Leobit

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a SaaS company and marketplace network based in London, focusing on the jewelry sector. We’re a team of 55, and I’m the COO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

Our business model is to enable B2B supply chain trading for the jewelry industry. There are three parts to our software where one is putting people together to select products together. The second part is getting the best price, and the third is allowing them to trade and do procurement. That third part is our most important and valuable piece of the system and the biggest impact we’re going to have on the industry.

In terms of previous development, we hadn’t embarked on developing this particular phase three of the software. We were debating whether to try and do this internally or to outsource it. We have two additional teams but felt it was going to be extremely difficult to assemble a highly capable and technical team of up to 10 people in a short time. That inspired us to look outside of our company to do this.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In February 2020, we wanted to put together a team of seven developers, with a QA person and project manager to kick off what we had already documented as the order system. We wanted to meet with every individual member of the Leobit team and get an understanding of how this was going to work because it was something that was quite new for us.

We gave them a presentation and a lot of the designed product of what we were looking to develop. In the first month, they got familiar with the intricacies of the jewelry supply chain procurement system and how it should work without necessarily focusing on too much on development. This is a mini SAP in a sense, so it’s an extremely technical product.

The staff members had no previous experience with jewelry or building supply chain software, but they did have the technical knowledge of how to put this together. We spent that first month making sure they understood how the product was meant to work. We ensured they were organized effectively so they could be led by us.

Since February 2020, we’ve worked on about eight different large software suites, ranging from a full-blown mobile application to a full-blown web application outside of this system.

What is the team composition?

I work with the head of finance operations as well as their CTO, an architect, and senior, mid, and junior developers.

How did you come to work with Leobit?

We have 10 engineers who work alongside Leobit for project management. All of us flew to Ukraine and spent a week with them. We met every single member of the team as we did with other companies in the region to screen them. Leobit ultimately came out on top.

How much have you invested in them?

This year, it’ll be about $800,000–$900,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started back in February 2020, and the work is ongoing. We want them to continue to work on and develop it more because of the quality and execution.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Initially, our number one metric was to get the product in time and out to market. We’re still on track to deliver that, and it'll be due in about 30 days or so. Everything we’ve been tracking has been to make sure we don’t go too far off that date.

As a result of the recruitment that we do with them and the screening, we've come to find that the level of talent there is pretty exceptional. The way they've introduced us to new staff that we didn’t predict we'd need and have made a meaningful difference to the development velocity and culture of the team.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

The Leobit team, even though they are an external team to us, attends our weekly all-hands meetings. Some of them have also been recognized as employees of the week across our own company for going above and beyond and getting to the end of sprints.

Some of the developers attend our board meetings to show demos of where the project is. We have a high level of trust with them on something that’s very sensitive and so precious. We’ve been positively surprised by the impact they’re having.

We had a project manager, but she has only needed to be on the project part-time, which is maybe once a week during a month. That is mostly around just taking care of things if there are any personnel changes or people who are going on holidays or things like that; it is more operational HR than actually coordinating the development project.

We use Google Suite and have them on our chat system. They’re part and parcel of everyone else in the company. Their team can comment on any chat thread and attend any video calls; they’re just totally embedded in the company.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re able to react to changes very quickly. For example, we were concerned about the architect leaving after three months. We wanted him for another month or two just to oversee getting through a couple more sprints. Or, we were thinking we might need more senior staff on this project in the long-term.

It could’ve taken 3–6 months until we found that person, but Leobit has solved all the large problems around personnel and finding the right person with the right skill for us — whether it was just for this project or to help our company.

Their speed of reaction and ability to solve problems, particularly around development hires, is something we predictively wouldn’t have had with others and that’s quite unique of Leobit.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If there were any teething problems or communication issues, it’s probably nothing I can mention now because we’ve resolved a lot in the last six months or so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go to Lviv and spend time meeting the team you'll be working with. Really go into detail on the product you want to develop. The more detailed, outlined, and prototyped your objectives are upfront, the better it will be for them.

I recommend having someone in-house that can make sure the person Leobit is proposing is the right person. Typically, Leobit has all the right staff, but it is whether you find the right person at the right level. You need to navigate which one is the right hire for you.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Papa Bear Software is a focused consulting agency for early stage b2b startups, typically in SaaS. We provide technical strategy and roadmap, staff augmentation, and talent search services, and cloud native architecture and devops for our clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed affordable high quality engineers quickly to augment our development team. We brought in 5 engineers from leobit to help us deliver a full stack solution for our client. Our goal was to deliver a high quality application that would scale along with the client business.

SOLUTION

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

We had heard from two trusted advisors that Leobit had shown promise as an off shore solution. These advisors had also had success with Leobit.

