Kultprosvet

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of WagerMatch

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Skill-gaming platform for Chess

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Web App Development and Designs

SOLUTION

How did you find Kultprosvet?

• Online Search
• Clutch Site

Why did you select Kultprosvet over others?

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

What was the size of Kultprosvet’s team?

6-10 Employees

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

• Investigate codebase and uncover what was functional / non-functional
• Fix the web application that we had developed by another developer that was poorly done
• added payment processing integration to the platform through the integration of third party processing companies
• worked with an existing brand theme to develop new UI / UX design assets that were implemented with interface to the platform.
• additional measures in place to prevent reoccurring bugs that were outside the box - e.g. event listeners for users' other open tabs for gaming cheat prevention purposes.
• ongoing testing of features and bug fixes.
• project management of the web app development, helping organize ideas and item to-dos into actionable projects

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Fixed broken web app
• implemented payment processing framework
• designed and implemented many critical new features

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

amazing project management, things were generally done very well and on-time, project manager was very capable in managing internal logistics to meet our (sometimes) difficult requests on timing and high expectations for product output. Worked well in managing and navigating the ideation templates we provided to their team even though we are not of a technical background.

What was your primary form of communication with Kultprosvet?

Virtual Meeting

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

Great communication, never felt like there was too many cooks in the kitchen - they deliver lean, efficient work. If there was a problem they couldn't solve, they would always add a point of escalation they could reach out to get the issue resolved.

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

Communicating developers' time allocation to multiple projects and availability of developers for projects on less notice if possible.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of IT for AMACO; we’re largest dealers in Ukraine for the sale of agricultural machines and commercial vehicles. Priority of the company operation is the after-sale customer service (spare parts, service, training), and assistance in solving any technological problems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

We wanted to collect statistics and automate tasks for our team of 30 service engineers. Our main goal was to increase efficiency with day-to-day tasks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We shared our business needs with Kultprosvet; they’ve been responsible for recruiting team members for our project. They’ve provided us with IT resources, including engineers, QA specialists, and individuals with other skill sets. 

The Kultprosvet team has worked alongside us to develop an Android mobile application that allows us to gather statistics and measure the efficiency of our service engineering team. They’ve linked the application with our ERP system, which has enabled us to track engineering tasks more closely and review where our engineers spend their time. We’ve tested the application and completed the first phase, but we’re working on expanding its functionality and adding features. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve primarily been in contact with the project manager from Kultprosvet. 

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet? 

We found Kultprosvet through a referral from one of our colleagues.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $25,000 in the partnership with Kultprosvet over 600 project hours. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Kultprosvet in August 2020, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Kultprosvet has executed deliverables perfectly and provided us with a high-quality application. They’ve fulfilled our requirements, and the product perfectly fits our needs. The team’s development efforts have helped our business immensely, making it easier for us to measure the efficiency of our engineering team. It was essential for us to deliver effective solutions to our employees; Kultprosvet has helped us achieve our goal. 

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

Kultprosvet has completed tasks on time and delivered exactly what we asked for. They’ve dedicated a trustworthy, technically skilled team to the project, who has been upfront about their experience. Our project manager has dedicated themselves to learning about our industry and grasped complex topics quickly. 

We’ve been particularly pleased with the team’s flexibility when we’ve made adjustments to the project. We’ve used Google Sheets to manage tasks, Zoom for weekly video meetings, and email to communicate. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been most impressed with their ability to deliver tasks on time, according to our requirements. Kultprosvet has consistently executed work correctly on the first try, which has been great. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing Kultprosvet could improve on. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend working with Kultprosvet; they’re a great company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technical product manager of Waddington’s Auction House, and we’re an auction and appraisal company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

We have over 100 online auctions every year, so we decided that it’d be great to have a custom-built mobile application for our clients to bid from anywhere in the world.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kultprosvet did mobile app design and development for us from scratch for Android and iOS, starting with our API documentation. They also listened and understood our needs to meet our requirements; the initial scope was small, but we then realized that the bidding interface would need more work.

