HQSoftware

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of OneTee, an online reservation system for golf courses. Basically, we integrate with the golf course’s local tee sheet or their central reservations system. We take their available inventory, which are tee times, and put them online. The system self-manages from there. Our system allows customers to make reservations, book tee times, and pay for them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HQSoftware?

I work for a company that owns and operates 5 golf courses. Most of the tee sheets that we have are low-tech and they’re local. We didn’t have the option to put tee sheets online. There were other companies out there that can do what we needed, but they charge an arm and a leg. I did hire a few developers before. Some worked out, some didn’t. I started with 2 developers before HQ. One was a single developer. We worked for a couple months but that really never panned out. Then I went with a team, another company called DataArt. DataArt helped us build the initial project. We ran that for about 6 months, but it really wasn’t up to speed or up to what I wanted.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Another company did the initial designs, development, and hosting. When we worked with HQ, we got in a little deeper with the development. We asked them to optimize the way that tee times are grabbed and how it reads or integrates with the API from the local tee sheet. HQSoftware really optimized it so it was a lot quicker. The UI/UX was a lot better. Then we added features that we wanted from the beginning but either didn’t have the money or we didn’t prioritize them at that time. PHP was used. It’s all web-based; there are no native apps yet. That’s something we’ll be working on next year.

How did you come to work with HQSoftware?

I decided to look for a team because we needed everything from the ground up, from the design to development. I started locally and I interviewed a couple of companies. One of the companies that did not make the cut had a girl that I really liked. She ended up moving to HQSoftware. When it was time to start up the rebuild this year, I contacted her. She said she’s with this new company, so I checked them out. That’s how I found them. After a few meetings, I chose HQSoftware.

How much have you invested with HQSoftware?

We spent $35,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in January 2016 and ended in July 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Year to date, since we’ve been with HQ, we’ve booked about 6,500 reservations. Right now, that’s $500,000 in revenue for 5 golf courses.

How did HQSoftware perform from a project management standpoint?

That was one of the best parts. The project manager, Angelina, really had a great understanding of the technology side. Her team responded to our requests quickly and efficiently. She was always getting back to me. We’re on an East Coast time zone here; she’s 6, 7 hours ahead. She’d be available till mid-afternoon our time, which was almost midnight her time. She was always able to wrap our conversations up and put them into a timeline. She organized and kept everything on task. She was one of the best parts of working with HQSmart.

What did you find most impressive about HQSoftware?

They’re a smaller shop. I liked how they were able to work with me about our payment schedule. HQSoftware were flexible and let me dictate the terms depending on what would make sense. We could do it bi-weekly. If I wanted to wrap it up after 40 hours, 80 hours’ worth of work, we could make payments then. I think that came down from the owner who made it possible for us to work with him.

Are there any areas HQSoftware could improve?

No, I was pretty happy with them. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Benelizer is a startup company. What we do is a cloud-based service visualizing for companies the project portfolio they have ongoing, and it stresses which initiatives to best support to best achieve their strategy.

What is your position?

I’m the founder and CTO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with HQSoftware?

It’s a startup company, and we basically developed the cloud service from scratch. We needed a partner that could complement our own resources with development resources.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They do PHP development for the cloud service for us.

How did you come to work with HQSoftware?

It was a classic internet Google search for partners, and it took us about three weeks to identify a partner that responded well and who seemed to have the capability and the quality of the services we needed. It was poking around for a few weeks and then deciding on which potential outsourcing provider to go with.

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

The cost they bill us is about $6,000 to $10,000 per month. Actually, we plan on a long-term relationship, so it will be on an annual ongoing basis. We expect to continue the relationship at that sort of level. So far it’s roughly about $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in February or March, so it’s about six months now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The way we work is that we have an agile development process, so we have deliverables every week. The projects are relatively small, so it’s like a chain of projects. So far they have delivered I think four or five major deliveries, which have all been on time, on budget, and in very good quality and a good dialogue in the process.

How did HQSoftware perform from a project management standpoint?

Actually I wouldn’t comment too much on that because the project size is so small that no classic project management was required. They have managed the scope, and the specifications, and the deliverable delivery just fine, but the project size is not so big so you can really evaluate their capabilities in terms of project management from the work we have done with them.

What distinguishes HQSoftware from other providers?

I’ve worked with a few outsourcing companies, and I think HQSoftware are very responsive and they provide unusually high level of constructive feedback. We have a specification; they may come up with some idea on how to improve it, which is much appreciated. I think that’s a bit of a differentiator to many other outsourcing companies.

