, so you can see the growth in traffic. It's probably right about double or triple what it was then.

The owner of the website is quite content, which is most important part. He started from nothing because the website he had beforehand was very bad. It had all kinds of bugs and visually it wasn't representative of the brand or customer experience. Now, he is much more happy, and he wants to stay with SteelKiwi if he has another project or if he wants to update the website in the future.

How did SteelKiwi Development perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, I was very impressed with their performance. SteelKiwi Development was very responsive throughout the planning, scoping and development process. All work was completed on time and within budget.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

I liked the fact that they respond very quickly to any questions or concerns I had. When I send a request or a task, I see the progress and I know it will be done within the time period that I wanted. For me, this is the most important thing. Another thing, you don't have to look for them, because they are always online. Something might come up during the weekend, a problem with the server, and you can reach them via Skype or phone.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a specialist in the production of children's television series. Our work is produced for TV channels around the world and has been viewed in most continents. We take great care in the design and writing of TV programs ensuring both a fun and educational experience for children. We have more than 20 years of experience and offer full production services, consultation, training, and project management. We worked with SteelKiwi to custom develop an "edutainment" membership site for children and families. 

What is your position?

I'm the founder of the project and project manager of site development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

Our business goals are to reach a niche children's market with our existing video, game, educational, and interactive content. We wanted a way to monetize the content through a membership service. We needed a scalable platform that provides ease of use for us to keep content always fresh. In addition, we needed an easy to use – user management system and payment system. As a small startup, we bootstrapped the entire process, but needed best in class developer.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

SteelKiwi worked with us using Django/Python as the best saleable solution to build the functionality and customization we needed. It is very important to us that we are prepared for future growth and the addition of new creative functionality as we grow.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The project size was $50,000 to $199,999

What is the status of this engagement?

The original site has launched. They've been involved in other projects, and we continue to work with them for ongoing support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did SteelKiwi Development do from a project management standpoint?

SteelKiwi met all of the challenges we put to them. We have an amazing platform using what they have custom developed. The integration of third-party payment and other services has also been seamless. We have not experienced any downtime since launch one and a half years ago. We did a major visual redesign of the site after one year and again they were fantastic during this process. We have an ongoing support from them as required and their customer service is excellent.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

SteelKiwi is amazing to work with. They are very responsive to what we need. They are amazing listeners and work with us through perfecting the design process and giving their feedback on the best technical solutions. Even though we are in two different countries and speak two different languages, we have never had any issues. Their support people speak and interact in fluent English. We have never had any trust issues. They have never overcharged us for the work. We feel we are very fortunate to have developed a relationship with such a developer. We contract a lot of services and SteelKiwi gets top rankings from us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We’re an HR [human resources] consulting firm, predominantly. For the most part, our specialty is distributing job offers.

What is your position?

I’m the lead software developer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenge that you were trying to address when you first approached SteelKiwi?

The project on which we’re working with SteelKiwi is a method for semi-automatically distributing jobs to as many different sites, newspapers, and social media networks as possible. We got a little bit carried away in terms of the scope of the project, and it was something that we could no longer handle on our own. I’m the only developer in-house, which means developing a project this large was going to take up a huge amount of my time. Initially, we hired SteelKiwi in order to allow me to spend more time architecting things while they implemented the actual milestones.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the actual scope of work assigned to them?

Initially, they were just doing functional development. Recently, however, we have been giving them more leeway to choose the items that they can work on, by providing them with a much larger number of the individual tasks. We do provide them with some rough prioritization. I definitely still need to take the reins in terms of guiding the development because of the long-distance relationship. There’s a lot of user feedback that gets filtered through me.

How did you come to choose SteelKiwi Development as your partner?

Initially, we hired them through Elance. We put up a bid, and various people replied to it. They were one of the most highly recommended and their cost-efficiency ratio was the best. They were also able to provide some sample code during the process. I have very strict standards for code quality, and they met those standards quite handily. In short, they impressed us immediately.

Can you provide a ballpark estimate for the size of this engagement?

I don’t know those numbers off of the top of my head, but I can say that they are much less expensive than hiring locally. In terms of cost effectiveness, I feel that they’re worth about twice as much as we’re actually paying them.

What is the status of the project?

The project is still ongoing. It’s been in production for slightly less than a year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

Some of the tasks that we have assigned them are actually research tax-credit worthy. They single-handedly worked on the milestone to develop the dynamic reporting engine, which was a brand new reporting system where the reports are stored in the program. I was quite impressed when that actually took them half as long as expected. To finish a development task of that complexity so quickly was remarkable. Everything has been accomplished well within time and budget expectations.

I’ve always been hesitant to hire overseas developers, due to intellectual property concerns. Those types of concerns were alleviated very quickly. I found SteelKiwi to be quite trustworthy with our source code and data.

When working with them, is there anything that you would consider unique about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

They are extremely flexible in terms of methods of communication. In terms of overall management, the flexibility is the biggest bonus I was able to come across. We often chat using Skype, for example. They are always accessible and are flexible with the means by which they send us their work.

