Light IT Global

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the VP of Sales at Honeycomb Software. Our company develops digital products for startups and online businesses. We have a strong team of full-stack developers who work closely with creative designers in order to deliver projects on time while maintaining excellent code and design standards.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We have won a big and interesting project with many details, and in order to successfully achieve the goal, we decided to expand our team. The project was quite big and a little beyond our available resources and capabilities.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

It is difficult to say how we learned about Light IT since we work in the same field, we didn't officially meet. Initially, we searched by technology stack and experience, then we paid attention to the reputation of companies. After the list of potential partners was narrowed down, the managers began to communicate, the final stage was the CV and the completion of the test task. We were satisfied with what we saw, and we made the final choice.

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

On the project, we performed a full cycle of work, from architecture development to deployment, so cooperation with Light IT began on a part-time basis, while the project was starting, later switched to a full day. After completing the main work, we again continued to cooperate on a part-time basis. We worked with three Angular 7 developers, the work experience and the level of communication were important to us.

The project was supervised by a technical specialist from the customer's side, but from the side of Light IT, PM was also in touch with us. Light IT made suggestions to the project, they have experience in similar solutions and it was useful for our work. We have been actively cooperating with them for more than 7 months, but even now we do not break off contact.

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

We worked with three middle+ and above programmers. The project needed 4+ years of development and 2+ years of working with Angular. PM was also with us, he had no responsibility, but he was always in the context of the work and helped.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The recent World events have made adjustments to the customer's business plan. The new platform successfully moved to the Azure cloud, became scalable, and was ready to expand the business, but the pandemic had a different point of view, unfortunately, the customer did not receive the results he expected. But technically the platform is implemented as planned the potential is still great and it is ready to shoot.

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

There isn't much to say here. The project was under the control of the customer and the conditions were dictated by them, they have security rules regarding communication, devices, etc., which both we and Light It had to accept.

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

The main thing I want to say is that it was professional. There have been no unpleasant surprises in the process of work — tasks are set and completed on time. When there was an opportunity to discuss, Light IT did not hesitate to contribute, when it was necessary to do the work it was done and this is what I appreciate. The more we worked, the more I realized that I could rely on them.

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

Our cooperation was so good that I have nothing to say here.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and director of an e-learning platform that focuses on teaching languages to Arab-speaking audiences.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Light IT?

The aim was to create a new version of the website that is more mobile friendly and future-proofed for scalability and SEO requirements.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Light IT did the coding from scratch and designed an enhanced UI/UX of our website with our team. Their role included working on both the frontend and the backend using React NextJS and NestJS. They worked very closely with our team to redesign the new templates used in delivering our content to the users. They were also instrumental in helping design the overall user flow in the system and to define the detailed functional requirements of the new system.

When coding the new version of the website, they were using the latest technology and the industry's best practices. Their scope included development, deployment, project management and quality assurance.   They have demonstrated great competence in all aspects so far. The project is still ongoing and we are looking forward to the launch of the new product.

What is the team composition?

The team included full time and part time members of Light IT. the number of people involved ranged between 6–10 depending on the stage of the project.

How did you come to work with Light IT?

Light IT was recommended to us by a friend who owned a startup. He had similar requirements for his website that needed to be sleek and more mobile friendly. He was happy with the work Light IT did for him. We were especially impressed with the flexibility and efficiency they demonstrated in that project, so we hired them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our engagement in May 2021, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m happy with Light IT. They are thorough in their planning and development process, and we’re impressed with what they have done. There haven’t been many reworks since they have spent a lot of time planning with us. Overall, they have met our expectations, and their performance has been fantastic.

