Insighty

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

COO of leading proptech startup in APAC.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to get a product team up and running as soon as possible as we were looking to revamp our product

SOLUTION

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

Referred to us by a well-known accelerator. The Insighty team were energetic and had fantastic ideas. Very accommodating and really thought as if they were part of the team even prior to joining the project.

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

Brainstorming, problem analysis, design, development schedule. Agile methodology.

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

Started with 5, one engineering lead, one design lead, one engineer, one ux designer, and one QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Very satisfied with the outcome, the team was fantastic. Despite bumps on the road, the entire team was flexible and willing to work with the constraints and frustrations that any startup has.

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

Communication via online tools. Open discussions, good retros, and objective feedback all around.

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

If there is one thing that made Insighty stand out is that they truly work and think as if they are part of your team, and not just an external extension of your company. Attitude and mindset were key in making our project successful, which we could not have done without them.

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

Improvements could be better documentation and thoroughness in the product planning and coding at times.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a property managers association. We provide business tools to help people run their business and get customer feedback.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Insighty?

We needed someone to build software for us to add value to what we offer our members. One of the ways we sought to do that was to make an app that they could use to understand more about the market they were trading in and set goals on how to grow their business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided development, design, and UX work for our app. They took our instructions and requirements and produced some really great work. They started with algorithms and a spreadsheet and turned that into a functional app. We just finished up working with them on our business consulting tool. That’s going live shortly.

We’re also working on a customer feedback tool. Their job was to spec that and get a demo version out into the industry. They did a great job, and we’re putting that on hold at the moment. We’ve paused working with them and will possibly pick up better work in the future.

What is the team composition?

I worked with the co-founder and the project manager and briefly, with the designer.

How did you come to work with Insighty?

We found them through Upwork, checked their references, and hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–July 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within three weeks, they put together a comparative demo of our work tool just by having a spreadsheet. They provided us with great design and UX work for our customer survey tool. Their design work is truly great. Their engineers and designers are especially talented.

How did Insighty perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager is exceedingly smart. Being in different time zones that barely overlap, they do a great job of communicating in a small amount of time. They did a good job identifying issues and problems outside of their scope as well. We use a Jira board. We also communicate on Slack and occasional Google Hangouts. We had daily catch-ups with the co-founder and bi-weekly catch-ups with the project manager.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to scale up and down and respond quickly to work is one of the reasons why we appreciate working with them. They have extremely talented people who have both design and development sensibilities.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A couple times, after they had given us a detailed estimate of how long the project would take, we requested changes. We didn’t get accurate communication back on how those changes affected the milestones, which caused some confusion.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely recommend Insighty for a design job that needs to be ramped up quickly. You need a group of smart people to get good results fast.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of BetterYet Loyalty, a managed marketplace that provides customer retention services for small- and medium-sized businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Insighty?

We wanted to accelerate the development process and bring on professionals.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Insighty collaborated with my founding team on a full-scale design process to go through storyboarding and iterative feedback sessions. After that stage, they proceeded to web and mobile development. We just spoke with users in Canada last week and expect to launch this month. Currently, we’re incorporating feedback into the final user testing phase, which checks for functionality and a fluid experience. We will submit the app to the store and then go out to get customers signed up.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with their entire team.

How did you come to work with Insighty?

By chance, my co-founder knew one of the heads at Insighty. They started talking at an industry event about our business. The Insighty representative said his team could build a polished product and get it to market quickly.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $65,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2018 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been the uttermost professionals and have even surpassed our expectations by building polished and complex functional logic. Honestly, our in-house team has built similar apps, but they didn’t have Insighty’s consummate professionalism to get a product to market so smoothly and preparedly.

How did Insighty perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate daily, even multiple times per day. The team is responsive and effective in a hands-off process that parallels our own internal development. Rather than one point of contact, we interact with a range of team members at Insighty. Our CTO has direct access to Insigthy’s technical team while I talk with their designers.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a smart and talented group of people that mesh well with our team. The relationship isn’t transactional, but based on genuine friendship, which makes the engagement much easier. Furthermore, they know how to build a great product for a very reasonable price.

Any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear vision of the end-result and roadmap to accomplish those goals. We started the project without a definitive vision and endpoint, which may have wasted time; however, any delays were self-inflicted, not Insighty’s fault. Ultimately, quality doesn’t matter if the client’s ask is variable and undefined because they’ll run into roadblocks.