Intellectsoft

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the senior manager of a project delivery risk management company for construction. We provide owners with services for feasibility, development, and building projects. We work mostly in New York, but also serve cities across the U.S. and internationally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

When we started our company, most software solutions were geared toward the construction side. The majority of offerings focused on job completion in the field, using clutchless technology, and communications between architects, engineers, and contractors. To fulfill this missing need, we developed a template outlining a methodology for management and project delivery. It’s designed specifically for business owners, representatives, or project managers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

To create a project-sequencing tool catered to business owners, they built a risk-based project management app. Their team developed the entire design, backend, and frontend development. Prior to the design phase, they built a wireframe and solicited suggestions on details like color. Within the early stages, they provided mock-ups to illustrate the program’s user path.

After a cost estimate, we decided which features to keep or postpone. Streamlining the work allowed us to efficiently get a base application on the market. They helped us scale our business from an Excel/ Microsoft Access basis.

After completing sufficient development, we put up a staging server. When we were ready to go live, we transitioned to a development server. Although it’s primarily a desktop web app currently, we plan to make it more mobile-friendly in the future.

What is the team dynamic?

We enjoyed working with our assigned team, led by a product manager and an analyst. We met weekly to biweekly for several months to nail down the exact requirements of our software application, and they did excellent work.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

Two years ago, we sent out a request for proposals to companies found via a web search. After meeting their talent on WebEX, we thought Intellectsoft was the right fit. They had partnered with clients at similar levels, ranging from small companies to big names. Their body of work, which was more B2B than B2C, exemplified our enterprise software goals.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December of 2006.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app’s features empower business owners by offering improved predictability, consistency, and transparency. Modeling projects and recurring risks helps developers establish a list of steps and governance processes for use in future endeavors. It’s especially useful for clients with multiple projects or a portfolio. An additional module for cost management has been popular with users, and we can use the minor document repository to help sync over our workforce.

The app has been warmly received by both our current and potential client base, who praise its look, feel, and operation. In-house, it’s made our company more efficient. It helps us deliver projects for our clients, and gives them the full advantage of methodologies we’ve developed in the business zone.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

The team synthesized their talents to translate our specific goals into the context of a web app. In terms of specific tools, we used Trello for bug fixes, Slack for communication, Google Docs for information exchange, and Zoom for collaboration online and video meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They struck an excellent balance in their work. Their team is talented, responsive, and produced a high-quality product. We appreciate the skill with which they tackled objective we lacked the resources to execute in-house.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We often experienced bugs in the software, but they were extremely responsive and corrected them quickly. None of the issues we encountered have kept employees offline for more than a few hours.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an e-commerce company which combines a blockchain into the e-commerce experience. I am a project manager for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

Our challenge was to make our business model accessible to our target population, namely shoppers in China.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intellectsoft is developing our e-commerce app and the infrastructure around it. It integrates our blockchain into the e-commerce shopping network. The app features a shopping platform in which shoppers, merchants, and admins can interact in a way which makes sense. There is a leaderboard for the best shoppers, bringing gamification elements to the shopping experience.

The app is the equivalent of Amazon.com combined with integrated blockchains for shopping tokens and reward points. It is also a merchant platform where users can post their products and descriptions, as well as create ways for shipping those products. There is a conflict resolution element to it, meaning that, if a shopper doesn't receive a product, they have a means of contacting merchants. There is a referral system which Intellectsoft integrated based on our company specifications.

We also have audiovisual elements meant to create a story out of the shopping experience. Someone can join a futuristic world and join a virtual city with fellow shoppers.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

The head of our network decided to engage two agencies at once, in order to diversify risk. We gave them the same project, and whoever did it better, would be chosen for ongoing work.

