Ideas2IT Technologies

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Manager of a beauty & cosmetics company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Franchisor for hair salons

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Ideas2IT Technologies to accomplish?

• Help build and manage our website and mobile applications

SOLUTION

How did you find Ideas2IT Technologies?

Already a vendor

Why did you select Ideas2IT Technologies over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget

How many teammates from Ideas2IT Technologies were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

To build and maintain our websites and mobile applications across multiple salon brands, with the primary goal for users to be able to book a hair appointment online.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

First major milestone was to build and replace our legacy websites before our contract expired with our previous vendor. 2nd was that we could build our mobile applications using/share the same code as our websites, creating consistency and ease of maintenance, while allowing for theming based on the brand. Reduce the cost & overhead required from Regis to host, maintaining and run website/ mobile applications

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

Excellent, always easy to communicate with and met our timeline as planned.

What was your primary form of communication with Ideas2IT Technologies?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their ability to execute on our user stories and with a lack detail guidelines. Also being very flexible in our approach to sprint planning and changing priorities.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Ideas2IT Technologies could have done differently?

For the scope of this engagement and project, no. They have done and continue to do excellent work and the team that they have assembled has been perfect fit.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Engineering of a healthcare company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

SaMD device acting as an aid to the differential diagnosis of dementia.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Ideas2IT Technologies to accomplish?

• Improve team velocity
• Globalisation of company infrastructure

SOLUTION

How did you find Ideas2IT Technologies?

Online Search

Why did you select Ideas2IT Technologies over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Ideas2IT Technologies were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

This is an ongoing engagement primarily for adding velocity to the internal team. The main focus so far has been on updating our infrastructure to terraform and distributing it in multiple regions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Ability to easily replicate our infrastructure in any AWS region. Working proof in non-prod environments. The release to production of the updated infrastructure.

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

The main deadline was missed but this was partly down to changes in internal team members and having to onboard new ones from Ideas2IT and partly a legacy issue. When we raised issues with them they responded quickly and effectively.

What was your primary form of communication with Ideas2IT Technologies?

Virtual Meeting

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

They care about what they do.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Ideas2IT Technologies could have done differently?

Speed of delivery has been a bit of a concern from certain team members but Ideas2IT have worked hard to improve the situation.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the vice president of engineering for a company that builds and delivers electronic health records, solutions, and services. My team and I are responsible for designing, building, and operating our SAAS post-acute healthcare platform in the cloud.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ideas2IT Technologies?

I needed an offshore extension of my team for quick scalability.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ideas2IT Technologies works on several projects and acts as an additional team. As function features are prioritized by product, we allocate the work to Ideas2IT Technologies. They just completed phase 1 of our mobile application, and we’re now going into phase 2. They also do a lot of work for our largest customer. Outside of mobile app development, they largely do web app design and dev.

Ideas2IT works on our stack that consist of Enterprise Java, Angular, SQL and NoSQL databases in AWS. 

What is the team composition?

The team size varies from 10–20, depending on the project. They provide a project manager and a mix of developers and QA analysts.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT Technologies?

They were hired before I joined the company. But I reviewed their work and was pleased with what they’d done, so we kept them on.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has always been excellent. They immediately address any bugs or issues that come up. We have a continuous delivery model and their work is used by our customers as soon as it is delivered

How did Ideas2IT Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager is very technical, extremely responsive and takes ownership to ensure everything is done right and on time. They understand the scope of our projects and ask questions for clarification as needed. We use several communication channels – adhoc chat and daily meetings (phone/web conference) to plan and monitor progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is sharp and goes the extra mile to deliver great software. They understand our business, priorities, and urgencies. I know I can assign them work and they will deliver quality work on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their proposals. They could be more polished and detailed to address our specific concerns.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Outside of prioritizing work and monitoring delivery, I would suggest that you talk regularly with their CEO to learn about cutting-edge technologies as applicable to your domain.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a new type of company offering a way to save a person or a close relative’s information forever online. I’m the founder. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ideas2IT?