The bidding platform is available in French, English, and Chinese. It also has a currency converter.

We’re impressed with their work so far, so our relationship is ongoing, and we plan to continue with further web development tasks.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with Andrew (CTO), Anton (CEO), and a team of 4–6 designers and developers.

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet?

I did some research and found them on Clutch. We chose them because they were the best option after a few interviews — we left our initial meeting very satisfied and excited because Anton was very high energy, and his expertise was excellent.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

We’ve spent $50,000–$100,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve exceeded our expectations despite the stressful situations we’ve encountered.

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is excellent; they’ve done everything within budget and deadlines. We feel like we understand and know each other because we’ve been in contact daily for the past year. They’re also transparent in establishing the processes and lead their team into constant improvement to accommodate to our needs and workflows.

Overall, they always give us support.

Regarding tools, we use Slack, GitHub, email, and uTrack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their expertise in development is outstanding; they deliver high-quality work, and they’re always open and excited to try new things. Also, they can always read through lines to give us great advice.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — we’re very impressed with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t be afraid to call them; they’re excellent at their work and are fully invested in every project through a listening and accommodative approach. I’m sure they’ll provide the best solution for your web and app development needs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director and manager at a ski school that works across France and Switzerland. We sell ski lessons and work with the ski instructors that deliver them. We have a website, and 90%–95% of our lessons are booked online.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

Another company set up our website. We needed help with web updates and maintenance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kultsprovet makes all of the website improvements; we don’t have any developers on our team. They’ve fixed a few bugs and other complicated issues in the backend. Also, they’ve done new pages and calendars because we’re growing the school. We have calendars on the backend for each resort we work in. Before, we worked in four ski resorts, and now we’re in eight.

Moreover, they control everything on the website. They take care of our automatic emails. When there’s a booking in our calendar, we send automated confirmation emails through SendGrid. Kultsprovet does all the API work to ensure it runs efficiently. We’ve had problems with the confirmation emails, but they’ve fixed them.

What is the team composition?

We have two developers and one project manager on the team.

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet?

I found them through Clutch. I set up calls with a few companies and chose them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $28,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of work has been high on all the problems and updates they’ve worked on. Everything on the website works perfectly. Also, our revenue has nearly doubled since we got them involved. We went from $800,000 to $1.6 million this winter. So far, everything is going well.

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

Their performance is perfect. We’re the ones who have been slow in delivering content. They’re always on time.

We use Slack to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We really appreciate their communication. If we have a problem or need to ask them questions, they reply within minutes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re very satisfied with the engagement so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get in contact with them, schedule a call, and get to know them. Explain your business and what you’re looking for and set clear deadlines. They have many developers that can satisfy anyone’s needs, so they’ll set you up with the perfect team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of business intelligence for an omnichannel distributor of products and goods. We primarily sell via e-commerce and are essentially a startup. We’ve been just over a year in business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

We needed a team to build our tech stack, website, foundations from the data warehouse, and internal applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we have a need, we essentially map out what we want to build and its criteria. We do basic hand-drawn sketches and so on, and then we turn it over to Kultprosvet’s team. We chat about the requirements and data needed, and they go to work to make it a reality.

We use Amazon Redshift, Treasure Data for a database, Node.js and JavaScript for the code, and Vue.js for the frontend.

What is the team composition?

We have six people on the team working directly for us; there are some programmers, a frontend developer, a QA person, and a documentation specialist to define requirements and create user guides. Outside of the team, we interact with 3–4 more associates, whether it’s the CEO or CTO. Additionally, we have a project manager that also supports us.

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet?

My boss is the VP of tech, and he worked with them previously. He had experience with Kultprosvet; they’d successfully launched another business, so he trusted the team to continue this new endeavor.

How much have you invested with them?

At this point, we’ve spent between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in June 2021, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

We never asked for metrics, but they approached us and suggested that we track them. We started implementing a variety of monitors and alert notifications to measure the app’s performance in the data warehouse and minimize costs.

