Launch by NTT DATA

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the software product manager for Aera, where we create fragrance diffusers for the home and luxurious scents.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vectorform?

We needed a partner to help us solve the customer experience in way of mobile and voice applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vectorform developed the iOS, Android, and smart home skills for our IoT product. During various parts of our long engagement, they have participated in or lead design, development, project management, and product strategy and architecture.

What is the team composition?

The team varies based on the scope of improvements or features. In times of support, it could be as little as 2–3 people, sometimes ramping up to 9–10.

How did you come to work with Vectorform?

We vetted several other agencies and landed on Vectorform due to their early experience with IoT and their strength in user experience.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership started in January 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Vectorform is very responsive. They’re an organization that really cares and they take ownership of their work. They have a great grasp of the full product life cycle and they really understand and empathize with our concerns and customers.

How did Vectorform perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, they perform really well. We have standup meetings once a week, and they typically use Jira for task management, as well as PDFs and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are a full-service agency, so they can do everything in house, which makes projects much more efficient and usually equates to higher quality. Through the years they have done cutting-edge stuff which shows their organization's willingness to invest and also the quality of their team members. They do a great job of seeing your larger vision and providing realistic steps to reach your goals.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would just say to have someone on your side that’s technically proficient, so that you can have an idea of what you’re looking for. Tell them your plans, what you want them to do, and ask them how can they add their expertise to make it better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager under the digital solutions or intelligence solutions umbrella in Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas. We supply hardware and maintenance to power plants, gas turbines, and steam turbines.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vectorform?

We were developing a new R&D product for a voice and analytic interface for power plants, so we reached out to Vectorform for their support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vectorform actually started this initiative quite some time ago, and they’re tasked to support us in the R&D effort, and physically manufacturing a device — they’re responsible for the design work, surveys, and consulting with our Japanese counterparts to determine what the product would look like. On top of that, they’re also responsible for the technology and features that we want to put into the device. The team is also directly involved with the discovery phase, such as the background, IP, and basically all the aspects of coming up with some of the features.

One of the key features of this device is users can connect and ask questions related to the operational health of their power plant. It connects to PPI (Producer Price Index) data to interpret the question, and give a live response based on the parameters the engines are running. Apart from that, the device also has a notification and calling feature.

What is the team composition?

I work with probably around 15 people or so. I work with their engineering team, voice user interface team, project management team, and executive team. There are at least 3–4 people on each of those teams, and I work directly with a project manager and experienced directors.

How did you come to work with Vectorform?

We started with Vectorform early on, before I was an employee at Mitsubishi. They had a very good standing with the company already, and when they decided to move forward with the project to increase the capability of the device, there wasn’t much of a decision as we were obviously going to go with Vectorform.

They have a very experienced team that is very adept at a lot of the technologies we’re using, and they’re super easy to work with. They’ve definitely shown their colors in helping us with this device.

How much have you invested with them?

Right now, we’ve probably spent around $3 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started with them in January 2020, and our partnership is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We try to do quarterly milestones to determine what we’re going to improve on or what features we’re going to add to the device. That’s how we measure if we can complete those within our timeline and budget. I’ll say it’s working very well, though sometimes those milestones change and the due dates end up slipping a bit based on other parameters.

How did Vectorform perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform very well and they’re super organized and they have a lot of tools on their side that makes my job a lot easier. The meeting minutes are pretty much automated and I can access them on a platform called Confluence to extrapolate them when needed. Moreover, their scheduling and project tracking are clear and super easy to follow. 

Vectorform also uses Microsoft Project and they have their own platform that they use which they’ve been great at as far as delivering products to me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with their overall organizational skills and adeptness in foreseeing what we need as move through the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that quickly comes to mind is sometimes meetings may have too many team members on a call, when they can just disseminate the information within their own organization.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would highly recommend them for the overall support for R&D and development — my experience has been positive. I don’t know what other skill sets they provide, but I know they do a lot of work for a lot of other companies.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the lead product manager at a digital media company that creates newsletters to help millennial women catch up on the day.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

We were looking to relaunch our website. We had new branding that we were preparing for, but we also wanted to take advantage of the moment by doing a whole UX overhaul. We wanted to improve our website layout.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have different pages that live on our website, including our homepage, article pages, and channel pages. Postlight helped us understand how each of those pages should be laid out to meet our general goal of increasing the time spent on the website as well as content discoverability.

