INSART

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the CEO of a financial services company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Ai powered matching for clients and financial advisors

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Help the startup become profitable through product design and execution

SOLUTION

How did you find INSART?

Referral

Why did you select INSART over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from INSART were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Led product development and technical project management end-to-end: roadmap planning, regular release cadence, release management Built subscription billing and paid feature tiers for advisors - established the first repeatable revenue stream Significantly improved the advisor-consumer matching system Led full product redesign to improve consumer experience Onboarded 5 new partners into pilot programs, including The Hartford via MassChallenge Supported the founder in the sales process: partner discovery calls, demo preparation, follow-up analysis, Confluence partner profiles Ran product discovery interviews with partners and advisors to validate hypotheses before committing engineering effort Built proofs-of-concept for new features to de-risk decisions before full development Managed the development team and onboarded a trainee at no additional client cost

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

 Successfully onboarded a trainee to the project (non-billable)

CouplrAI selected by MassChallenge

Advisor subscriptions during 1.5 year - first repeatable revenue stream for the startup

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

On time and very responsive.

What was your primary form of communication with INSART?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I was impressed with their deep fintech expertise, and they feel like part of my team. 

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of an online payments platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed an online payments platform to integrate with payment processors and allow users to make payments without the need to use an app or go to an actual store. The main goal was to implement a secure payments platform that has an easy and intuitive interface and works online without the need to install any client application.

We wanted to define the possible pitfalls and losses with the business analyst to avoid them in a new platform and develop the platform from the concept to the market. The platform had to be secure, reliable, and scalable.

SOLUTION

How did you select INSART and what were the deciding factors?

INSART is extremely experienced in building Fintech software and has focused on this niche for many years. We heard about their expertise from our colleagues in Fintech. That’s why we didn’t hesitate to entrust this project to them.

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

To start the project, INSART undertook a business analysis and created a detailed Project Charter. Because the project was developed from scratch, SRS was also provided. Java-based technologies were chosen for technical implementation because Java has proven to be the most reliable, scalable, and secure technology for big Fintech projects.

After the product backlog was defined, the team implemented the features: mass payments, payments for goods and services, internal currency exchange, internal settlements between the system users, API for interaction with online shops and services, etc.

Likewise, INSART’s engineering team implemented DDoS protection, data backup and data replication, transaction reconciliation, and compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to ensure the platform's security. In three years, INSART has developed the client’s payment system from scratch.

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

Our dedicated team included a project manager with fintech expertise and high skills in management under pressure, a business analyst, a technical lead, three developers, and QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In three years, INSART has developed the client’s payment system from scratch. After the first release, the system has already been working for two years. Today, the system has 250,000 clients and processes more than 2,000 transactions a day. The system is reliable, highly available, and scalable. It may process up to seven transactions per second—that is, up to 25,000 transactions per hour.

The platform complies with the PCI DSS, which confirms its high-security level. The security system protects the platform from DDoS attacks and other threats. A unique algorithm for generating wallet numbers provides fraud protection. Automatic balance verification allowed the system owner to save hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Our system successfully competes in the online payments market. In addition to popular currencies, such as US dollars, Euros, and British pounds, the platform enables its clients to work with Bitcoins as fiat currencies. The number of clients increases constantly. I’m 100 percent happy with both the development process and the result.

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

We approved Agile with a two-week sprint approach. After the first release, further development was provided, not according to iterations, but based on the tasks’ priority because it was more suitable for our product. The project manager was in constant touch with me.

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

The INSART team avoided many industry-related pitfalls proactively, which allowed spending project time as effectively as possible. They were always ready to provide the highest level of service.

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

We were pleased with INSART’s cooperation, and I cannot recommend any improvements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Openpay (Swissnet) - a FinTech online payment processing startup

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INSART?

We decided to create a payment processing platform that would facilitate payment processing for e-commerce companies.

What were your goals for this project?

INSART was expected to develop the platform from scratch to the MVP version and implement the platform security.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We selected INSART based on the accuracy of their final proposal and their proven willingness to work with us. The decision was made after communication with several software vendors.

Describe the project in detail.

INSART’s dedicated team developed the merchant dashboard where a merchant could see summarized data of his/her account. This dashboard enabled to edit the company profile, pricing plans, credentials, API keys, widgets, and manage layout options. Furthermore, they developed the partnership dashboard which was similar to the merchant dashboard, but made it possible to invite merchants and manage pricing plans. The next step was to create the administration desktop with the possibility to manage merchants’ desktops and payouts, manage reserves held by merchants and manage pricing plans. We successfully released the platform with the functionality which was discussed. After that our dedicated team also added the specific features to provide secure online payments (The Fraud Protection desktop).

What was the team composition?