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

At Papa Bear Software we work closely with our clients to understand their vision and their essential needs for each project. We helped them develop their requirements and roadmap, then delivered a large subset of those requirements to our leobit engineers.

They were wonderful. Their engineers pushed back when there was risky decisions and they were usually right. When they were wrong, they did they understood and worked as told. We delivered two applications for our client with leobit.

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

Five in total. Account manager Senior React Engineer Mid level React Engineer Mid level Quality Engineer Mid level Quality Engineer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Leobit along with Papa Bear Software delivered high quality and fast. They fit well into our company culture and helped accelerate our productivity. We delivered two applications and a scalable cloud architecture with their help.

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

They communicated quickly and thoroughly on a daily basis.

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

As most companies in America, we've encountered sub par off-shore solutions before. Leobit was the opposite, we felt they were just as good as us in terms of technical prowess and productivity.

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

No. We treasure our ongoing relationship with Leobit.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re Inspect Point — a SaaS company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

We needed to augment our development team. We’re an agile software development organization and receive a lot of feature requests like all software companies. We needed to address them as rapidly as possible as well as handle support issues.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We went through an interview process with Leobit, looking through CVs and resumes. We then added two Ruby on Rails developers to our team. One was also a full stack developer.

One developer handles integrations. He managed our Stripe and QuickBooks integrations. The more senior developer helps to augment our current feature set. He not only stabilizes it but also adds customer-facing features when needed.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager and two developers from Leobit.

How did you come to work with Leobit?

Colleagues referred us to Leobit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $25,000–$50,000 on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were able to start contributing on day one with high-quality work. We can tell that they’re bright developers through their code and communication. We’re happy and view this as a long-term partnership.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re a scrum shop. They meet with our scrum master and product manager daily. Their team joins us in our daily sprints and augment our team. They work closely with our other developers and complete user stories.

They’re communicative and take ownership of their work. If we find that a feature's broken in staging, we note that in a card but don't expect them to fix it the next day. However, they fix it immediately because they take pride in their work. I don’t get that with other vendors.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their developers have great communication skills. They’ll push back because they want to complete tasks the right way, which I appreciate. Our contract’s a fixed price, but their team goes above and beyond.

We’re a busy product team, so we might not always have fleshed out cards. Their team works well with little information but will also ask questions when needed. They’ll let us know if they can’t complete a task without more information.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’m happy with how everything’s going.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It helps to have experience with outsourcing development. Also, follow their process. I’m impressed with Leobit’s placement process because we weren’t just thrown developers. Rather, their organization finds you what you need.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m VP of application development for a mortgage bank. We do wholesale business in the B2B lending space. However, we also have retail brands and direct sell to consumers. I manage our custom apps and sites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

We wanted to hire a dev team to help with our externally facing apps that would function as part of our own team, like a staff augmentation effort. They work alongside our team on the same projects for increased efficiency.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our loan center app is our primary B2B platform that all our wholesale business comes through. That’s where loans are uploaded for brokers to price and lock them. That site was done in Angular Jest and the backend has .NET web APIs. 

At this point, we wanted to refresh our UI frontend design using the same backend. That was the main development work their team was undertaking. The new site is in Angular 7. They’re basically porting the site and planting new features as required.   

What is the team composition?

At any point in the project, we had 1–2 developers working on sprints with us. 

How did you come to work with Leobit?

While I was working on my MBA, I was collaborating with a different offshore development in Ukraine. I reached out to them to get more information for this project, but they didn’t work in our tech stack. They suggested Leobit to us. From there, we had talks with developers and hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

As of now, we’ve spent about $70,000. By the end of 2019, the cost will be closer to $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2019 and have an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been tracking things they were doing at our own expectations in two-week sprints. For the most part, we’ve been staying on track and completing work on time. The overall quality of deliverables has been very good. They’re driven and consistently ask the right questions. I didn’t need to be worried about the extra time and effort spent on working with an offshore team because they were very efficient. In fact, they were able to figure a lot of stuff out on their own.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

They communicate very well. Our team works with another offshore firm in another country, so they had to coordinate with both of us. The communication was great from that perspective. They weren’t afraid to contribute their opinion and use their expertise to improve the application.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very driven and can deliver high-quality work. In their effort, they showed flexibility in making business agreements to get the project going. The developers and business interactions were good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I was very impressed with their capabilities. Our contacts were different from my organization’s historically. With that, there were a couple of hurdles. Once we took care of that, though, everything was fine.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a decent amount of work lined up for them. They’re very fast at getting things done, so you’re going to need to have more ready to accommodate them in that effort. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

AgentBright is a startup offering a CRM productivity tool for real estate agents. I do all the testing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

We needed outsourced development help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They do development for my business partner, working in tandem with the in-house team. They worked on our CRM, including the frontend design, and built features such as text messaging and email integration using Nylas.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with between one and three developers at any given time, as well as a project manager.