When people run APIs, there an be a piece of code that repeats over and over, so then they get a bill for $5,000 because they didn’t realize the code was just running. We now have these alerts to preserve the cost and catch it before it happens.

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

We have daily check-ins directly with the team. The senior developer is our team lead and direct contact, and we have a project manager that bounces off around the meetings. The nice part about them is that they understand our business requirements quickly without us having to be super detailed. 

Overall, we’re very connected, especially with everything happening in the country with the Russian Invasion. It’s important to stay close at the moment.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their expertise and ability to create solutions for our problems are outstanding. We don’t always have the answer, so we often present the problem or challenge we’re having, and they huddle together. Then, they develop a game plan to solve it and present it back to the team. We’ve really appreciated that because we don’t need to spoon-feed them. Our relationship is truly a partnership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s taken us a bit to recruit people, but I think that’s part of the marketplace. Right now, recruiting is hard in general, so adding programmers or people to the system has taken longer than we’d like. However, we’re also struggling internally to hire roles for our company.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Define clear objectives, outcomes, business challenges, and stakeholders in the situation. Once you define and give them the road to drive on, they’ll build it. You just need to guide them to be effective.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the publisher and main responsible person at a large tech media company. This month we had three million page views and over one million users.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

People consume news differently now, so the behavior of readers has changed. Our first challenge was to redesign our media to answer the needs of our readers and get new readers and a new target audience. We also wanted to increase how many pages per visit readers visited.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with Kultprosvet for a few years. Their work has consisted of design, technical implementation from concept to realization, and more. We’ve shared our Google Analytics with them, and they keep an eye on it all the time. They’ve been able to find out information and come up with ideas.

For example, Kultsprovet found that most of our readers start reading our articles from other pages, so they never see our actual main page or how many articles we have. Now, if someone visits our website and reads an article, they scroll down and are back on the main page again. 

We’re currently working with them on a new startup inside of our company. It’s a unique marketplace for technical talents where people can look for a job in stealth mode. For example, if an engineer is looking for a job but doesn’t want to do it officially because there might be problems if their current boss finds out, they can search in the marketplace. When there is a good offer, they can open their profile to the recruiter, and there’s a fee for the deal.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with five people, including Yaroslav (Website Developer), who is our JavaScript developer, Anton K. (Chief Delivery Officer), Zhanna (QA Engineer), another developer, and Anton T. (CEO). I also know Anton T.’s brother, who is the CTO. He has helped us solve difficult questions, but we usually don’t work with him a lot.

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet?

I’ve known Anton since college. I didn’t know that he had his own firm, but he had a good reputation in my network. I’d previously worked with IT teams within companies, but this was my first experience working with an outsourced team. I compared prices with other vendors, and they had a market price.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2017, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There is always a difference between a product company and an outsourced company. We don’t expect them to find new features or compare us with our competitors; that’s something that should come from us internally. We only expect them to deliver, meet deadlines, and provide assistance when we need it.

However, Kultsprovet thinks about a lot of things that we haven’t thought of. For example, we finished a new design for the desktop version and forgot about mobile. I wrote to them and mentioned it, and they’d already prepared it without us asking. That has been really important for us.

Moreover, they’ve helped us to make each visitor session better. The number of pages that people read per session has doubled.

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

We have two tracking systems. They have their own Jira, but I haven’t followed it because I don’t want to see hundreds of tasks. On the other hand, we have our own Trello board with more general tasks. The project manager manages everything inside their own Jira, and then he comes to our Trello and updates it according to what has changed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team cares about us. If there is a real problem with the site, they help us at any time. It’s not like it’s 7:00 p.m. and the engineer says he can’t help us. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything specific. We don’t expect anything but delivery from them, so the only thing that could be better is from our side. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Work with the core team every week. They have many people that work there, but this team is good.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Gifted, an employee recognition and gifting company based in San Francisco.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

Kultprosvet started working on this project as an outsourced service for our development team, and they ended up helping us build an extended team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kultprosvet is helping us hire our engineers and building a team that they manage for our software development. We started off by working with them on project-based contracts, so they did some development work for us.

