Light-it

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Therapy Lab, a small mental health startup. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I hired Light-it to migrate our website from Squarespace to another platform. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially talked about the scope of the project and what we needed Light-it to do quickly. They showed us what the design would look like, and we gave them feedback. The team moved on to the next phase from there. The key technology they used was Webflow. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with three people. Javier (CTO & Co-Founder) was our main point of contact. 

How did you come to work with Light-it?

They were a referral; I interviewed them alongside two other companies, and I ultimately chose them. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our investment was around $12,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership lasted from May–July 2023. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

My main success metric was the fact that Light-it finished the project in a timely manner. They also had great communication — the team was highly responsive every time we asked for any updates or questions. They exceeded our expectations in this department. 

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

The team met our deadlines and stayed on budget. To communicate, we used Slack and email. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

It was impressive that they stayed on budget while delivering exactly what we requested. The Light-it team was highly collaborative and had great energy. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We gave them some feedback toward the end of the engagement. There were some spacing and design issues that they could’ve caught if they had taken a close eye on things. These issues were quickly corrected when we pointed them out, but it would’ve been nice to have gotten a more polished product toward the end. Nonetheless, the team was responsive to feedback. 

Moreover, it would be interesting if they provided a sheet of information that would walk me through the steps of the engagement. In some instances, they told me that the work we were requesting was outside of the project’s scope. Having an information sheet around that would’ve been a nice customer support service.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be specific about your needs, and ask Light-it a lot of questions. They have lots of insights and knowledge well beyond what most others have. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-founder and CEO of Composure

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We deliver personalized soundscapes to senior living communities in the US to help their memory impaired residents sleep at night.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Light-it to accomplish?

• Build our MVP

SOLUTION

How did you find Light-it?

met founder

Why did you select Light-it over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned
• Grew the relationship and confidence level over time before committing to working together

How many teammates from Light-it were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Phase 1: Product Discovery 

Worked with Light-It team to determine the form and function of our product based on our vision for what product and service we wanted to create to address known customer needs. This included a deep dive on both software and hardware solutions. Key deliverables were user flow and system design diagrams, frontend UI design sketches, and product development budgets.

Phase 2: Product Development 

Worked closely with Light-It team to translate Phase 1 deliverables into a working MVP based on budget and product feature priorities and release deadlines. Key deliverables were fullstack development incorporating various AWS services and applications, creation of a custom local server program running on Linux server, frontend interface (web portal), backend database and user account management, and integrating our hardware partner's APIs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Weekly team meetings during Phase 1 in which Light-It team members shared their latest work, discoveries, ideations and questions. Weekly sprint reviews and daily communications during Phase 2 in which Light-It team members shared their latest thoughts, victories and challenges, demonstrated working prototypes and designs, and iterations all along the way to finished v1 of MVP.

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

Their project management was excellent! The team at Light-it was diligent and very communicative throughout, which gave us full confidence in them ever step of the way. There was never a question or doubt in our minds about meeting deadlines. Things either got done on or before schedule, or new strategies were discussed early and thoroughly if deadlines had to shift. Truly excellent!

What was your primary form of communication with Light-it?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We were incredibly impressed at how fast the Light-It team came up to speed, from understanding the vision and parameters to laying out a comprehensive path forward for execution. We even through at them some requirements that fell outside of their typical wheelhouse. They they dug in and delivered on each one of them. Above all, we were impressed with their culture of true collaboration and communication.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Light-it could have done differently?

Perhaps some improvements in final product documentation that we can refer back to internally as needed. Slack was the main comm hub, but also became the main knowledge repository. Not ideal when searching for finer technical details and definitive answers on things later on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at an imaging and decision support software company. We build solutions to help clinical teams with risk detection and care coordination to prevent wounds and amputations in people with diabetes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were looking for a development partner to help us build the backend and infrastructure of our product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Light-it has developed the backend of our mobile application using FastAPI. We already had an MVP version of our app, and Light-it has helped us go from the beta version to our market product. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 4–5 team members from Light-it, including Alan (CEO & Founder) and their engineering team. 

How did you come to work with Light-it?

I’m part of a health technology network and contacted Light-it’s team there. I chose them because of the recommendations I received. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Light-it in November 2022, and our partnership is ongoing. The development project has concluded, but we’ll continue to work on other projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Working with Light-it has been delightful, so much so that we’re committed to keep working with them. This project has been successful, and we’re extremely satisfied at all levels. All our staff is very impressed with Light-it’s work, and there has been a lot of positive feedback from that angle.

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

Light-it meets deadlines and stays on budget. We communicate primarily through Slack and have daily stand-ups on Google Meet. We have frequent one-on-one conversations with Alan and use Jira for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with Light-it’s expertise, work ethic, and productivity. They deliver high-quality work, and we've enjoyed working with Light-it’s team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for Light-it to improve; I’m very happy with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend reaching out to Light-it if you have a development project. I’ve been impressed with every part of their work, even before they started the development phase.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Wellframe is a digital health management company. We work with health insurance companies by providing a member-facing app and a care manager dashboard which allows a direct line of communication and support to patients. I am the Associate Creative Director and manage the Wellframe brand, our website, and visuals for all marketing materials.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired LightIt to create a digital tool for a marketing campaign focused on member-facing health content. We find that a lot of health plans use words and phrases in their correspondence that are not familiar to their members or within a reading level that can be easily understood.