How did you come to work with Leobit?

I’d worked with them before at another company.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2016 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of code is very high, even considering the ad hoc fashion in which we’ve worked. We’ve received positive feedback from the user testing we’ve conducted.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

I handle project management on our end, and their project manager is incredible, one of the best I’ve ever met. Their team is very flexible and easy to work with.

We communicate through Slack, which works well. We use GitHub to assign and label projects before passing them back and forth. We’ve got the technical requirements in GitHub, and we sometimes do a video and identify the steps that need to be done. They love our workflow and work really well in it.

We recently ran into a bug the night before a demo, so I emailed them saying we had three issues and asking for help. They fixed all three by the next day, which was phenomenal.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their developers will do the work that we request, but they’ll ask questions if they think there’s a better way to do it. We’ve tried other offshore vendors and had terrible experiences like they were spinning us around in circles. Leobit is proactive and reliable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re very satisfied.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re a technical architect team, you need to be clear on requirements and specify what sort of testing you’ll do.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a gambling company with locations all over Europe. I’m based in our Estonia location where we develop software in-house.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

It’s difficult to find talented people locally. Since it’s a competitive market, we’ve tried outsourcing some of the development work. Our team is building a complex betting platform, with its own CMS.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team at Leobit focused on integrations within the backend. They’ve worked on our internal CMS and back-office system. The main application is Ruby on Rails, with Vue.js on the frontend, and GraphQL for some sockets. The platform is on AWS.

People will come and go, but the onboarding involves sitting down with the new person and telling them about the project. Leobit’s team knows us as a client, in terms of what we’re looking for and how we work. Because we have a small team, all the onboarding is done on their side.

We don’t necessarily provide them with a lot of documentation. As far as I know, our approach is to give them access to the code and let them observe it themselves. We try to make the code itself understandable, which was one of the reasons we went for Ruby on Rails.

It’s more of a dynamic, continuous share of information through conversations. If there’s a specific integration, there will be documentation involved, but that’s mainly for external partners.

What is the team composition?

At the moment, we’re working with six of their developers. I had a project manager in the beginning, but our CTO and product owner are mainly working with them directly. While we had conversations to see who would fit, Leobit was mainly involved in the hiring process.

How did you come to work with Leobit?

We got in contact with their team through Upwork. Our team found a great candidate and started working with them, and it turned out that there was a company behind them. Because we had a good relationship, we decided to scale up with Leobit. They were reliable and knew how we worked.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested €250,000 (approximately 273,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Leobit started in September 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We appreciate their team’s engagement. The team at Leobit cares about their work. When we’ve had crucial issues or things that needed to go live, sometimes they worked on the weekends. Based on my experience, their strong team cares about company values.

I’m not a technical expert, but everything they’re working on is performing well. They’re delivering senior-level work. Some of their team members have Master degrees in computer studies.

In terms of KPIs, it’s very intuitive at this stage. We’re a small team, and we’re measuring how well we’re working together. A lot of this is done by CTO as well, but not through clear data points.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication is top-notch. Whenever we send an email, they respond quickly. Their entire team is kind and helpful. They’re respectful and try not to push us, which is another plus. It’s pleasant to work with Leobit.

We decided to increase the engagement after a huge milestone. We appreciated the effort that their team put in. Our team asked their management to buy a cake for them at our expense. I thought they wouldn’t charge us, but they did. Our communication was mainly through Skype and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re internationally-oriented. It’s good that an international company should apply modern, Western business practices. What stands Leobit out, in particular, is their developers. I find their way of engaging themselves with the project to be a great aspect of the company, compared to others we’ve dealt with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The cake incident is the only small thing I can comment about, but there weren’t any huge issues. That’s the only thing that stands out.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should be open and explain their needs. I wouldn’t treat Leobit differently than any other organization. They’ve helped us proactively, thinking about ways to improve the delivery of resources. I have nothing negative to say about their team. The same standards and expectations should be applied to Leobit as with the client’s internal team.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is using some new algorithms and design to cater to a more tech-savvy audience when they look to buy homes. I'm one of the founders looking after product management and UX.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Leobit?

To help us turn our concepts into a fully functioning web app.

What were your goals for this project?

Quick delivery of features to enable us to launch, while keeping an eye on performance and errors.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We held discussions with several vendors and felt we had a special connection with Leobit. They did not let us down, assigning us developers with very good skills. Language and time zones were not an issue and we've communicated effectively.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They took our muck ups and specifications and turned them into fully working software. They also gave advice and thorough QA testing.

What was the team composition?