I needed someone to development our MVP. We were going from no product to something that was working. We wanted to evolve the product over time. We are currently evaluating the product with end users. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ideas2IT was responsible for creative design and technical development; they also had some leeway with the architecture. We gave them some constraints, but they could also come up with their own proposals of what to do from an architecture perspective. The project was a collaborative effort throughout the design and coding. We gave input and changed direction on certain things. The project took approximately 8 weeks.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT?

We used a sourcing company called ContractIQ to evaluate and find a bunch of different companies that do web-based software development. We explained our project to ContractIQ, and they found 6 suppliers. We met with each individually, and they all provided a proposal. We evaluated those proposals and selected Ideas2IT.

How much have you invested with Ideas2IT?

For this phase, we expected the cost to be between $12,000 and $25,000. We had bids throughout that range, and Ideas2IT had a very competitive price.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January of 2017, and the first phase was completed in April of 2017. Our intention is to go back to them for additional work. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was successful. We got more than we expected. When we issued the RFP [request for proposal], we hadn’t focused too much on the creative design. We hadn’t thought that e-commerce would be part of the first phase. Ideas2IT was able to improve our creative design vastly. It’s truly a live, working site at this point. We have lists of bugs that were resolved and minor bugs that are still out there. We started user testing last week.

How did Ideas2IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We had strong collaboration. We met with them in person and had meetings every other day on the project status.

What did you find most impressive about Ideas2IT?

I was impressed with the way they were able to bring in additional resources without my knowledge. We worked on a fixed-price basis with them, and they exceeded what was in the contract for that fixed price from a features perspective.

Are there any areas Ideas2IT could improve?

No. We’re in different time zones, so we expected that to be a problem, but they were very flexible.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Ideas2IT?

It’s always good to know the key people on the team and build relationships with them. Let them know what’s important to you so they can focus on that. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We provide a social shopping app whereby SMBs [small- and medium-sized businesses] can list instant-redemption deals.

What is your position?

I am a co-founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ideas2IT?

We needed help developing the solution and didn't have app-development expertise in our team. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

My engineering team is creating the backend related to the deal creation, while Ideas2IT is providing iOS app development. We helped create mockups for the visuals and flow of the app, while Ideas2IT is working on the entire infrastructure behind it. We plan to build an Android version in the future as well.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT?

I had used Ideas2IT for outsourcing work with a previous company and initially found them on Stack Overflow. We tasked them with some simple projects and came to like the company a lot. We could present a project to Ideas2IT and have them come back with a detailed flow and roadmap for the development. When it came to launching my own business, I came to Ideas2IT because we'd had some great experiences in the past.

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

The cost of Ideas2IT's work has been under $10,000. The scope has been small so far, but as we will start to scale and include an Android version, we will get another bid from Ideas2IT for the additional components. We are currently determining if the concept will take off.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Ideas2IT 2 years ago. Our backend team has been slower than theirs, and we're always playing catch-up. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Ideas2IT is way faster than our team. This is a part-time project which I hope to turn into a fulltime job, but, at the moment, we are only putting in a couple of hours per week. It's taking longer than anticipated, but Ideas2IT was able to knock out their component quickly and with good quality. We haven't had to go back to them for any fixes.

We are planning to launch a beta version in 6–7 weeks. Ideas2IT has 4 more weeks of work on their deliverables, and I have no reason to doubt that they won't hit the target. After that, it will be up to my team to test the app and make sure that the beta is ready for the app store.

How did Ideas2IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Ideas2IT built a beautiful roadmap for our deliverables, letting us know exactly what we would be receiving and on what dates. They're good at sticking to those milestones.

What distinguishes Ideas2IT from other providers?

We have a very good one-on-one experience with Ideas2IT. The thing that impressed me is that they really do want to listen and talk to us about our goals and vision. Based on that, Ideas2IT will create a detailed outline of the expectations. Before the first line of code is written, we will have a follow-up meeting, making sure that we are in-line in terms of vision and capabilities. I can't say enough good things about Ideas2IT.