Is there anything HQSoftware could have improved or done differently?

No, I couldn’t really think of anything at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a website development and Internet marketing company.

What is your position?

I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with HQSoftware?

We got into a situation where we had more work than we could get done. We were looking for a partner to supplement our team and alleviate some of the bottlenecks we had.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

HQSoftware has been responsible for development in various projects. Usually, we'll create the designs, but HQSoftware will do everything from design to development to planning. We have a good working relationship where if I do the designs, we work together to figure out what's going to work best. It's like they're in the office with me. They used two technologies – PHP and .NET – for these projects.

How did you come to work with HQSoftware?

I found them on oDesk. I found one designer who worked for HQSoftware. We started on one small project as a test, and it just kind of grew from there.

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

All the projects together cost between $200,000 to $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

It's ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

There really hasn't been any problem. I've never had a client say, "Oh, this is a mess. This isn't working." Everything is complementary. When somebody needs a change, HQSoftware is good about making changes fast and being accessible even with the time change between here and there. As far as revenue with them, I would say that it's probably close to $100,000 a year in profit. 

How did HQSoftware perform from a project management standpoint?

One of the reasons why I wanted to find somebody else was that it's hard to find good people with quality. Working with HQSoftware has been amazing. It's freed me up from tons of time and stress, and the results are exceptional.

Is there anything HQSoftware could have improved or done differently?

It's not a problem anymore and part of it was probably me with communication and things. But, when we first started working, the quotes were  a bit off. Things were over budget. But, now, we work much closer, and we make sure we have all the details in the beginning. For the past two years, everything has been super smooth. If anything, we're always coming in under budget now.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is CleverLEAF Technologies. We are an IT [information technology] outsourcing provider for our customers. We focus on web, mobile, and data management application development.

What is your position?

I am the business development director of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with HQSoftware?

They provided us with support and resources in web based application and mobile application development. The app is a matching system for foreign exchange spot transactions.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We combine our development team with HQSoftware's team for this project. We built the concept of the whole solution internally. We also provide the project management and system architecture. HQSoftware developed the front end of the web-based application using PHP. They were also responsible for mobile development for iOS and Android. They provided the back-end development and the data management solutions.

How did you come to work with HQSoftware?

They were recommended to us. 

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

The project cost less than $100,000

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working together since 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I don't have any numbers to share, but it's a widely used application. We've received a lot of positive feedback.

How did HQSoftware perform from a project management standpoint?

HQSoftware's project management is very good. We've been working with them for a long time. This would not be the case is the quality of work and project management didn't meet our standards. We are very satisfied with our partnership.

What distinguishes HQSoftware from other providers?

They are very responsive. We like working with them.

Is there anything HQSoftware could have improved or done differently?

Sometimes, communication could have been a little better. It depends on the project manager.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I run a consulting company. I was in the printing business for many years but, during the last 10 years, I've been doing web-to-print applications and print automation. I had a request from the United Nations Development Department to help them build something in Belarus because of my background in printing, communication, and software development.

What is your position?

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with HQSoftware?

The United Nations Development Department offered the state of Belarus an electronic trade facility for their textile industry, which would provide a way for companies to put their products online. In this case, we had about 250 companies who wanted to promote their products outside of Belarus.

The challenge was that we had to work in a country like Belarus. I was not familiar with that country. It was my first experience over there. But, I was surprised to see the high level of computer programmers there, which was good. In the city of Minsk alone, they have 8,000 highly skilled programmers.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

HQSoftware was fully responsible for the development of TradeBel, an e-commerce website designed to promote goods for various Belarusian companies. HQSoftware was involved in the design, .NET development, and testing of the website.

Once we chose HQSoftware, I was in very close contact with them to help them understand the software requirements and specifications so that we could actually see they were meeting those requirements. I was very surprised to see the professional level of the people I was working with. They were good in their software requirement specifications, and we ended up coming up with a deliverable list of about 40 different things I wanted to check before we could approve the development of the software and release the funding. I finally settled on 37 of them. They worked under these conditions, and I was 100 percent satisfied.

We ran into a few issues that had to be corrected  at the end of the project, but we managed to finish the project two weeks before the deadline, which was very unusual. Software companies are always behind, but HQSoftware finished our project ahead of time. I had phenomenal communication with them all through the project. I was happy with their work, as was the United Nations Development Department. They actually told me it was the first software development project they've had that was delivered on time and on budget.

How did you come to work with HQSoftware?

We first developed a requirement specification, and then put that into a public tender. We then chose five companies who could provide the services we were looking for. Based on skills, price, and many other factors, the United Nations Development Department chose HQSoftware as the provider.