They took a look at the overall navigation and boiled it down to something that was clearer to users. The team also worked on the structure of articles to improve the reading experience and to improve the ability for users to find new content from there. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a designer, a product manager, and an engineer who helped our engineering team.

How did you come to work with Postlight?

We reached out to multiple vendors and Postlight’s structure was most similar to what we wanted. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from January–April 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Anecdotally, there has been a great appreciation for how the website looks and feels from a UX point of view. We’ve done some qualitative testing around it and have received favorable results. The functionality and reliability are high. 

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

Postlight delivered within the budget. If they ever went past a deadline, it was discussed ahead of time. We had a tight, almost impossible timeline to start with, so the fact that we were able to mostly meet it was very impressive on their end.

We invited them into our Slack channel and they invited us onto their Asana board, which is how we kept an eye out on timing and deliverables, which was helpful.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their UX design was very strong. The designer listened very carefully to our stakeholders’ requirements and concerns and was able to distill that down into different design options. 

The designer also pushed back on some of the requirements in a helpful way, telling us what would help the business more. We appreciate that he was able to push back and not just be a “yes man” for us. It was a very collaborative relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing jumps to mind right away. If anything, there were times when it would’ve been helpful to hear more about the process that was happening on the Postlight side in terms of understanding how they came to some of their decisions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bring them in and assume that they’re an extension of your team in order to be successful because that’s what they want to be and it seemed like that’s how they worked best. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Mozilla, a tech company that makes the Firefox browser. I do business development and work with product teams to help build new products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

We were exploring a new technology and how we might apply it to create a better programming experience for developers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged Postlight to provide my product development research team with market research. We wanted help with engineering thought leadership around the product idea we wanted to explore. The product was related to Rust as a programming language and WebAssembly. 

Since it was a technical product that serves developers, we needed a very technical partner, so they brought very technical talent to the project. This enabled us to have very technical conversations with potential customers to better assess the viability and attractiveness of the idea. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people primarily, but I’m sure there were other people behind the scenes. 

How did you come to work with Postlight?

We’d previously worked with a market research firm who highly recommended Postlight as a development team. We reached out to them, had some initial conversations, and decided they’d be the right fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement ran from December 2019–March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was really a learning exercise. Their support helped us answer a bunch of questions we wanted to understand related to the feasibility and viability of the idea. We measure success based on how much we learned toward understanding the market opportunity. 

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very good communicators. Their team was disciplined and structured, which was something that we needed. The project was kind of nebulous and needed their structure, so they did a great job of leading the project and engaging us to provide course correction as we went along. They led the project in that way.

We mainly worked off Google Docs and we did video conferencing, along with some in-person meetings, too. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The technical depth of their team was very attractive to us. Our team is very technical and we were able to have very deep technical conversations with them. Our world-class team viewed Postlight as peers, which was really impressive. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

For what we were seeking from them, they did a great job. It’s important to find the right partner, and they did what we needed. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d recommend partnering with them when you have an idea of what you want to build. They’re exceptional at actually building products and applications. Our work was very early in the product development process, so I imagine they’re even stronger at executing a fully formed idea and building a product. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Creative Business Inc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

I wanted to develop a new software platform for financial service providers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we did a product design project to detail what the product would look and feel like. Postlight delivered a high-fidelity wireframe presentation deck, almost like an MVP, as well as a roadmap for the initial development of the MVP.

They helped me on the presentation side, including creating a lot of the talking points and organizing everything in a way that made it easy for me to present. After the design project, we then worked together to build a fully functional MVP.

The team also worked on the presentation deck for the MVP and worked with our branding team on that. Additionally, Postlight did the roadmap for the 2.0 version and followed through on updates and iterations.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two teammates during the design process. When it came to development, they had a 5-person team, which included engineers, product designers, a product manager, and developers.

How did you come to work with Postlight?

I had worked with a couple of other engineers, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. A client of mine introduced me to Postlight, so I met with Paul (Co-Founder & CEO), Rich (Co-Founder & President), and Gina (Managing Partner) and pitched my idea to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $700,000 on the MVP.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on the MVP from August 2019–September 2020. We’re working on fixes right now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of the main milestones was that my team could get on the platform and start using it in its MVP stage, which was huge. We’ve loaded 70 clients onto the platform. Although it doesn’t have all of the functionalities, it’s a great product because we can see its potential.

