Inshop Group

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a managing partner at BHP International, a small IT recruiting company in Ukraine. I’ve used Inshop Group’s services in this capacity. We’re a startup company with the aim of expanding our services all over the globe, starting with the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Inshop Group?

Inshop Group was responsible for developing our SaaS solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Inshop Group developed our web application. If users want to search for programming jobs anonymously, they can use our platform to not get caught by current employers.

What is the team composition?

We mostly kept in touch with Maksym (CEO), and there were four people working as front- and backend programmers.

How did you come to work with Inshop Group?

We made a tender and compared details like pricing and where the candidates come from. I’ve known Maksym for four years, as we have worked together in an investment fund. I received positive feedback about his work from other employees. Despite there being less expensive options,  we decided to go with Inshop Group.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Inshop Group from  December 2018 to April 2019. It took us 3–4 months to finish the solution. Inshop Group would fix some bugs for us later on without having to invoice us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We didn’t have a detailed technical assignment. We just explained to Inshop Group what modules we should have in the system, and they made it happen to our satisfaction. They understood our business requirements and translated them into technical ones. Everything’s working well.

One of our team's technical partners was a software engineer and manager for a large email provider. He advised me to continue working with Inshop Group on any further development.

How did Inshop Group perform from a project management standpoint?

I give them full marks here. They asked us a lot of questions about the functionality of the product. We used Skype for communication. I worked from Ukraine, and they were in Poland.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re smart in terms of translating business requirements into technical ones, and they’re very quick compared to other providers. They’re not that expensive either. Maksym is good at managing the whole staff. We will work with them again if we have another project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would’ve liked for them to ask even more questions and to have requirements written in more detail. They simply specified what modules the platform, and after we agreed on those,  they started the job.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

The client should have a business analyst onboard to write down the business requirements and then go to Inshop Group. They did a good job in most cases, but I would have benefited from having a product owner on my side to protect my interests.