How did Light IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Light IT’s uses well established project management methodologies. We have adopted the Scrum methodology to great effect. They are highly skilled in using the latest project management tools, such Jira, Confluence and Slack. They were timely in meeting the deliverables and making steady progress every week. Our work with them so far has been very productive and the project sprints were well planned and well executed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very diligent and detail-oriented from planning to execution. They worked very closely with us and were able to utilise best practices to good effect in both the design and implementation.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The range they estimated for time and budget was too wide. They do this naturally to protect themselves, but they can still refine that further especially that they are really good at what they do. Other than this, we’re truly happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend enough time upfront with them planning the project. Light IT has adequate resources and expertise to help you define your requirements in details, which made the implementation smoother.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a software development and consulting company with a strong focus on technology partnerships. Since 2003 we enable businesses to disrupt markets and achieve their goals by delivering outstanding digital solutions. I am Head of business development at this company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

The situation has put us in a situation when we needed to ramp up our team rapidly so did not have enough time to go through the whole hiring process. We had an interesting project, but the client wanted to speed up the development process. We decided to expand our team with side developers, and together we started working on developing a platform for cryptocurrency trading.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We used the services of an IT company that could provide us with the necessary number of high-quality developers. We paid attention to their professional experience, technical skills and communication level We also considered the reputation of the company, clients references and relevant expertise.

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

The test task for candidates was to solve a real task from our project. The results satisfied us, and we started to work immediately. The project was in a full swing and Light IT developers settled quite fast and worked alongside our team together, we’ve managed to build an MVP using Node.js.

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

Four Node.js developers worked with us almost all the way. We have selected 1 middle and 3 senior developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Together, within 6 months, we’ve managed to develop an MVP. As a result, the client flow increased by 53%, and time-to-market reduced by 30%

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

We were impressed with their work ethics even during the interview stage and our opinion did not change along the way. Before the start of cooperation, we’ve managed to communicate our vision with a BA specialist and discuss the workflow with a PM.

Thereafter, we communicated mainly with the developers. Time and tasks were tracked in Jira and all the communication was conducted in Slack and Confluence& We have nothing to say except that the work was carried out competently.

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

We didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and that's good. We weren't born yesterday to be surprised. We needed competent people and Light IT provided them. We also got a good acquaintance and will keep in touch.

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

I did not see anything could be improved.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Head of Sales as Rozdoum - an official Atlassian Solution Partner and Atlassian Marketplace Partner with office locations in Ukraine and the USA. We offer a full cycle of Atlassian Professional Services, covering consultancy, licensing and set up, upgrade and migrations, custom app development, and support for the whole stack of Atlassian products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We've hired Light IT's developers to work on a project alongside our team. They've worked on the back-end development for a booking platform, precisely the payment processing functionality. Besides that, Light IT has developed IOS and Android apps for our clients.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Our team knew exactly which areas we needed to improve and which tasks we required help with. And the search for a suitable vendor was based on that criteria. Light IT appeared on our shortlist because this company's name wasn't new to us. We've had a chance to check several of their case studies and their blog as well. At the final stage of the selection process, we chose several companies and initiated the communication. Light IT made the cut through their experience and competence. And, of course, our company had done some research and looked at the reviews of previous Light IT customers.

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

Since we were developing a platform for accommodation booking available worldwide, a clean back-end code was a priority. Both or team members and Light IT's experts agreed that Python is perfect for achieving that. The second stage of our cooperation included the iOS application development, which started once we've approved the list of features. The end customer already had an MVP, so the task for Light IT was to turn it into a competitive product. Upon completion of the iOS app development, the customer has requested several modifications for the Android app. This part was also implemented by Light IT.

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

Two Python developers, IOS and Android developers. Their Project manager has also participated in this project from the beginning.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In this regard, we need to distinguish between the impact of our customer's business model and the technical work done. When it comes to all the products we've delivered, the user satisfaction rate has grown by an average of 20%. Moreover, the dissatisfaction with the functionality has been minimized.