They understood what I was trying to build at a very granular level. They understood the functionality and the vision behind the product. Because of this, they constantly surprised me with great ideas and additional functionalities that aligned with the vision. It’s been fantastic working with Postlight.

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was great. We had weekly feedback sessions, and Postlight was very proactive and communicative.

They were also professional. I’m extremely busy, and the team planned the whole project and the cadence of the communication very well. We used email for communication, and they made themselves available throughout.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The way that their product specialist was able to synthesize the vision of the project and articulate that to the development team and then come back to me with such clarity was surprising.

The engineer who was working on the project cared about the vision, staying true to it, and making sure that they were delivering something that I wanted. The team took the time to understood why certain things should work a certain way, and they learned a lot about accounting.

Because of that, all of the functionality was built on their foundation of understanding. Postlight was consistent and able to assimilate new information and feedback quickly into the development. I didn’t feel like we were working against each other; I felt like we were aligned.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. They brought a lot of expertise and leadership to the conversation. If they thought something wasn’t a good step, they explained why and presented alternatives.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Utilize their product design expertise. Postlight is extremely innovative, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to work with their product specialists, especially if you haven’t done a major software development project. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the global head of editorial at WeWork.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

We needed to improve our content websites as well as bring them up to our new brand standards. We wanted the new platforms to be user-friendly from an editorial perspective so that we could publish content.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We went through a number of exercises to decide if the websites should remain as two websites. We considered which users the websites served. Postlight was involved in all of those conversations but they weren’t directing them. Their team gave us their best feedback about our decisions. Postlight helped me to advocate for a WordPress system because the company wanted to build it in another framework at one point.

Postlight dedicated an engineer and a project manager but not a designer because our design system was rigid. Our designer created specifications and wireframes to implement. Then, Poslight rebuilt the two websites from top to bottom. Their team not only built the frontend and backend but also article templates and analytics.

What is the team composition?

There was staff turnover on their side during the engagement, so we worked with three different project managers and Paul (Co-Founder and CEO) stepped in when necessary. We worked with one engineer consistently, who was beloved by our team. At one point, we worked with a designer who worked on two other web projects in our company. 

How did you come to work with Postlight?

I’ve known Paul and his work for years. I felt comfortable with him. I also knew that the firm had experience working with big companies and media companies. We got bids from three firms in total and Postlight was in a middle price range.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $500,000–$1,000,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our collaboration in August 2018, and it ended in February 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The sites launched with a revamped content strategy, so the platforms enabled our growth in traffic and SEO results. For the most part, we stayed on target and on track. We tracked bugs and components that needed to be fixed on a spreadsheet and then Postlight addressed them. their team did what we needed them to do.

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

We check-in weekly for a good portion of the engagement. Sometimes we were a week or two behind, but the project hummed along. Communication wasn’t always the easiest because there was a lot of change. Our various project managers had varying levels of strength. At times, we needed someone who could push us and keep the project moving. They provided documentation in concert with our team. They kept track of their tasks and marked their progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Postlight was extremely attentive, giving us their time and energy. They were honest and weren’t afraid to say the good, the bad, and the ugly. Their team was on my side and worked to satisfy us. That helped me to be a better manager of the project internally. Their work speaks for itself. They’re an experimental, product-driven shop, which was appealing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It was a challenge to have multiple project managers. Paul was aware of that. I didn’t have great strategists internally, so it felt like the project was all on me. The only way to get strategic advice was from Paul, but that’s not where they can invest their time. We needed more thought-partnership.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have documentation and schedule weekly calls. Make sure to integrate them with your company because their team integrates well. They won everyone over on our side. Also, keep the project simple because we had more options on the backend than was needed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an arts integrity consulting company. Our mission is to safeguard the permanence and integrity of the world’s artistic record. We carry out this mission through consulting and lab services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

We had the opportunity to develop an exciting piece of software as a solution to a very specific need. The main challenge was that we’re a very small team with no in-house developers. We wanted to make sure we could deliver and ship the product, but also minimize the risk of working with independent contractors. Working with Postflight was a nice alternative to that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Postlight primarily provides software and app development, but they also provide a bit of product and project management. The software is a layer of abstraction on top of Filecoin, which is a decentralized storage protocol. Fundamentally, we developed a command-line interface tool and restful API for simplifying work within Filecoin. It’s pretty complicated, and there’s not really any application built on top of it.