We had seen some of Intellectsoft’s previous projects, as well as their ability to scale. They weren't big enough to get lost in the ranks, but Intellectsoft is big enough to handle large scale projects without a problem. We decided to give them a try on a smaller project. It went well, and we expanded the relationship to the front-facing technology integration for our main project.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The cost of Intellectsoft's work has been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range. We will exceed $1 million dollars if the relationship continues.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft six or seven months ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It would be hard to share specific metrics. We have developed the project in phases, and due to the nature of our founder, our company has a bit of an unorthodox development style. Our creative person is a visionary entrepreneur.  It’s always a challenge to translate vision into specifics.  We've thrown this challenge at Intellectsoft, and our satisfaction comes from their ability to balance out the vision and transform it into specific project requirements in a way which accommodates for the vision of our founder without slowing down the project and getting it stuck in one particular place.

This makes it difficult to give specific metrics, but whenever we set a deadline for a phase of the project, Intellectsoft put in the effort to make it work, both sticking to the release dates and satisfying our requirements. We've given them a challenge, and they've met it, which is why Intellectsoft has become our leading service provider for technology development.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Our success metrics are mainly tied to the timely release of each phase of the technology in line with the specifications we agreed on. So far, Intellectsoft has been within our success metrics, and the project has advanced well. We're an international company so there are the usual culture, language, and technology gaps when working across a distributed network of people. Intellectsoft has managed the process well whenever we needed to send a representative to London or other parts of the world, and sit down in person with them. We've been very satisfied with the interpersonal communication as well.

I don't know what the full project management toolset used by Intellectsoft is, but they've been accommodating in adopting whatever style of communication the client uses, whether it's WhatsApp or anything else.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

I’m impressed with the good communication and the willingness to go the extra mile and understand what the customer wants. As mentioned, Future World is an international company.  Intellectsoft has been able to translate the founder’s vision into technology. Instead of becoming frustrated, they've doubled-down the investment they're willing to make in good communication. This is something we've been impressed with, compared to some of our other technology providers, which became exacerbated at times.  This was a challenge Intellectsoft was willing to confront, meeting our requirements while still not slowing down the process. They found a good balance and dealt with the challenges rather than complaining about them.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

It's hard to criticize them since we've had an unorthodox partnership in terms of the challenges we've thrown at Intellectsoft. We develop in phases and are often refining the end result.  If Intellectsoft knew the full picture on day one, they could have had a more comprehensive approach. It's not fair to lay this at their feet since the limitations came from our phased approach. Had we started with an existing e-commerce platform and edited that, rather than building from scratch, it could have been better, but I wouldn’t interpret this as a criticism. It's more of a retroactive wish.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide a mobile platform for family safety. It connects users around the world and gives them peace of mind about how safe they are. We have around 1.5 million users and are working on expanding the platform.

I am a co-founder and the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

At one point, we passed a usage milestone, and our biggest problem became the performance and growth of the platform. We needed help building a robust and high-performance backend system for our users. We weren't a startup anymore and needed to build an enterprise platform which could handle our customers and data in the future.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intellectsoft built our backend system, allowing us to scale our platform without any pain. We have been seeing a 25– 30% growth in new users every month, generating huge amounts of traffic: around 2.5 million data points per day. We needed to provide fast reactions and history management on the backend. Intellectsoft proposed building a cached MongoDB database.

Our company's CTO and co-founder has been working directly with Intellectsoft's representative on technical requirements from our side. We have a simple, straightforward scope for the storage of our data.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We had been looking for ways on which to build a reliable backend but didn't have enough in-house expertise to do it by ourselves. Our development team is located in Kiev, and one of our friends told us about Intellectsoft. They offered outsourced development and had expertise in our area. I exchanged a couple of emails with them, and Intellectsoft offered us some interesting ideas for long-term functionality, proposing that we use the Redis database, among other things. They thought about our business needs and potential growth. Intellectsoft didn't simply implement what we asked for but also offered solutions for how we could approach the future.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The cost of Intellectsoft's work was $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft in August 2016. Our project had a six-month runtime, ending at the beginning of February 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Presently, we are able to handle twice as many users as in the past without any performance lag. The average response time from our backend to the users was around two to three seconds, and we have reduced it to one second. Intellectsoft has developed a transparent and scalable structure, through which we can easily add additional servers.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Intellectsoft worked autonomously. They were managed by our co-founder, and we had a few meetings during the process, discussing ideas and the structure of the platform. Intellectsoft reached back to us with proposals, we identified potential downsides, and they jumped back with a final solution. Intellectsoft didn't require day-to-day monitoring. We received reports and stats for their work and didn't require any additional resources on our end for managing that work. We usually used Slack and JIRA for communication.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