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

We worked with the Light IT team as with our colleagues. It was direct communication with the developers. We're glad we've managed to establish confidential communication with everyone involved in the process. Light IT had also regularly provided valuable advice and suggestions. For task and time management, we've used ClickUP. The primary communication tool was Slack. It's also worth mentioning that sometimes the workflow required the work on additional tasks and overtime work. Light IT perceived the situation with understanding and implemented the assigned tasks.

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

We appreciated that the most important thing for Light IT is task completion, no matter what difficulties arise along the way. Their resilience and ability to produce high-quality work impressed us.

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

Not to our knowledge.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I hired Light IT for IT product development, including a mobile app, back-end software, DevOps, web development. The goal for them is to cover the development end to end. I lead the project as a stakeholder/ product owner, and I provide all the designs and the requirements.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I selected them based on a small online research and background checks of the company and a few Zoom calls with them. The deciding factors were: the credibility of the company, experience in similar projects, other customer satisfaction, and skill level of their tech employees.

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

The scope is to develop a B2C product end to end, with a mobile app frontend initially. The product includes iOS and Android apps for the frontend, backend API where all the logic and information lives, AWS DevOps work to run the backend and scale quickly, and a web-based admin panel. I provided specifications in the form of designs and general requirements; they did all the planning, architecture planning, more detailed requirement gathering, and scoping.

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

I work with project manager, mobile app developer, backend developer, devops developer,

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project has not launched yet, but LightIT delivers results consistently with the schedule and plans for every sprint. At the end of each sprint, they demo the results, and I have all the transparency of the results. I also have access to the up-to-date app, which is updated multiple times per sprint.

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

They are very structured and rigorous about the work and planning. All the tasks are precisely defined, and I have access to all the task lists, definitions, and estimations. I can go in and comment, suggest updates, etc. Everything is transparent. They are always very responsive and open to communication. I know what is going on at all times, and with my input, I can quickly impact the direction.

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

I have more than ten years of experience in software engineering, and I have worked with various teams. There are a few things that impress me about LightIT work - they are consistently productive, structured, their work transparent, and they are responsive. I like the most working with LightIT because all of the team members are proactive! They suggest minor and more significant improvements in the app, features, architecture, etc. They always think from the perspective of future users and give valuable feedback. They use their experience to help make my life easier and reach the best outcome.

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

There are minor improvements that they can do that we always discuss openly and are always responsive to feedback, so all of these are fine-tuned on an ongoing basis.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO and founder of a consumer financial analysis software firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Light IT was hired to execute all software development including app user experience, front-end, & back-end design as well as all web design, development and deployment.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I've used Light IT for other projects in the past and was very pleased with their experience, organization, scheduling and deliverables. They have a wide array of skill sets and are an extremely talented group.

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

Scope of work: Web application for financial planning software and accompanying website.  This included all feature and functionality development of the application (
main page, business creation, timeline chart, plan builder, icon view, table view, plan template builder, data importing, results & analytics, complex optimizers, user onboarding, user profile, pricing.  We also went through a website redesign as the project evolved.

Project steps: Requirement elicitation, marketing research, architecture design, UI/UX design, planning, development, testing & deployment

Key deliverables: Marketing research, specification and user stories, UI/UX designs, functional overview, development plan, technical architecture, backend and frontend code, integrations, test cases, check lists, unit tests, automated tests & releases.

Technologies:

• Frontend: React.js, Next.js, Netifly.
• Backend: Python, Django/DRF, Rest API.
• DB: PostgreSQL.
• Integrations: Quickbook, Chargebee, Stripe.

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

There were 5 people on the team: a program manager, a designer, a front end developer, a back end developer and a QA engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Light IT team was very accurate with their cost and deliverable estimates.

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

Light IT uses Jira and Confluence to track development and to communicate/report progress to the customer. Their process is comprehensive, efficient and provides for maximum confidence.