The app we built with Postflight breaks the files that users are storing into small chunks so they’re filed into small blocks within Filecoin. It manages universally unique identifiers and deals transactions within the File Coin network.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Pascal (Program Manager, Postlight) and Jad (Software Engineer, Postlight). There was also a design product manager on their end. This was great because it ensured we had somebody managing the developer directly.

How did you come to work with Postlight?

I’ve known Paul (Co-Founder and CEO, Postlight) for a few years now, not personally but through my following of Postlight’s work. For a time, I’ve been aware of their capabilities and also listened to their podcast. When I had just started, Paul was one of the individuals I talked to about which route to take in partnering up to complete development. Everything fell into place.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $140,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in April 2019 and is ongoing. We just wrapped up the second phase, and we’re hoping to sign on for a third.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Postlight has always delivered high-quality software reliably and on time. The solutions have always functioned as expected. There are some rough corners around some of the edges of the app, but it’s an MVP so it should be that way.

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management skills are superior. I can’t say enough nice things about it. Postlight always meets deadlines and ships on schedule. Pascal does a great job of keeping the projects on track and making sure we’re happy. We use Slack, Google Hangouts, and Zoom to communicate. They use Jira on their end, and we use Asana and Flow on ours.

Postlight has done an exceptional job of orchestrating our complex collaboration roles. On one hand, we’re their client; but on the other, they’re in service of our client. When it comes to our direct partnership, they’ve been very hands-on. They’ve taken leadership in making sure to ask all the right questions and effectively do their job.

Their team has also been great when it comes to their participation in broader meetings with our stakeholders. They’ve been extremely respectful and intuitively knew when to let me take the lead because the third party is our client. At the same time, they’re always there to step up when it’s appropriate for them to lead or present.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re authentically enthusiastic and passionate about this project — and that’s very important to me. We can tell they genuinely want to make an impact and aren’t faking the candor or friendship within our partnership.

Their team has expressed how they see the potential for our company to become a service provider. They’ve given us business strategy advice because they’re excited about the potential of our products. It’s very important to have quality, authentic business relationships because it makes collaboration more fruitful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re expensive for sure. As a business owner, reducing costs has crossed my mind because at this point, we’ve de-risked and shipped the product and now we’re doing iterative work. However, I really like Postlight’s exceptional quality of work. Everything is fantastic, and they manage the projects well. Cost is really the only thing for me.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to listen and be open to having your assumptions questioned or challenged. Postlight’s team has very seasoned professionals who do a great job of poking and prodding to tease out broader issues. If you’re more strong-willed, be willing to tap into their deep expertise and experience to really vet your ideas.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Workers Benefit Fund. We partner with local industry and sector leaders to provide benefits to workers in today’s rapidly expanding gig economy. Currently, we offer benefits to 100,000 black car drivers in New York.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

My company engaged Postlight to build a mobile app with CRM capabilities.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Postlight created a development plan and are in the process of building the iOS and Android app. The team used Airtable to develop the frontend. They built features like a news ticker and in-app texting and calling.

Postlight integrated Salesforce CRM. They developed CRM capabilities so that we can track benefits, utilization, and activation statistics within the app. The team also connected the CRM to our call center, data analytics, and all of our inbound and outbound marketing efforts, including social media and emails.

What is the team composition?

We have worked with an app developer, a UX specialist, two Salesforce team members, and various developers.

How did you come to work with Postlight?

A friend referred me to them.

How much have you invested with them?

My company has spent between $300,000–$400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in May 2018 and is ongoing. Postlight completed work on the frontend of the app and are finishing the CRM. We have a roadmap for what we need to do next, but we don’t have a set timeline.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app has performed well, and the number of downloads has exceeded expectations.

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

Postlight has been fantastic. They are incredibly patient with my team, which is not tech-savvy.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Because we don’t have an in-house technical team, we fully rely on Postlight to determine what we need and how to progress. Postlight ensures we understand everything they’re doing and what needs to happen, which is very reassuring.

Are there any areas they could improve?

From a non-technical perspective, they’ve done a great job and met our requirements.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want before building begins.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the editor-in-chief of Dollar Shave Club.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

From an editorial content standpoint, our web properties were incoherent in their technologies. We had a WordPress site that wasn’t able to grow flexibly or scale with the business as we grew internationally, and we also wanted to add domestic content platforms for our new locations.