In retrospect, are there areas in which you think they could improve as a service provider?

UI [user interface] and UX [user experience] is the one area where we had to do some touch-up work after they submitted their work back to us. That may be the one area that they might want to improve.

What advice, if any, would you give a future client of theirs?

As with any project, upfront planning is the biggest thing, in terms of being able to provide concrete technical specifications in addition to how you want the code architected.

BACKGROUND

Please provide a description of your company.

Our company provides a number of IT [information technology]-related services, many are focused on Web and mobile development, but we also have VPN [virtual private network]-related services.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with SteelKiwi Development?

We run our own projects but, sometimes, we are either overloaded or take on projects that encompass tasks we do not have the ability to complete. We have approached SteelKiwi to augment our staff on a number of these high-level projects.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We’ve hired their developers to assist us on a variety of projects including Android development, DSS, HTML, and Django-Python. More recently, they’ve consulted with us on a booking engine as well as a new VPN service.

What was your process for selecting SteelKiwi Development with which to work?

I discovered them through my own online research. I requested a test job, and they did very well with it. We’ve worked with them for a couple years now, and we have active projects with them.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar or time estimate for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

At least 3,000 work hours in total.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

All our projects with SteelKiwi, up to this point, have reached successful conclusions. The people at Steel Kiwi say what they do, and do what they say. I wish all companies acted this way.

We have several ongoing projects with SteelKiwi, which speaks to the fact that we are satisfied with the work they’ve provided for us in the past.

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

It's hard to give you metrics since this is all project-based work.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

I think Steel Kiwi is fantastic with Python-Django framework. I think it’s one of the best things they do, and I’ve had problems with other developers in terms of skills with Python-Django.

In addition, their response rate and availability is fantastic. Several times, we changed the goals or schedule of a project, but it was never a problem for them even if it required them to work outside normal business hours.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

I think there is some inconsistency in the skill levels of their developers. Sometimes, we’re working with a developer who is doing great, but then they switch him out and it causes us to lose some time in the project.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

We’re a nonprofit Christian conference center, about 108 years old. People come to our facilities and rent them for events and special programming. We also offer summer camp services here.

What is your position?

I’m an Internet specialist. I work on the website development team for advertising and marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenge that you were attempting to address when you first approached SteelKiwi Development?

We were developing a new website, and our relationship with our former developers fell apart. So, we decided to part ways with them and hired SteelKiwi to pick up the pieces. The initial challenge that we were facing was the design of a new template build for the site. We had most of the back-end functional, so we just needed to fix that and then build the new front-end template based off designs we were providing.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail?

It started out with most of the back-end functional. Through the years, they’ve done a lot of the back-end work for us, but initially most of it was front end. They were just implementing the front-end design, and then quickly we started hiring them to do additional add-ons. We were adding new features to our product quite frequently. After some time, they began building out new apps, and doing database and server management. They’ve done a lot of technical work for us. They also provided training to me, and then I instruct the rest of the staff. They provided everything that was needed to use the tools they built. We’ve been very impressed with their process documentation. Outside of this engagement, I’ve also hired them repeatedly for other projects, including iOS development.

How did you select SteelKiwi as your partner for this endeavor?

We found them through Elance. I posted a project there and received bids from multiple companies. I researched a few and interviewed them. SteelKiwi seemed to be the most capable for the price I was asking.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for this project?

At this point, it’s been $14,000 during the course of the relationship.

What has been the duration of this engagement?

The relationship is ongoing, but started in early 2012

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

Not really. We collect metrics but not specifically tied to their work. I really enjoy working with them, and that’s why I keep giving them more work. I especially like that have direct access to their task management system. I can add new tasks. They work on them, and we work closely together with the project management aspect, which I love. It’s a great tool. I’ve given them raises through the years since they did good enough work for me that I felt they deserved more.

When working with SteelKiwi, is there anything that you’d consider unique about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

The work they do is amazing. It’s professional, and it’s done well. They have a team of workers that can do just about anything I’ve ever ask them to do. Whether it be iOS, database, server, coding, front-end, you name it. They have a large enough team so that they can assign more staff to my project and make it happen, and I love that. I don’t have to go and negotiate a new contract with another provider. They can usually do it all, which has been fantastic.

When working with SteelKiwi, are there areas in which you think they could improve as a service provider?

There are occasional issues with timelines, and a lot of that could be attributed to us not prescheduling the tasks that needed to be done. Maybe a rush project comes up, and they’re working on other tasks. Every once in while they kind of fall of the face of the Earth. It’s very rare but, sometimes, we’ll ask for something and not hear from them for a week or two. It’s not the standard for them at all, but it’s happened.

English isn’t always their first language, but that hasn’t been an issue for the most part. It’s not beautiful English when they write back, but it’s totally understandable. It hasn’t been a hindrance for me at all. I suppose others should be aware that it isn’t flawless, so if that’s going to be a key factor it might be wise to consider other options, too. I have some experience working with other offshore providers, and I’ve found SteelKiwi to be much better than most of my previous engagements.