Intellectsoft was able to find experts who could build the right infrastructure for us and answer all our questions. They explained the upside and downside of every idea and every potential structure we wanted to build. They're experts in their field.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

The biggest improvement for Intellectsoft would be to have more public appearances. I was referred to them by a friend and hadn't heard about Intellectsoft before, so writing articles or participating in conferences would be beneficial to their group.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is Small Giant Games, located in Helsinki, Finland. We’re a small mobile game development company with about 10 employees. We just launched a game called Empires & Puzzles, which is a mid-core RGP (role-playing game) for iOS and Android. I am the lead game designer, and I also do our outsourcing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IntellectSoft?

We’re a small company, and we decided to do a game that’s heavy on content. We looked for outsourcing partners that could provide us content affordably and quickly while still meeting our quality requirements.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s a mid-core RPG, which means it has a lot of dragons, dwarves, elves, and whatnot. The game is not 3D, which means there are illustrations. We ordered a few dozen monsters, dragons, elves, octopi, and such from IntellectSoft, as well as a handful of high-resolution characters to be the heroes of the game. Our game was very efficiently produced, so everything they did ended up in the final game, in one way or another.

They weren’t our only partner, but their work covers a significant chunk of the initial version of the game. They provided only the art for the game. We specified the requirements very carefully. We provided exact measurements and references for everything. They did plenty of creative work in actually doing the illustrations, but no game development or concept work.

How did you come to work with IntellectSoft?

Our CEO knows one of their founders, so it was a recommendation. I assigned them a test case and the results were satisfactory, so we went on to a further test. After a handful of tests, we progressed to a larger order.

How much have you invested with IntellectSoft?

I believe it was around $10,000-15,000. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness were big components in the initial phase of the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in the Spring of 2016, and the project is complete. Our last collaboration ended about four or five months ago, so the total engagement was a little more than six months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All the metrics for the app are good. It’s going to be a successful game for our company. It’s currently ranked among the 500 top grossing U.S. games. Last Friday, we were ranked at 322 on that list.

How did IntellectSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well. Our requirements were mostly on the speed and efficiency side. We wanted to get dozens of useful pieces of content that could go in the game very quickly. They met those expectations very well. I delivered specifications and they responded to my emails quickly. We got the revisions done very quickly as well.

The turnover for a single piece of content was a few weeks, which was within our deadline. We had larger batches, so I’d say they did 20 pieces of content in three weeks. All the deadlines were met. I don’t recall if we used any file-sharing software.

What did you find most impressive about IntellectSoft?

For us, it was the speed and efficiency in meeting the requirements. Some pieces of art were exceptionally good. In general, the quality was above average but not awesome. The efficiency was their greatest strength that we leveraged for this project. Our communication was to the point, as expected, and I was happy with it.

Are there any areas IntellectSoft could improve?

We didn’t test their high-end quality because, for this product, speed was more important than best quality. I’m not sure if they can meet the highest quality standards, as we did have a few fluctuations in that area. However, we didn’t set the bar that high.

BACKGROUND

This client is the CEO of a music app publishing house. Their team works to create a place for music lovers to connect in one place by creating mobile music making applications for iOS and Android. This company developed one of the most popular and highly rated music apps. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Having priorly made several popular mobile music-making applications this client began to receive requests for an app that would combine the features of the drum app and a loop machine to make beats on-the-fly. Based on their experience they knew this was a good opportunity.