Is there anything Ideas2IT could have improved or done differently?

The one difficult issue has been the time zone difference, which is not avoidable. My main contact from Ideas2IT's side has stayed up until midnight their time in order to chat with us. She is good in that respect, but the collaboration has been a bit tricky.

Do you have any recommendations for others considering working with Ideas2IT?

Come in with a clear vision. If someone on the client's team can mock-out the flows and how the solution should work, Ideas2IT will build exactly what is required. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of two companies for which I engage Ideas2IT. For one, we focus on helping families understand their health risks and preventative care strategies; and for the other, we help wealth managers better engage with their clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ideas2IT?

We have an ongoing relationship with Ideas2IT. This isn’t a single-project hire; we consider them a partner in ongoing development. We’ve been working with them for two and a half years on one of my companies and almost a year on the other.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They develop our web and mobile platforms. They’re building out an enterprise solution that can scale with big organizations that need state-of-the-art security built into their platforms. We look at Ideas2IT as an expert partner that can help guide us so that we’re taking that state-of-the-art approach.

They’ve helped us with creating our enterprise architecture; they’ve helped us with our analytics and databases. They really are a top-notch group.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT?

We interviewed a series of potential firms. I really liked the CEO of Ideas2IT: he’s just a really no-nonsense, to-the-point kind of guy. With his background as a Google engineer, he understands how to build great things and he’s really instilled that in the team he’s hired.

How much have you invested with Ideas2IT?

I don’t feel comfortable giving out that information.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been with them since September of 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have any specific statistics. The only thing I can say is that they helped us make a complicated system look very simple for consumers to use, and we’ve been proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish with them. For each new member we bring onto our platform, we’re seeing them bring in 13-17 other members. It takes an incredible amount of skill to make something that other family members will want to join. They made an experience that resonates with multiple people.

How did Ideas2IT perform from a project management standpoint?

I’ve been very pleased with them. Even when we’ve run into some challenges, I’ve been pleased to see that they take it seriously and they jump right in to find the right solution. I’ve referred many people to them who are now clients because I’ve been so pleased with their approach.

What did you find most impressive about Ideas2IT?

What I’ve really appreciated is that our team at Ideas2IT feels like an extension of our company. I really don’t see a difference between the two. I feel like they get as excited and as proud of the wins and successes and are just as committed to what we’re doing as we are. In fact, last year I flew over to spend time with their team in India because I wanted them to know that they’re as important as our other team members and we really appreciate what they do.

Another thing that always impresses me is that you see a lot of female leadership there. The tech industry is always talking about the lack of women, and I feel like they have a good representation of strong female leaders on the developer side and the project management side.

Are there any areas Ideas2IT could improve?

One thing they could improve, which I actually just brought up to them today, is making sure that there’s more clarity as we’re building different features. Instead of just making a decision on what they want to do with whatever feature we’re working on, they really need to talk through the different options with us first. Sometimes there’s some miscommunication there. But they’re very open to improving on that; I chalk it up to a learning experience on both sides.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Ideas2IT?

People can be hesitant to partner with an offshore company, and I’ve always said you’re thinking about it the wrong way. If you build a longstanding relationship with a company like Ideas2IT, they become an extension of what you do. The beauty of working with Ideas2IT is that when we have bigger projects that need to be taken care of, we can instantly scale up with them and have a seamless introduction of new people onto the team. You can’t always predict when you’ll need additional help on the development side, so it’s a very smart way to make sure you have all your bases covered.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

IdeaLyst is building an app for online project and program management.

What is your position?

I am the founder of the company and the product owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ideas2IT?

My team didn't include any development talent. One of our problems was that cultivating resources in the Bay Area can be very difficult for a startup, given the salary ranges, but any outsourced teams don't really have problem-solvers. 