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

The United Nations development department spent around $100,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project took about a year and a half. There was some delay between the time when they came up with their proposal and finally received approval from the United Nations, which had to have all the formal confirmation in place before we could go on to the next steps. We started in the summer of 2013, and we ended delivering the results in the spring of 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

My job was to put the electronic trade facility online and to manage the staff needed to get it off the ground. You can imagine working with 250 different companies in Belarus. They couldn't provide the exact details we needed – like images, text, and prices – in a consistent form that we could put into the database. We had to have people to do that for them and put everything into a spreadsheet so we could import everything. All that was taken care of by the United Nations development department after I left the project. I know for sure the project is still running, and they are very happy with the results. I have had absolutely no complaints at all.

How did HQSoftware perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management from their side was perfect. I couldn't point out a single problem, which was unusual for me. I've worked with people in Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and many other places where they had good programmers, but HQSoftware was spot on with everything.

What distinguishes HQSoftware from other providers?

HQSoftware will go the extra mile to understand what kind of project they are involved in. In some cases, I took them out to see clients so they could see what kind of material we expected them to deliver. Because they saw how poorly that was being done, they actually took the initiative to put up a website so they could input the material directly, which helped a lot because everything came out in a consistent format which was easy to put in the database. They made the extra effort to understand the project, and I think they wanted to have this as a strong reference for their international business.

Is there anything HQSoftware could have improved or done differently?

Their work was excellent. I had these requirements that they had to meet. They did that perfectly, and the ministry of their own industrial services in Belarus approved everything. I don't see how they could've done better.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Draxon GmbH

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

VR Training Software

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire HQSoftware to accomplish?

• Build a VR Training Tutorial
• Build a few VR Training lessons

SOLUTION

How did you find HQSoftware?

Online Search

Why did you select HQSoftware over others?

Good value for cost

How many teammates from HQSoftware were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Build a VR Training tutorial

Build a few VR Training lessons

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We had the tutorial and the lessons we asked for.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Good project management. Responses on time. Daily check in.

What was your primary form of communication with HQSoftware?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I was impressed with their good quality of work. Strong QA. Good ability to respond to our needs. 

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

We would have preferred to work even more directly with the developers.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Innovator of Sprinklervire Inc

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire HQSoftware to accomplish?

• develop an IOT cloud solution

SOLUTION

How did you find HQSoftware?

Online Search

Why did you select HQSoftware over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from HQSoftware were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• HQ is well staffed and with highly skilled ressources. 
• Their always on and helping attitued makes it a pleasure to work with. 
• They know the importance of asking questions and to disagree in a polite manner. 
• We got a cloudbased monitoring solution from basic ideas to a fully value chain platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A well functioned cloud solution that took os from a small monitoring platform to a scalable solution.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• The entry project meetings was very detailed. 
• An new PM was sat on the project and he did his outmost to deliver and keep development timing.

What was your primary form of communication with HQSoftware?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

HQSoftware's patience and flexibility are outstanding.

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

didnt find any.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Solutions Unit

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Solution Architecture and Software Development

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire HQSoftware to accomplish?

• Build Borsa Istanbul (BIST) trading integration using FIX protocol

SOLUTION

How did you find HQSoftware?

Online Search

Why did you select HQSoftware over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from HQSoftware were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Build Borsa Istanbul (BIST) trading gateway consisting of Web APIs and background jobs

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• On-time and within budget delivery
• Quality of code

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Very effective communication
• Great technical expertise

What was your primary form of communication with HQSoftware?

Email or Messaging App

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

I’m impressed with their quality and speed of delivery. 

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

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a member at Dementia Reality

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We educate professionals and community members on aging topics such as support of a person living with dementia.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire HQSoftware to accomplish?

• Virtual Reality Education

SOLUTION

How did you find HQSoftware?

Online Search

Why did you select HQSoftware over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from HQSoftware were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Rebuilt our backend of the website to register for classes, rebuilt our virtual reality platform, prepared for the Occulus store, and prepared the end user for the experience.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The team rebuilt our educational platform and virtual reality experience within budget and the timeframe they gave us. We are extremely pleased with their response time, quality, and support. The product goes live in 1-2 weeks and they will help us throughout the "live" experience. They will also help us with the new buildout when grants are received.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Delivered on time and very responsive.

What was your primary form of communication with HQSoftware?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The employees are very supportive, engaging, and pleasant to work with. They are knowledgeable and shared their knowledge in words we can understand. We are not IT people.

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

No