The challenge was that the client was on a tight schedule and needed to speed up delivery time of their cross-platform music mobile app. The app needed to be intuitive but also be delivered quickly to provide a timely response to users' requests.

SOLUTION

The client utilized Intellectsoft's QA and UI/UX design services in the past for some of their previous apps. They were pleased with the past work and decided they would be a good partner for the drum app development.

Intellectsoft lead both the design and development of the application. Following the development, their team remains responsible for maintaining and testing the application. The project was delivered over a 6 month period.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

The application was completed to the client's standards within the discussed timeframe and budget. Their users have shown a positive response to the app. They have received many 5-star reviews from users, 20,000 downloads a day and has seen over 1.3 million downloads since the app's launch in December. All areas of the agreed upon scope were met. Intellectsoft was quick to provide an MVP and was clear about their development schedule. The project was done on time and within the budget constraints, but the initial length of the project estimate process made the client somewhat anxious.

This client also highlighted Intellectsoft's communication commenting that the development teams were often located in close proximity to each other. Proximity improved communication for this client.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

SE Ranking is a marketing platform comprised of a set of tools designed to assist marketers and SEO experts in their work. I'm the head of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We needed a mobile implementation of our online SEO [search engine optimization] tool with a full set of features.The challenge was to move an extensive set of functionality from a web interface to a mobile application without detriment to the UI/UX [user interface/user experience]. We needed an end-to-end mobile SEO platform with a wide range of SEO tools and additional features for webmasters, marketing teams, and agencies.

We basically wanted to move our web-based solution to mobile devices to help our users stay on top of their SEO efforts wherever they are.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The developers at Intellectsoft had to design and develop our mobile application. The work involved UI/UX design, development, quality assurance, and maintenance.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

Intellectsoft was recommended by an acquaintance.

What is the status of this engagement?

 The project lasted four months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were pleased with the application design and satisfied with how it implemented our website features on a smaller screen. We have received positive feedback from both our employees and our users.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They covered the agreed scope, were on schedule, and stayed within budget.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

They understood the requirements of the task quickly and provided some helpful insight about features they thought should be prioritized within the application.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We create interactive experiences, mainly for movie theaters and auditoriums. These include trivia gaming and audience-created content based on scripted sketches and pre-animated sequences. We're a startup company based in the Dominican Republic. We're in the beta stage of the platform, making tweaks based on public feedback. We've had to become movie and animated graphics producers in order to turn our concept into reality. In the future, we plan to assign much of the content creation to third parties, since we can't handle all of it. We will focus on the platform itself, and on mounting the content into it.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

Our concept is the first of its kind, so we've had to build everything from scratch, including the content.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with Intellectsoft on two projects. One of them focused on the live audience-created content within venues. We built a camera app which syncs tablets to DSLR cameras, allowing theater operators to have a scripted guideline of what needed to be filmed and how. That content is sent directly to our server via Wi-Fi, is inserted into a playlist, and has motion graphics implemented automatically.

Our other project involved systems integration between two of our suppliers. It allows us to create trivia games automatically. We can have hundreds or thousands of sites operating without manual intervention.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

When I decided to work on the project, I knew that I needed great people working on it. I looked online for a top 10 list of systems integrators and software developers in the world. Intellectsoft was within the top positions in every Google search I made. They had a good looking site and were among the first to respond to my contact. More importantly, I didn't get an automated response but talked to an actual person who asked me questions about the project.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The cost of Intellectsoft's work has been around $150,000 overall.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft in December 2015. We plan to deploy and test the platform later in the week. We will start to push the product in the market after that.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In order to expand our platform, we needed integration and automation functionalities for it, which is what Intellectsoft built for us.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Once the project started, the workflow was excellent, and we had good back-and-forth communication with Intellectsoft's team. They have some very professional people working for the company. Our timetables were kept, and I enjoyed the overall experience.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

We've had some communication problems in the final stages of our project. This may be due to the nature of the business, and the protocols that Intellectsoft's team has to go through before a deployment. It wasn't a big deal, but it's the only constructive criticism I can think of for Intellectsoft. I'm really happy with them, and I'm ready to do more work with Intellectsoft.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a full-service, peer-to-peer, mPOS [mobile point-of-sale] money transfer service. I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We're a startup company, so we were looking to hire an internal technology team. As we looked at doing so, we realized that it would be somewhat cost prohibitive. We wanted to keep the initial headcount to a smaller level, so we looked to outsource in order to conquer our challenges. We had architected and specified everything and were looking to build an MVP [minimum viable product].

