Hatimeria

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Sexy Dresses is a retail, B2C women’s apparel website. We mostly sell our products in the U.S., but also ship globally on a limited basis. We’ve been around for four years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Hatimeria?

We had a couple of developers in-house who built the website initially. They did the basic Magento install and we updated it ourselves. After we grew, though, there was a higher demand to update the site a lot faster, as well as to accommodate the changes and demands of SEO. We needed more help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the technologies in our stack that they helped with was Magento. Their involvement was mostly in frontend development and backend interaction with the in-house processes, as well as with external marketing with customers. They also provided some support.

Some projects were outside Magento, but they spawned from it. For example, they helped us do an improved Magento search, but it was more of an outside solution because we utilized Elasticsearch instead. Our need for Magento initiated the project, but we sometimes built outside solutions.

What is the team composition?

I have a lead developer who works on projects in-house and interacts with Hatimeria’s team. The team is comprised of 1–3 people depending on our budget and needs. There is usually someone in charge that dissects the overall plan and delegates it to other developers on the team.

How did you come to work with Hatimeria?

We worked with some people from traditional freelance platforms like Freelancer and Odesk. Having in-house development ourselves, we know the language and code. We know when somebody knows the code or not by the questions we ask. Hatimeria knew the code very well, and we work with them well because they understand why we do things.

They understood why we needed to create this kind of solution from a business perspective. It’s not just an engineer creating a solution, but rather engineers that understand how the solution will affect the business. This helps a lot because when we want to implement tools such as site search, Hatimeria understands the goal and how the end user will utilize it.

What is the status of this engagement?

They started working with us three or four years ago. The relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve gone through quite a few development teams and have experienced language barriers with many of them. It’s hard to get past it. Although Hatimeria is from Poland, I’ve never felt the language barrier to be an issue at all.

The biggest benefit to offshore development firms is understanding the culture of our customers. We develop things in a certain way that’s geared towards specific customers, and some development firms don’t always align with that. They understand that we’re creating solutions for business, and not just for fun.

How did Hatimeria perform from a project management standpoint?

The way we developed was fairly lean. Our projects mainly take one day, and we decide immediately whether to cancel or move forward. They always deliver the next iteration. Sometimes delivery is only comprised of potential barriers they’ve discovered.

We use Slack, so the lead doesn’t hide anything from others. We all discuss it. It’s a very open team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I understand the code, so I also understand the interaction between the developers. The people on top also do coding, which is a big plus. Everybody is involved, and coding is what they live for. There’s not much bureaucracy. They all enjoy it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve the amount of time it takes to onboard new developers as they grow. There have been slight delays in this area because we’ve had to familiarize people with what we’re doing. For the most part, though, they’ve executed on that very well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of eyerim. We are an authorized retailer of designer eyewear. We are currently active in 17 countries within the European Union, with the primary focus and strongest market being the CEE [Central and Eastern Europe], Balkans as well as the Nordics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Hatimeria?

We reached out to them at the inception of the company to build out our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were used to working with more established companies with a bigger budget. We reached out to them at the very beginning, and they were one of our first business partners. We are an e-commerce platform, which means they built everything we have completely from scratch.

We wanted to build an e-commerce portal that would be built from the very beginning with the aim of rapid growth and unlimited expansion in the view. We asked them to build a platform that would be based on a centralized rolling database, which supports an unlimited amount of customized localized frontend. This is how our platform works currently. There is a centralized Magento-based solution with 17 localized and language-translated websites throughout Europe running on that. We started with that and, along the way, they helped us to build the entire backend of the company. We are running a custom-made ERP solution to administer our warehouse, which was also built from scratch according to our requirements by Hatimeria. As it usually is with IT projects, it is a constantly evolving platform with a huge amount of tickets that are constantly in the queue. We started with a minimum viable product, and throughout the 3 years, we have built it to what we have right now which is a complete solution from the frontend to the backend, to warehouse administration, as well as collection through the accounting system.

What is the team composition?