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

Their team was highly engaged and continuously offered suggestions to enhance the user experience and to make the product better overall. Their organization and continuous communication exceeded my expectations.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Marketing Manager of a product company - Precoro. Our firm provides small and medium-sized businesses with Procurement Software

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We have already had a working platform for almost 5 years. Our business was developing, but our ambitions were greater, at a certain moment we decided to move to a fundamentally new level, add several cardinally new factions, and conquer the market with an updated product. We could not achieve our goals with our own developers, so we turned to third-party developers

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

From the very beginning, we wanted to consider developers from Eastern Europe, in particular from Ukraine, because we are familiar with this market and see its effectiveness. But the applicants had to be focused on the global market. We searched the internet, paying particular attention to directories. Having determined the final list, we contacted 7 companies.

We settled on light it focusing on their technology stack, past projects, customer impressions, after seeing the expertise, we realized that our views coincide and that Light It correctly senses the potential of our platform

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

First of all, we combined our experience and the expertise of LIght IT, thus we came to a common understanding of what kind of project we want to create. After discussing our goals, we decided on the technology stack, fortunately, we managed to choose the tools we work with ourselves - PHP, Vue.js, MSQL, TypeScript, CSS3. Then Light IT started to create UX, UI design.

Light IT has been redesigning and improving the reporting mechanism; adding the function of integrating data from third-party accounting platforms; the Approval Workflow mechanism; 3-way match

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

Our guide in this project was PM, he solved our questions and connected us with the right people. We ended up working with 11 people, mostly PHP developers, DevOps, Designer, QA, and Product Owner

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The result is a little blurred by the fact that along with the platform update, we made marketing efforts. The most important result that we finally managed to achieve is that over the last year we got as much sold as we had in our entire history before that, i.e. from the 16th year to the middle of the 20th

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

Jira was our task creation and time management tool, and the workflow was completely transparent. We tried not to use it, but PM was in touch even after hours. The main communication took place in Slack, but at the same time we exchanged contacts and periodically knocked on instant messengers. At different stages of the project, we held daily / weekly meetings Several times there was a lot of trouble in time, but firstly, we were warned, and secondly, we agree with the reasons why there were failures in the schedule

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

It seemed to us that they are no less interested in the success of our platform. The team has not only completed tasks, but they've also made proposals. One of the owners of the firm even participated in the control of the project. In the course of work, the task could be modified, which could cause a new round of discussions, but we never had any pretensions to the final result. They provided solid QA support for all of their results.

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

New proposals came from them, after which we made adjustments, this had a positive effect on the final result, we got more than we wanted, but this made the workflow more complicated

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product and strategy for an organization that’s essentially a marketplace that brings brands together, for creative and development needs with agencies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Light-it?

We needed someone to produce our technology platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Light-it is essentially our development team for our React web-based platform. The platform is where our clients can create their projects, which are then shared with agencies that can perform the work. The team took over our initial MVP, and they’ve been helping us develop its features and functionalities over the last 18 months.

What is the team composition?

We work with four people from their team and they consist of front- and backend developers, a QA resource, and then a project manager.

How did you come to work with Light-it?

I don’t recall how we initially found them, but we hired Light-it because we found that they were very competent in the languages that our app was built on. They also have a good sales process where they understood our app and challenges, and they came back with a good response at a reasonable price.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere between the range of $60,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Light-it always performs at a high-quality level. They’re good communicators and they keep us updated on the progress of the development’s timelines, budgets, and cost requirements.

How did Light-it perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, the feedback for their performance on the project management side is positive as well. They tend to stay within the deadlines and budget, and they tell us whenever there are variances. In addition, we communicate daily using Slack and Skype, and use Jira and Asana as our primary project management tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say it’s their clear and consistent communication, especially when it comes to the progress on the development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing springs to mind at the moment. In terms of development, there are always challenges of doing things faster and cheaper, but that’s not entirely specific to Light-it. Additionally, we’ve been able to work through the challenges we’ve had in the past.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would just say to have a clear and well-defined brief on what you’re looking to achieve. I think Light-it is quite competent in terms of understanding requirements and developing a team to match that through.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager for a medical software company. We don’t engage in patient-facing activities; we build software for doctors to use in clinics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Light IT?