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave Intellectsoft a precise set of requirements and designs for our platform and had them build it. We gave their team some leeway in terms of creativity and architecting aspects, but we were the main designers of the platform.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We looked at around 100 vendors and narrowed the list down to 12, and eventually three. We picked Intellectsoft out of those. We put everyone on a tight deadline for responding to our request for proposal. Many of them simply gave us quotes, others said that it wasn't possible, while the rest didn't meet the deadline. Intellectsoft took the hands-on approach of calling us immediately and showing interest in the project. They asked for more information in order to provide a quote, and also to have a two-hour meeting with us so that we could figure out together what it was we needed.

We had several conference calls, which showed us that Intellectsoft was putting in the time and effort upfront. We didn't receive this from other well-known vendors, who simply gave us a quote. It was true that we didn't give enough information to quote, and we knew that, but it was a part of our selection process.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The cost of Intellectsoft's work has been above $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft seven or eight months ago. The partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've built out the MVP and it's been a success. We haven't launched since there are some compliance steps to go through, but we've been using the platform internally and have given many demos of it. There are many people using our product in a preliminary mode, and it works well. We're very pleased with it.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We've enjoyed the relationship, and feel that Intellectsoft is very accommodating for anything we have needed. We've definitely put them through the iron, so to speak. A large part of the team is based in Eastern Europe, and they've accommodated to our time zone, for example. This isn't just for finishing the product, but also on a daily basis for our standup meetings. We didn't see this in other vendors.

We also required the company to give us unfettered access to raw code while it was being built, so that we could check it along the way. This was also something that many companies weren't willing to do. We pushed the confines of what Intellectsoft was willing to do at that point.

Intellectsoft is using the typical tools in the industry, like GitHub. We'd like to see some independence from their systems, and some better integration with our own. We didn't set this up from the start, but I would prefer to have Intellectsoft work from our environment. They do offer this approach, though.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

We found Intellectsoft to be very flexible and thick-skinned from some perspectives. We're entrepreneurs running a startup, so we want to run certain things in a specific way. We were very fickle in many ways, and Intellectsoft dealt with that. This is a huge quality of their character. We often told Intellectsoft's team that we hated a certain approach, only to change our minds a month later. Much of this was a learning curve for us, and it went a long way in showing their character.

We were putting a lot of eggs in one basket by building our MVP, and we weren't sure it would work out. We needed to test the relationship upfront, and we've certainly done that since day one, and continue to do so by pushing the boundaries of where things can go. Intellectsoft has adapted well to this, and it continues to be a big reason for doing business with them.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

Whenever we're dealing with offshoring, we have to deal with cultural differences. This is true even when dealing with the West Coast versus East Coast in the US, but, when going overseas, there are more nuances and possible interpretations for anything we say. We've had a lot of difficulty with that, even though one of our partners is from Europe and we're quite experienced. Dealing with a different culture can be difficult, and we're not insulated from this fact. It's an area where Intellectsoft could perform better, insulating those cultural challenges from the client by using the Palo Alto team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a project management consulting firm representing large financial, healthcare, and technology institutions during large construction projects. These can consist of new corporate offices and branches. We act as project managers, cost managers, and estimators.