Later, we realized that the scope of work that we had was a lot bigger than we expected, and Kultprosvet started hiring engineers for Gifted. They’ve got to the point where they’re managing our engineering and development team. They’ve been expanding that team from a single engineer to the five engineers that we have now.

Our product is a very complex system that we’ve been developing over the last 10 years. We’ve transferred most of the development work to the team that we created with Kultprosvet, so they’re developing the core of our product.

For this development, we’re using PHP, Laravel, Ember.js, and Vue.js, and the databases are in MySQL. We have our own design team, so Kultprosvet is not involved in the UI/UX design. However, we have a design system, which includes the design elements and guidelines, and their team is working on implementing the features based on the design that we created. There’s a UI/UX aspect to it, but we’re the ones that are providing the overall guidelines of what the platform is going to look like.

We’re developing really complex platforms on this project. One is a gifting platform that does complex commission calculations and payouts to the bank accounts. There are reporting systems that work at a scale of thousands of client dashboards. Those reporting systems provide real-time data about the current state of the overall system in terms of revenue, commissions, and percentages.

We also have gift sending flows and tools for the customer success team to work with. There’s a lot of work going on. Some of it is around maintenance and small fixings to the system, but most of the work is around major feature development on which our system is based on.

What is the team composition?

We work with a pretty substantial part of Kultprosvet’s team. We have a really good relationship with Anton T (CEO), and that’s how we started. Anton K (Chief Delivery Officer) is our project manager, and he’s probably one of the most talented people that I’ve ever had the chance to work with. Within a couple of months, he completely understood the scope of our project — that’s probably the most important part of working with them.

We also have dedicated engineering teams working for us. Andrey (Team Lead) is part of our QA team, and we work pretty closely with Klim (CTO) as well. He helps us in cases where engineers need support and technical backing.

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet?

Kultprosvet was a referral — a contact introduced them to us. We were looking to find an outsourced engineer to do a small project, and we realized that the scope of work justified building an external team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working around January 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are a few aspects of the engagement that we measure. First of all, we measure the quality of the code that’s being written. We’re doing a code review of what they develop. The idea is to build a system that is really capable of scaling in the long term as our company grows — it’s not just about building features that work; it’s about building features that work and can support tens of thousands of users. That’s one of the metrics that we’re looking into accomplishing.

The second measure, which is the most important aspect for us, is the pace and quality of their work. Over the last 7–8 months, we’ve released a lot of features and a complete revamp of our project, including a huge partnership that we have with Wix. We built a gifting solution for them that went live within three and a half months. In less than four months, we already had 9,000 merchants joining the platform and using our services as part of their projects — it was really successful. Quality and time to market are the most critical measures for us as a growing startup.

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

For project management, we work with Anton K, and he has probably the most crucial role in terms of the success of the last year and a half of working with Kultprosvet — he has a good understanding of our system. We’re a B2B and B2C platform, so we address different markets and target audiences, and everything is interconnected. For us, the idea of having someone that quickly got into the project management aspect of it and understood the full scope of the work has been the key to our success.

Kultprosvet uses their own tools for tracking all the tasks, and we use Notion as part of the task's management. They were flexible and started working with the tools that we were already working with, which was really critical. They, of course, work with a specific system that they have, but they’ve been accommodative to the collaboration tools that we use here.

The communication has been really good. We have daily calls in the mornings and evenings, and we communicate through a joint Slack channel with the whole team — it has been really, really good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Kultprosvet’s most impressive aspect is that they have a total understanding of not just the technical aspects of the project, but also the business side of it. When I work with Anton K, he doesn’t see things from the perspective of fixing the issues, but he also sees the issues on how they impact every aspect of our business technical-, financial-, and reputation-wise. That’s the biggest advantage of seeing the full scope of what needs to be done, and not just performing specific tasks and finishing a specific technical checklist — they can see how everything impacts our clients and have a much broader scope.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that has been hard is finding engineers that speak fluent English. This is not specifically Kultprosvet’s fault, and they’ve done a great job, but it hasn’t been 100% perfect.