They custom-built our software — it’s a dosing calculator application that links to electronic medical records (EMRs). It also stores patient info and was built around HIPAA and the Common Security Framework (CSF).

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we started, we had some screenshots of past systems we liked, as well as an Excel file that contained our algorithm for dosing patients. They helped us build version one of the application relatively quickly with limited resources. We were in a hurry to get it out; they were a bit on their own in terms of coming up with the scope, except for the guidance we provided them.

We’ve come a long way since version one; I don’t know how many releases we’ve had in total, but the tool has grown a lot.

The dosing calculator is comprised of two screens and combines certain data sets regarding the patient to arrive at the correct dosage. We’ve also added a feature called that allows providers to ask medical questions to our training providers on staff. It’s a form they submit electronically, and they’re able to hold a conversation in the application. There’s also a dosing report — and our reporting capabilities continue to expand. Light IT is currently working on an inventory feature, and, obviously, since the tool is built around HIPAA and CSF, we have two-factor verification, automatic lock-out, and account notifications.

What is the team composition?

Our original contact is no longer with the company, and we’re currently working with a provider named Yuri. I check in with him every day; I don’t know what I would do without him.

How did you come to work with Light IT?

I previously worked with another company, and one of the project managers at that company moved to Light IT. They were a good group of people that we thought would be a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent upwards of $250,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since February 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We receive reports from Jira, but the biggest metric we have is that our product didn’t exist before Light IT, and two other companies we worked with weren’t able to develop it either. It’s a complicated project, and Light IT was the first company to ever be able to help us. And they did it quickly, as well.

Most other dosing calculators aren’t user-friendly, and we’ve gotten great feedback on it. They’ve successfully built an API with an EMR company to cut down on the “negatives” about using a supplementary tool in conjunction with an EMR. Their work has proven to work out for us long term.

How did Light IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira integrated with Clockify and GitHub. We’ve had two project managers since we started with Light IT, and we’ve liked both of them. We couldn’t do it without them, and especially Yuri. He’s been the best fit by far.

He keeps everything organized for us, including the Jira backlog and our Scope, which lives in Google Drive. The estimates are also easily accessible for our executives, who may not have the time to get into the weeds. They do what works for their team and they also help us attain the transparency we need.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Light IT does their best to do whatever we ask for, even if it involves some scope creep or is a bit stressful for them.

Hands-down, they’re the best at shifting priorities and incorporating new asks into the scope. They do whatever is necessary to meet our needs, even if it means telling us what we’re asking for isn’t possible and developing an alternative. They go out of their way to come up with a plan of action that’s feasible.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Communication can be an issue and cause delays at times. It’s rare that it impacts their understanding of the scope, but it has happened.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go into the project knowing what you want and having some sort of plan. Light IT is good at making suggestions, but it will be faster if you know what you want.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CTO for a cybersecurity startup. We help companies to improve their cybersecurity posture.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to develop a POC for training platform. Aimed to develop a platform in a very short period if time while having no compromises with security.

SOLUTION

How did you select Light IT and what were the deciding factors?

Shortlisted 5 companies, did an internal tender.

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

Had a planning week. We provided majority of mockups.

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

Light-IT team consisted of PM, 1 back, 1 front and 1 QA. Back - Python Django. Front - React. PM - used Jira. Very structured with sprints, they follow Agile Scrum methodology.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have successfully launched a POC platform and started getting traction on the market.

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

Had weekly standups with the team and pretty much daily communication with PM. Used Jira to create tasks and manage hours.

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

Their structure. Great job by PM and the team, conducting meetings and keeping everyone accountable. Great communication by the team as well, always keen to make the best job possible.

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

There is always room for improvement, but nothing specific worth mentioning here.