3 developers with different levels and skills and one QA tester. A PM oversaw the whole project and helped throughout.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We are amidst conversations with investors and having a working web app simplifies the pitch.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We had direct access to the developers and the PM. Constant and easy communication via tools such as Trello and Slack let us be constantly aware of what's going on, blocks and feedback.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their expertise, how reachable they were, and their flexibility stand out to us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not really.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO of a staffing firm that tailors to the placement of interim executives.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

We were using Salesforce as our CRM, but we needed a custom applicant tracking system and solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Leobit has completed two phases of the project. They built out our existing PHP system, rewrote it in Ruby on Rails, and provided new wireframes. The system allows users to sign up, complete an evaluation process, and upload their resumé. In turn, we can do a quick search based on specific criteria and then send relevant candidate profiles to our clients.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a project manager, a requirements manager, a QA specialist, and up to three developers at a time.

How did you come to work with Leobit?

I believe we found Leobit online. My company put out a tender, which Leobit responded to. They gave us a quote, and we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere in the range of $100,000–$250,000. The first phase of our project had a fixed price.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in February 2018, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project has been massively successful. We’ve grown twofold and reached our capacity for managing our business model because Leobit automated so much of our process.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

Leobit is professional and responsive. They’re dedicated to doing the right thing for us. They began by drilling down on our requirements. The first few weeks were very iterative; they clarified and made sure they understood the requirements. Then, they estimated project costs.

Our project manager is the best I’ve ever worked with throughout my twenty-five years in IT. She and her team are very proficient in Jira, which they use to track epics and then break those down into user stories. We have a great testing and production workflow. Every two weeks, Leobit delivers their work, my team goes through user acceptance testing (UAT), and then we push to production.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their commitment to understanding our business and maintaining clarity keeps the project on track. When we provided Leobit with a PowerPoint deck at the beginning of the project, we expected them to move right into development. Instead, they asked us to approve using a requirements manager to ensure they understood what we wanted. Although we were initially hesitant, this ended up being the best decision. Leobit shared mockups in Balsamiq, providing clear documentation of the solution and what it would look like. Now, we can show our users these mockups to demonstrate how the solution will work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We need DevOps services and support, but Leobit doesn’t work in this area.

Any advice for potential customers?

Before you start coding, you need to have your requirements and full wire-framed frontend done.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CFO of Realized Technologies LLC. We’re an online marketplace for real estate investments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

We hired Leobit to create a proprietary online investment portal with a solid UX for our clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our in-house team designed and architected the web-based portal. Leobit then provided full-stack development services based on our wireframes. The team utilized .NET, JavaScript libraries, SQL databases, and Bootstrap. During the build, the Leobit think through the flow charts to ensure accuracy of data and the optimal site speed.

What is the team composition?

The scrum master manages the 5–6-person team. They mostly work behind the scenes, but we engage with the whole team about once a week.

How did you come to work with Leobit?

Received a referral when we were looking to replace our old vendor. Interviewed them and then gave them a small project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2016 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re happy with Leobit because they identify issues and make improvements in an effective manner. The team’s insightful advice makes the solution more efficient and user-friendly.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

The team’s communication and time management skills are great given the complexity of full-stack development. We communicate via semi-weekly conference calls and Jira regularly; the teams also email one another.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Leveraging expert resource allocation, Leobit assigns the right people to the appropriate tasks. The portal experiences very few bugs as a result.

Are there any areas they could improve?

More regular reporting would enhance the partnership, as wells as detailed hours and roadmaps for where we are in the process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients should scope out the project thoroughly ahead of the engagement because Leobit’s development team will work fast and surface several issues that weren’t thought through appropriately.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and managing director of Sportif AS, a consulting company. Our main focus is on the commercialization of sports broadcasting rights, event planning, and project management. We specialize in finding digital solutions for public health issues.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leobit?

We hired Leobit to develop our web and mobile apps. Our goal was to stand out from our global competition and get our product used in prominent sports events.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Leobit developed our web, iOS and Android apps. We began the process from scratch and their team built it according to our vision. The first part of the project has been completed, and they continue to offer different services and support us.

What is the team composition?

There are 5-8 people from Leobit working with us.

How did you come to work with Leobit?

We used Leobit in the past, so we knew they were a reliable team.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2018 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site and applications will be launched soon. Through the tests we’ve run, the feedback has been positive. We feel confident in the product so far and anticipate seeing a better impact once we launch.

How did Leobit perform from a project management standpoint?

Leobit has been professional to work with. We primarily communicate through phone calls, email, and Skype. We use a separate company to manage the workload, so Leobit worked well with that team. Whenever there are issues, they collaborate effectively to find a solution.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We value that everything is delivered on time and they’re responsive. They also stayed within budget.

Are there any areas they could improve?

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

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Being well prepared is helpful.