I am a senior manager within the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We have a project management philosophy which was developed initially in the form of an Excel file, expanded into an Access prototype, and ultimately developed into a software format.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intellectsoft developed a web application which can be used on any computer browser or mobile device. We use Amazon Web Services, for which Intellectsoft helped with the setup. They also helped gather user experience feedback and business analysis, which was helpful to us, given that we have an engineering background.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We did some research on Clutch.co and issued a request for proposal to 10-12 different companies. The choice was narrowed down to 3, out of which Intellectsoft was selected.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The initial cost of our project with Intellectsoft was below $200,000. We've continued the development, so the cost has gone up.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've made numerous presentations to clients and the users themselves. The main thing they've liked is the look and feel of the app, as well as its ease of use. Even though we have a training manual, it's not used very much. A person can understand the program in 10-15 minutes. 

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Intellectsoft's project managers are very good at giving us feedback and responding to our needs and requests within our time frame.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

Helping us keep our budget and schedule in-line would be welcomed. This is a main topic during all of our meetings.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My husband and I developed a technology company to create a mobile application that is social media-based. I am the chief operating officer. My husband is the president and chief executive officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We started creating our mobile app in 2014, and we were not getting anywhere. We were not getting feedback from the developer we hired. It was not the quality that we expected, and we put our project on hold. We started a search to find somebody to meet the needs we had, see our vision, and bring it to life.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided the development for our iOS app to get it live in the iTunes Store. It is an event-based app. Through using the app, you can create small communities wherever you happen to be. For example, if you have an interest in movies, you can create a little community around you of other people who are interested in movies, and you could create events around going to new previews. It can be used for larger things. For example, if you are a member of a fraternity and you want to do a fundraiser, you could use our app to put that out, generate invitations, scan tickets, and collect payments. The other aspect of it is if you are traveling and you want to get out and see the sights, be active, or get involved in certain things, you can search for events that are going on around there. You can create an event that is going around in the place that you are going, draw people to you, and create a little community there.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We used a platform called Upwork, and that’s how we identified our first developer that we used. We used a new level of that particular service called Upwork Pro, which Intellectsoft is associated with, and it was through Upwork Pro that we met Intellectsoft.

Through a series of interviews, we determined Intellectsoft was the best fit for us based on the work they did in the past and our conversations with them. It was evident that they understood what we were trying to do and that they would be able to do that for us.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

We have spent between $50,000 and $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project launched in October 2016. We started working with them in December 2015/January 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I love the quality. The work was beautifully done. It came to life in a way that we thought was really great. They took our feedback and incorporated it in there while at the same time telling us, “From a marketing standpoint, that does not make a lot of sense” or “From a user standpoint, you might want to look at doing something like this.” The expertise and feedback they gave us were really valuable being that we did not know anything about the industry or how to put something like this together. From a quantitative standpoint, it is slowly growing because we are still in the early days and working on our own marketing.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager walked us through the process and gave us feedback about our ideas by telling what to look for in our field, what is important, and ways to make money from the app. They had experience that they shared with us.

Over the course of the development, they were active in communicating with us about where the process was, what they needed from us, and ideas they had. That stood out for us quite a bit because our previous developer was more about doing the work and not giving us feedback, whereas Intellectsoft was constantly giving us feedback. They did not take whatever we said. It felt like they were truly invested in making a product that would work and make sense.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

What stands out for me is that they know what they are doing. We took part in a planning stage before they started doing any of the development work. They challenged us to think about what it was that we wanted to get out of the app, what we were trying to do, what hole we were trying to fill, and our vision for it. They had us do a lot of exercises around what that should look like.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

What was sometimes difficult was that our project team was in Eastern Europe. While we were able to make appointments early in the mornings to talk, it was not an ideal situation for us. Evenings would have been better for us, but that was not possible because it would have been in the middle of the night for our team.

The other thing that happened closer to the end of our project was that we suddenly had some new faces from the management side, not our project managers per se, but from the US side. We had one manager we worked with that left, and then we had somebody else that came in and took his place. That was a little concerning because the person that we had been talking to about issues with finances was no longer there with no heads up of it happening. That was a little odd.