We were drawn to Ideas2IT because of their methodology for hiring people. They look for problem-solvers, giving them puzzles to deal with and so on. Ideas2IT fit our mold, bringing the value of a Chief Technology Officer without the actual capital.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Ideas2IT is working on backend and frontend web development for our company. They also provided some consultation for the site's UI/UX. We plan to also engage Ideas2IT for mobile development.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT?

We leveraged the network which we established in the Bay Area. I am of Indian heritage, so I have a lot of family there. We tried engaging with people through freelancing websites like Fiverr, oDesk, and Elance. We were also working with another team in India, but that wasn't working out. By chance, we were able to network with the founder of Ideas2IT and things took off from there. Within three weeks, we transferred the work to them.

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

The total development cost with Ideas2IT has been between $50,000 and $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Ideas2IT in November 2015. Our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've had to scrap the app that was built by our old team and have a fresh start with Ideas2IT. By mid-January, we were actually able to release a minimum viable product for a very complex concept. We're now moving to the next stage.

I appreciated the fact that Ideas2IT was able to compartmentalize functionality, allowing us to leverage the lean startup methodology. I never found this with the other team we used.

What distinguishes Ideas2IT from other providers?

Ideas2IT's problem-solving capabilities make them stand out.

Is there anything Ideas2IT could have improved or done differently?

Ideas2IT is able to get deep into problems and understand them. They're also usually able to communicate, but there have been a few gaps which could be filled.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a service software startup company. We have developed various customer applications.

What is your position?

I am the managing director of the company. I am also actively involved in our projects, acting as project manager for our collaboration with Ideas2IT.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ideas2IT?

We had been working with offshore companies for a long time. I had sworn that we would never do this again. The problem was that the project management suffered because of the distance involved. There was a level of complexity and opaqueness for the process, making it difficult to run short-term projects smoothly. This was the challenge which we hoped to solve with Ideas2IT.

I met with Ideas2IT's president, discussing the fact that any economic value that an offshore company would bring is offset by the complexity of running it. He assured me that this would not be the case, and we came to work together on two engagements.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We are building a CRM application for a niche industry. The first step of the process was customizing the Salesforce instance for 2 of our clients, catering to their specific market. The second step was building a brand-new CRM for them, including the functionality embedded within Salesforce.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT?

I had worked with several companies in the past. Our biggest challenge was the fact that, as a startup, we didn't have the time and ability to write down detailed specs for each process. We had a broad vision for what we wanted to accomplish, but not the time and energy for drafting requirements and testing documentation. When building a greenfield project, it will be difficult to envision every feature that we may want for it. The product evolves as we go through the development process. One of the key things that we were looking for was a company that had actually gone through this process, taking a product from an idea to a finished version.

We invited several companies, one from Ukraine, one from Russia, and three from India, as we had more contacts in the Indian space. The first thing that stood out in the interviewing process was Ideas2IT's understanding of the product development process, along with its challenges. They also had had experience working with software solutions companies.

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

The total cost of the first phase of the project was $50,000, while the second phase was $120,000. Phase 3 had a cost of $320,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first part of our project was started in June 2015 and completed in January 2016. The second step, which is a related project to our first one, started in October 2015. We're now working on further enhancements and on starting a third phase.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our initial impression, working through the project with Ideas2IT, was that we had been right: project development engagements should not be done offshore. We ran into a very predictable set of problems, but within the first month of the engagement, Ideas2IT became more involved in the process and brought in the right resources, without a big economic impact. It was impressive how quickly Ideas2IT was able to assign and rearrange resources, getting the right ones into the mix. This made us forget about the first month of bad experiences and look only at the several good months that followed.

What distinguishes Ideas2IT from other providers?

From a remote working standpoint, the biggest advantage brought by Ideas2IT was the speed with which they were able to adapt to the user experience of an unrelated customer. We built an application for a niche market. Ideas2IT was able to get the development team to experience the user worldview, enhancing and expanding on it, without a big impact on the project schedule.

Is there anything Ideas2IT could have improved or done differently?

Ideas2IT should offer more metrics around the software development process itself. We were working within an Agile software methodology. This would have benefited from a more formalized measuring and communication process.