The engineers that they hired speak English, and we communicate really well, but their level of English changes. They actually have an English school within their development company. Every engineer that joins them receives English lessons, but it depends on how motivated they are to learn.

This issue happens only when I communicate directly with the engineering team. The project management team is amazing. They speak fluent English and understand everything, so it’s not a problem.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend clients to build their own team within Kultprosvet and not work on a project basis. You can do that only if it’s a very defined project. If you’re looking for development services, Kultprosvet’s ability to hire people, train them, and get them to be really productive is incredibly more effective and efficient cost-wise than working with them on a project basis.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

It’s an app schools organize themselves and helps parents get more insight into their child’s performance.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

They helped me build out the web app. The last development team made a lot of mistakes, and we needed to fix it. I’m working as the product designer.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

So far, they’ve published some things on the App Store. Currently, they’re working on building out the web app.

From the beginning, I looked at the app and built out the designs and features that are required. Then, I chat with their project manager, and he goes back to the team with the scope of work to figure out how long that is going to take. Then they get back to me with a breakdown of what it will cost, and I give them a yay or a nay before they build it out. Usually, they say it will take about two weeks, and they normally deliver on time. If it falls out of the expected delivery time, they let me know.

In that process, they walk me through each scenario. They go a little bit further to look at cases, cover various scenarios, and help solve the problems.

What is the team composition?

From the very beginning, I’ve worked with three developers and one project manager. The project manager has been the same since the very beginning and has worked on all of the projects.

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet?

I found them online while I was doing research on outsource companies. Through my research, I found that eastern Europe is affordable and I could get experts with a lot of talent. The first company I worked with wasn’t delivering what I wanted, so I needed to find another partner.

I liked Kultprosvet’s website, the cleanliness, and their professional presentation. Then I looked at their portfolio and saw that the work they did was similar to what I wanted to do.

For about two weeks we went back and forth on Facebook Messenger before hopping on a call on WhatsApp. Finally, we did a video chat on Google Hangouts.

We had a good connection with them and I felt very at ease with them, so that was it.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent about $6,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

If I had to score them on a scale of one to ten, I’d give them a 9.5. They’ve come very close, if not identical, to the prototype that I gave them. They were able to clean up the mistakes from the previous company that I worked with.

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication is great .We talk on Slack all the time and hop on calls most morning. We even have a call this morning. They’re always in contact with me. Even though there’s a time difference, the project manager will stay late to talk to me. He goes above and beyond to chat with me at night. I give him a lot of credit for that, because not everyone wants to do that.

Then we walk through the project together by sharing screens. Their project management is impressive, and it was exactly what I needed from a partner. I wanted to be clued in throughout the project, and they keep me involved.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication and transparency are clearly strengths.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. The sky is the limit with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you know what you want to produce, a full prototype always helps create a clear path so they know what you really want. It helps you explain things better so they understand your goals better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a real estate software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kultprosvet?

We needed dedicated development resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kultprosvet mainly helps us with software development of a product with an analytics dashboard, onboarding form, and fully digitized offering memorandums. Their developers are deeply involved in the product’s development. The frontend developers use React.

What is the team composition?

There are two developers. We’re going to hire an additional developer sometime between September and October.

How did you come to work with Kultprosvet?

I met Anton (Founder & CEO) a few years ago at my previous venture.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m very satisfied with both of their developers. The developers were highly involved during parts of the process with our customers, and they did great work. We managed to achieve KPIs and milestones that advanced the company.

How did Kultprosvet perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m in constant contact with Anton. It’s great working with him; he’s very responsive and responsible. His pricing is very competitive, and he does high-level hiring. He meets our requirements.

Their developers communicate directly with my co-founder and CTO and with me on an ongoing basis. We talk on a weekly basis; the communication is very fluent and flowing. They achieve the deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have quality developers, and the pricing is good. They provide an all-in-one package; I’m highly satisfied with them. They’re very motivated and work hard. They have a good future ahead of them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be transparent and know how to define exactly what you need. Anton and the team will know how to answer these needs.