The dedicated team consisted of a Project manager, Business Analyst, 4 Java developers and QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In about three years, INSART has developed an innovative online payment platform from scratch. The platform facilitated accepting payments by e-commerce merchants. Been first released after one year of development, the platform was workable and functional.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As a development methodology, Agile with two-week sprints was chosen. Each sprint began with sprint planning when we prioritized tasks and decided which of them had to be done during the sprint. During daily status meetings, the team could discuss progress and brainstorm solutions to challenges.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The ability to define and clarify the project needs and quickly and successfully implement them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing specific.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

BridgeFT is a financial technology company focused on automating data flows and time-consuming work for independent advisors. I am the Chief Product Officer and a CoFounder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INSART?

We were looking for a software outsourcing partner to migrate our platform from Angular.js to Angular as well as help with ongoing feature development.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to upgrade our platform from AngularJS to Angular in a 3 month time-frame.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I met Vasyl Soloshchuk through WealthTech Club (https://wealth.insart.com/). We were looking for a high-skilled engineer who had experience with both Angular migrations as well as the wealth management industry. Insart has lots of experience in the space and familiarity with the key players and datatypes.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

To help us with this project, INSART offered and successfully onboarded a Senior-level Front-end Engineer experienced in Angular migration. After the migration was finished, we continued our partnership. The developer has been a lead on some frontend integrations and feature development. There is a great communication cadence and work gets completed around the clock.

What was the team composition?

For the migration work, we hired the senior front-end software engineer who worked with our CTO and Tech Lead. In our ongoing work, the team consists of a Product Manager, Tech Lead, Back-End and Front-End Developers and INSART’s Front-end Engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

After the migration was executed the platform’s performance improved, we were able to scale our solution and use the modern programming approaches, such as RxJs, NgRx. We also have greatly accelerated our feature development as a result of INSART's developer and his familiarity with our code base. He is able to provide new ideas and suggestions, which is very helpful.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

For achieving the project goals, we closely communicate with INSART’s engineer through Slack, video-conferences, daily standups, and emails.We use Agile and Scrum methods with 2-week sprints. The developer also came onsite to Chicago for several weeks to push the migration through the final stages.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

INSART’s Engineer was very proficient and proactive about getting work and asking questions to avoid getting blocked on things. He can give technical advice and maintain clear communication with our in-house team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall, INSART has a great model and projects have progressed smoothly. We are working on improving our spec process so that tickets for engineers are better defined. We are considering working with a business analyst from INSART to help with this process.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a project manager at One Inc., which provides an integrated suite of digital payments and SaaS products in the insurance industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INSART?

We searched for a software outsourcing company, which could implement a Big Data analytics project for us.

What were your goals for this project?

The main goal was to make a bid data analytics through our records to clarify which categories of policyholders were more inclined to request compensation.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We searched for experienced a software vendor company which had the expertise in big data analytics. We found INSART and they persuaded me in their proficiency to implement the difficult tasks.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

INSART put together our dedicated team that was familiar with big data analytics. In the first stage, our INSART engineering team performed simple data querying inside the database.

This simple data processing allowed us to detect some anomalies in the data. Additionally, they employed simple descriptive statistics using R and in-database analytics to bucket the existing policies into the following groups: with zero/one/two/three or more claims.

Then, to identify outliers, the properties of the groups and data metrics, they compared with the data set in its entirety.

The data metrics they used for this purpose were based on the number of claims, or profit/loss ratios.

In the second stage, INSART team had to determine which of the existing coverage types were overpriced, and which were, conversely, underpriced.

They compared policy distribution over 6 or 12 months with the different coverage types across the four different groups. As a result, they defined the type of groups that had the highest claim values.

What was the team composition?

The project team consisted of four people that were involved in ongoing bases with others coming and going depending on the experience needed for the stage.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The results of this work used to define insurance fraud scenarios and decrease losses, while also improving the accuracy of the underwriting process and increasing the overall operating margins.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They used a “test-evaluate-test-again” approach in implementing the project and divide it into the 2 stages, which was the resultative approach in our case. The used tools and techniques included Excel (BI), ParAccel Database, R language etc.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

INSART proveded us with competitive data engineers, which were closely involved in the researching process and came up with bright ideas on how to execute big data analysis for our goals.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, they showed an attentive and proficient attitude throughout our engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We have an app that teachers use to communicate and coordinate with parents. We've been in business for about four years, and we have about 2 million users. I'm the CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with INSART?

We have a development team who works in Ruby on Rails and React. We turned to INSART to add people to our team and advise us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They brought in a database expert to consult with us and solve some member problems. Our service includes both a website and an app, and they helped us with performance challenges we faced with both. The first person they provided had SQL expertise, and we've used two engineers as well.

What is the team composition?

We worked through one main point of contact, and the rest of the team includes those three individuals I mentioned.

How did you come to work with INSART?

We first approached them through a personal recommendation. We interviewed a few other companies, but INSART had the expertise we needed.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent roughly $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together near the end of 2017, and we work with them on an ongoing basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of the engineers we use provides leadership in our organization, and we're very pleased with their work.