The number of developers was constantly changing. To begin with, we decided to put something online, and there was a team of 3–4 people working on the project, and then it grew or decreased depending on whether we were in the season or not and the scope of the cooperation. The constant and stable core team dedicated to eyerim is usually 3–4 people. But, there are always more people involved on an ad hoc basis depending on whether we want to do. For example, with hardware configuration, as well as throughout the summer when our budget was crossing more than €30,000 per month, we had up to 6–7 people at a time at certain points.

How did you come to work with Hatimeria?

From the very beginning, we wanted to build our website with Magento. It was the only open source platform available out there for us because we knew we were going to build a huge addition with several hundred thousand SKUs. We liked them because they are a company that specializes in Magento as well as e-commerce. It was a perfect match for us. We also opted for them due to the structure of their team as they have a frontend Magento expert, backend Magento expert, and a core Magento configurator expert to integrate payment gateways, checkout system, etc.

We initially wanted to build our own in-house team of developers. I reached out to senior Magento developers through oDesk, which is how I found Bartosz Zakreta [CEO, Hatimeria], and we agreed on the cooperation.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent approximately €500,000 on the website over the last 3 years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in January of 2015, and the work is ongoing. I don’t foresee stopping working with them in the near future because our companies are interconnected and very dependent, and they have full knowledge of our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We receive very positive feedback from our day-to-day users. Even though they are unaware of what is going on in the backend, they appreciate the speed and the simplistic design of the website that we have built. When it comes to experts, we are also getting positive reviews of the website as well. Our Google support team is very happy when it comes to conversions.

During our last fundraising route that we closed in August of this year, part of the due diligence process was a technical due diligence. The person in charge was Filip Kopecky, who is the CTO of ZOOT, one of CEE's biggest e-commerce players, and he approved everything. His feedback was very positive, and he even mentioned in his letter to shareholders that some of the features he found on our website were very inspiring to him.

How did Hatimeria perform from a project management standpoint?

We have regular Skype calls 3–4 times per week, and at the moment we also have a dedicated team of 3 developers who work on eyerim. The day-to-day management of the project is pretty standard. We work with JIRA, and the communication regarding individual tickets happens within that tool. The weekly calls that we have are more about priorities such as budgeting, ticketing, and strategy aligning IT with the mission of our business.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have a really good personal connection with Bartosz, and especially with Michal Wujas, the other co-founder. I really appreciate how they do things and how they built up the company. I like their company culture. The biggest upside and what I like is that they are an IT company specializing only in Magento and in e-commerce, which is exactly what we need.

From the very beginning of the cooperation, I wanted them and their development team to feel as if the project was their own. If we had a ticket that didn’t make sense, we want them to give us feedback and push back. The idea of the cooperation is that we are building it together and they take care of the website as if it is their own.

I also appreciate their proactive response to a new patch, or a newer version of Magento, or new technology out there. They are always proactive when it comes to security. I really like their push toward elasticity, page speed, and load speed performance, in addition to the general services they provide when it comes to administering, hosting, or monitoring the server performance as well as downtimes, and sending proactive reports, updates and so on.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their biggest improvement was when our project grew big enough for them to assign a team leader with a senior developer available at all times.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated by the client on February 4th, 2020. The original star ratings were: Overall – 4.5, Quality – 5, Schedule – 4.5, Cost – 4.5, NPS – 5. New content is below.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project has expanded since the last review but continues to move in the same direction. We made the backend even stronger by making it a stand-alone solution as opposed to a tool embedded within a Magento system. We’re also in the process of replacing the entire frontend solution from scratch and turning it into a mobile-first website that'sPWA-based (progressive web app).

What is the team composition?

We still have the same level of trust and mutual liking with the company’s co-founders. We still work with the same lead developer Patryk (Magento Team Leader / Senior Developer, Hatimeria), but the people who do ad-hoc development on the front- and backend sometimes change.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent nearly €1 million (approximately $1.08 million USD).

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

We’re still seeing positive feedback.