As we got up to 300 million monthly unique visitors to our website, we wanted to be able to own that audience a little more. There were things we weren’t able to do from a data standpoint to actually understand who that audience was and what they were doing, which also led us to redevelop the site.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built us a single platform CMS, from which we were able to spin up a number of sites. We have a website on the U.S. platform that is fuelled by the CMS, as well as a standalone U.K. one. Another of our sites is completely firewalled off in its own world. There are some light translation capabilities so when we expand to non-English speaking countries, we will easily have a good baseline of language for a domestic editor. They have also been doing some higher-level product optimizations, which is more tactical and foundational at this point.

They built it all via WordPress, which they advised us to use. We told them exactly what we needed in terms of architectures: a site that is lightweight, highly flexible, and can scale to a number of different countries. We mapped it out together and then talked about the kind of content we are producing and what the best solution would be. The design and specifications were the results of that collaboration.

What is the team composition?

We had a product manager as well as a project manager. We also had a set of engineers who did a lot of the actual coding work.

How did you come to work with Postlight?

We did our due diligence and talked to a number of people. Postlight came highly recommended to me from a number of people that I trust in the industry. The founder’s record speaks for itself as well, as does their client list. It felt like a good match for us, with their experience suitable to handle what we needed.

What is the status of this engagement?

Most of the work was completed between June–September 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We knew all of the pieces we required and what needed to happen, but we didn’t have the skillsets or the people to put it together for us. Postlight did a remarkable job of understanding our issues and coming up with a suitable solution in a really timely manner. They filled in all the gaps that we had.

We measured the early days of the project based on what we knew we wanted. Everything is now an evolutionary process in terms of how we measure the results. A lot of it launched several months ago, and we haven’t had any issues whatsoever, so things were done correctly.

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re the easiest people I have ever worked with—remarkably articulate and passionate in all the right ways. They’re very passionate about the work and the project, but they are also really good at assessing realities, needs, and other things. We really can count on them, and their dependability is great. I never once worried about their side of things as they work just as we want them to. If they run into any issues, they’re really good about bringing them up and having a constructive dialogue.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The way they carry themselves is really calming and rare in this line of work. They’re really collaborative and there’s not a lot of ego despite everything they have accomplished. They give their opinion, but we certainly feel supported as well—I’ve never worked with any developers that are so responsive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re expensive, but you get what you pay for. It can make moving forward a challenge because there are some things that we want but are tough to at the price point. It’s much easier to do things on a larger scale project basis as we did.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We knew exactly what we wanted, but I don’t think that’s necessarily needed—it would have been interesting to pose a problem for them, so don’t feel like you have to have all the answers. I think they could take an idea and show you things that you might not have thought of. That can really add value, and I think if we began again, I would have been less prescriptive as they’re great thinkers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

When I worked with Postlight, I was a director of product management at a technology company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Postlight?

We had a fairly old, monolithic architecture with a very old application, so we wanted to refactor the entire system and build a new application from scratch. We were looking for a company to help us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we started working with them, we wanted to do some work on top of our existing APIs and move forward without rebuilding our existing system. However, we ended up rebuilding the application from scratch.

Postlight provided recommendations about the new architecture and built a brand new web application for us. They managed the frontend development and helped us with our API approach, which included integration with Apollo and GraphQL. It's a responsive web app that works on phones, tablets, and desktop browsers.

What is the team composition?

They assigned five developers and a project manager to us. We mostly interfaced with our project manager.

How did you come to work with Postlight?

We met with them previously, so we knew they had a good reputation. Also, we liked the app they built for a large magazine, so we decided they'd be a good fit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2017 and the project was completed in October 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The application is the core codebase of an open-source project. One result of Postlight’s work is the ability for external contributors to easily get on-boarded and start working very quickly. That's certainly due to the quality of their code and the recommendations they made in terms of the architecture. The app hasn't launched yet, so we don't have a lot of data. The platform is being continuously deployed, which wouldn't be possible without their guidance.

How did Postlight perform from a project management standpoint?

We had daily check-ins and sprint planning. Every two weeks we had demos of the work they had finished. In the beginning, we were very hands-on because we had several teams working on the project. But they're true experts at what they do, so at a later stage, we could just give them the work and let them handle it. Also, I could call them anytime I had a question.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We could trust them to deliver a high-quality product on time. Our internal team has been very happy with their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything. They're in a different time zone, but it was never a problem.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have an understanding of what you want to achieve and what problems you want to solve first. Also, provide them with as many details as you can. It took us longer when we had to make large architectural decisions.