How did INSART perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very reliable and communicative. They make sure we stay on target, and they manage our projects well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They bring a lot of integrity to their work, and they focus on quality.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything they could improve or do differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don't have any specific recommendations. They do a very good job, and they're easy to work with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am co-founder and CTO at AdvisorEngine, a Wealthtech solution that works with forward-thinking financial firms and advisors to create personal, scientific and beautiful experiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INSART?

INSART helped us re-architect and deliver new financial data processing layer that required deep understanding of wealth management aspects of the business. INSART proposed a scalable technical solution with good performance.

What were your goals for this project?

We set up such goals as: --Re-architect our data processing services, replace the legacy data management layer --Provide scalable big data processing and API capabilities --Implement the on-duty and DevOps process

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were maintaining our relationships on occasional basis with their C-level team over few years. When we felt the need to re-engineer our platform we started discussing the specific requirements such as building a highly-skilled engineering team with the domain knowledge in wealth management. INSART demonstrated they were able to assemble a very senior software engineering team by leveraging their Talent Pipeline with important skill set.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

INSART has developed the portfolio data processing service that receives market data from various custodians and market data providers and successfully implemented several integrations through market data and execution APIs. After going to production with the re-architected product we have hired additional DevOps to support INSART team with CI&CD process, set up PagerDuty SaaS platform for our needs and integrate it with Slack.

What was the team composition?

The team included Project Manager, 2 back-end engineers, front-end engineer and QA at the first. The dedicated team was expanded to 10-15 devs and QAs over time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

During the cooperation, INSART helps us with supporting production environments, as well as delivering additional functionality and keeping our software architecture updated according to enterprise-level standards.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

From the processes standpoint, the following project management best practices were implemented: Mix of Agile, SCRUM and Kanban at earlier stages with smaller team, Regular communication with client via Jira, Slack and video calls, long-term agile roadmap planning, DevOps and CI/CD process using Jenkins, Docker and Kubernetes, Agile Release Trains (ART) from SAFe. INSART proved itself to be a reliable partner and provides us with clear and honest communication.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

INSART is able to keep and follow the highest process and technology standards in the every-day changing business environment related with AdvisorEngine’s business growth. We are happy with the technical expertise, communication skills, and domain understanding of their engineers.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I've been satisfied with the team results and continue to work with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m Boris Litvin, President and CEO at Ortess, a trading platform, providing the full spectrum of integrated solutions for Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC) Trading.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire INSART?

We decided to create a cloud-based trading platform geared toward the U.S. financial market (banks, financial companies, investment groups). It was conceived to enable full-cycle over-the-counter trading across multiple asset classes.

What were your goals for this project?

We set up for INSART as our software vendor to develop the risk exchange trading platform (RXTP). The project included the following challenges: design and implement the platform from scratch and develop an algorithm for optimal orders matching, integrate the platform as an execution service within the platform of a market-leading technology provider.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have conducted the software vendor’s market research and selected INSART because of its wide experience of working with FinTech projects.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

During the design and implementation stages our dedicated team developed users, derivative, trades dashboards and notification services. The system was in full compliance with our requirements. INSART’s dedicated team also have developed the algorithm which solved the orders matching problem in a short period of time (within five minutes). To deliver a high-quality solution they included different strategies in the algorithm. The team enabled faster processing and optimization. The main algorithm was implemented using the R language, R-scripts were used to transfer data.

What was the team composition?

To implement the project, INSART built a dedicated team that included the following specialists: Project manager, Business analyst, 3 Java software engineers, Data scientist, QA engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Platform was successfully launched and well adopted by the market .

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

INSART’s team participated in every step from ideas generation to platform development, deployment, and maintenance. The project management style was simple, clear, and non-complicated.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I would like to thank INSART team members for their service, quality and dependability. We have been working with the dedicated team for several years on a very complex financial project. The team demonstrated not only technical excellence, but superior communication skills and understanding. INSART team naturally blended with our internal team and ensured our long-term success.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Pretty happy with the partnership

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President of WeddingBills

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide a SaaS platform for managing wedding-related businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Identify the initial conversion problem
• Define the Customer Aha Moment and product positioning
• Create a product strategy and roadmap for the next quarter.

SOLUTION

How did you find INSART?

Referral

Why did you select INSART over others?

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

How many teammates from INSART were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Define ICP
• Competitor Analysis
• Customer Interviews & Insights
• Identify Conversion Problem
• Define Customer Aha Moment & Product Positioning
• Customer Journey Mapping
• Product Strategy & Roadmap

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Competitor analysis done, bugs documented and prioritized, Aha Moment hypothesis defined, roadmap shipped on time.

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

Solid project management with regular meetings, documented calls, deliverables identified and tracked.

What was your primary form of communication with INSART?

Virtual Meeting

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

Besides doing excellent work, they have a very flexible approach to resourcing projects and getting the right skills on the team. I was really impressed with their talent pool.

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

None