BACKGROUND

Please provide us with a brief description of your company.

We make exercise apps for the App Store and the Play Store. These are 20-minute workouts that anyone can do at home without any equipment.

What is your role at the company?

I am founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were trying to address with Ideas2IT?

My challenges were to increase my ad revenue by implementing more profitable ads, to create new workout apps quickly with a white-label approach, to build a 10,000 person+ email list from my users, and add more usage-tracking features in the apps.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Ideas2IT took on 100% of the development work for iOS and Android, as well as integration of third party ad systems.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT?

I heard about Ideas2IT through the NYC tech community, where they already have a strong reputation as a reliable and knowledgeable agency.

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

My work with Ideas2IT will fall within the $50,000 - $100,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project is ongoing, but I’ve been very happy with our pace of development. We’ve achieved so much in just 7 months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Since working with Ideas2IT, we’ve tripled our ad revenue, doubled our daily email collection numbers, made the apps launch 40% faster, and we've reduced crashes by at least 50%.

What distinguishes Ideas2IT from other providers?

The team anticipates potential problems in advance, and they help me think through strategic questions. It’s like having a CTO! I’ve worked with many consulting shops and Ideas2IT is easily the best experience I’ve had in over a decade.

Is there anything Ideas2IT could have improved or done differently?

Sometimes the time zone difference between NYC and Chennai slows down our pace of development and communication.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a startup called Becuz. We are a photo sharing app that enables friends to create photo collections together for any shared purpose.

What is your position?

I am the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the startup. I have also been responsible for creating and managing the development of the product itself. I’ve developed the user experience. I’ve invented the product and I’ve participated in the project management with the help of other technically experienced people. I am not a programmer by any means.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ideas2IT?

The first task that we hired them for was to get our product to a status that was sufficient to present to investors. I’ve referred to it as the minimum presentable product versus the minimum viable product. We got it to the point that we were able to present it to our advisors and they were pleased.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

The only aspect of training that was involved was for the implemented programming approach that’s we have which is called Meteor. It’s relatively new and it’s not something that the developers at Ideas2IT were experienced with at that point.

So they provided training for their own developers in order to learn that application and then utilized that which they had invested in in order to be able to do the programming that they’ve done for us. We’ve done the designing and the concept. They have implemented each piece via line item instructions.

How did you come to work with Ideas2IT?

We have an advisor on our board of advisors who is a very accomplished and experienced executive. He was the Chief Operating Officer of Xanga. He introduced me to the founder of Ideas2IT. Then I spoke on the phone with the founder and really liked what he had to say.

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

I’m looking to make it indefinite. So I don’t know what the whole cost will be. I’m hoping to engage two resources on a full time basis, and also a third resource for quality assurance. I don’t know if that will be full time or not.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement is wrapped up. They finished the task that we contracted them for. I will be going back to hire them again for the next step. I am 100% satisfied with every aspect of what they have delivered for us. I think it was wrapped up in November, 2015. The idea was to take what they had and show it to people to determine what comes next.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The version that we’d completed before being introduced to them failed for many technical reasons. The people we were working with were not able to build what we needed. Ideas2IT was able to successfully program every single feature that we requested of them. Then, when we put our product in front of some of the same testers and new testers, that product succeeded. They had the technical competence to deliver on what we needed.

How did Ideas2IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Ideas2IT is very good at what they do technically. They’re very good at being on time and at communicating. Ideas2IT has provided me with such consistent and thorough customer satisfaction that my plan is to integrate them into our full time business model because I have extreme confidence in them.

What distinguishes Ideas2IT from other providers?

Their customer service is off the charts. They provided me with communication that gives me the comfort of knowing that we’re on the same page and that my money is being spent very efficiently. 

Is there anything Ideas2IT could have improved or done differently?

No. The founder has established a culture that provides phenomenal customer service. The technical results of the product that I contracted them to build is every bit as effective as I hoped it would be and it’s been accomplished more cost effectively than I thought would be possible.