We wanted to highlight this issue by creating a tool which someone could copy and paste text from a website, email, or flyer and get a score based on the types of words that they are using. The goal was to make the user aware that this could be an issue with their organization and a barrier to reaching their members. As a result, we hoped to compel the user to contact us to learn more about how we can help them better reach their members.

SOLUTION

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

LightIt was recommended to us through a former colleague of our SVP of Marketing. We had connected with a different company initial for this project, but they didn't seem to understand the concept and approached it as more of a software build than a top-of-funnel marketing tool. LightIt's team immediately understood the concept and have us an estimate that was squarely within our budget for the project.

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

We kicked off the project by meeting and discussing what we had in mind for the tool, what assets the LightIt team would need from us, and what the timeline would look like. We supplied a list of "healthcare jargon" words for the team to use for the tool as well as an existing tool that is used to determine the reading level/grade level of text. We also gave perimeters for what we wanted the scoring output to be.

With that, the LightIt team began building a custom-coded program and sent us mockups of the front end design for us to review. We originally thought we'd use number scoring, but decided to incorporate a color-coded meter, which was much more compelling to look at. The tool was built in WordPress within our staging environment and then passed off to our Web Agency to move to our live site. A Marketo form was embedded into the experience for lead generation.

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

I believe we were working with a project manager, two developers, and a designer. I could be wrong on this. I mostly was in contact with our project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have only just barely launched our tool and haven't been able to measure its success yet, but it has been praised internally across various team as a clever and well-executed tool. From my perspective, LightIt did an incredible job understanding the concept of the project and creating a beautiful visual design that perfectly fix within the rest of our website.

As a designer myself, I tend to be pretty picky about typography and layouts. I've often been disappointed by other designers I've worked with and had to be very micromanaging with my art direction. The first mockup that LightIt sent me was spot on and very thoughtfully created. Similarly, the backend build was excellent from the start. We had a bit of back and forth about some of the functionality, but the developers were always quick to make changes and seemed to completely understand our feedback.

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

LightIt was able to connect our teams via Slack, which was perfect! I was in regular contact with our project manager and was easily able to give feedback and field questions from their team. All responses were prompt and I was always amazed at how quickly they turned things around when ever a change needed to be made.

It was a true pleasure connecting with them in this way. The timeline they gave was derailed a bit simply because my team needed additional time to supply the necessary assets for the project. We also made a couple of big changes mid-project. Through all of this, the LightIt team was flexible and very honest about how changes would impact our timeline. Everything moved very smoothly.

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

I've worked with many vendors at this point and LightIt is probably the one that has impressed me the most for the following reasons:

1. Their team is a joy to work
2. They were able to understand the project from the start without needed a lot of hand-holding. I'm used to having to micromanage our vendors and I never had to do that with LightIt. They asked the right questions and never showed us anything that wasn't spot on or nearly so.
3. Their designer was incredibly thoughtful about using our brand and creating a layout that was appealing and functional. It fit perfectly into our website.
4. The Light-it team was very communicative and quick to respond whenever I had a question or feedback.
5. I was very impressed with how quickly the team made updates based on my feedback. And if things were going to take longer to address, that was communicated to me.
6. They communicated seamlessly with our web agency and gave detailed instructions for moving the tool to our live site.

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

Not really. And that is saying a lot.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering for Felix Health, a telemedicine company. We do end-to-end telemedicine services, helping people get prescriptions for things such as hair loss and birth control. We also work with a suite of pharmacies that provide shipments to deliver the products to the customers. I oversee the entire engineering and technology teams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Light-it to augment our internal team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our engagement started with a general SoW, elaborating on what was required from the engineers; we provided job descriptions of what each Light-it resource was going to do. We started with one developer for 30–60 days, and we’ve since added multiple engineers. 

Currently, the engineers work as part of our internal team. They work with our product teams and designers, and we treat them as regular employees. We’ve used them for many projects — they’re involved in whatever project our scrum team has. 

Light-it mainly works with us on engineer outsourcing. However, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with their marketing and business operations teams. They’ve given us advice on how we should be growing our organization.

What is the team composition?

We work with multiple engineers from Light-it; our team has also had casual conversations with their marketing and operations teams. I mainly interface with Martin (COO & Co-Founder). 

How did you come to work with Light-it?

Light-it was big in the community we were in; they sponsored a lot of blogs and meet-ups. Given that, I had the opportunity to meet their team. From there, we engaged them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement? 

We started working with Light-it in April 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve Light-it’s help, we’ve doubled our business year over year. The number of our end users has doubled, and the same is true for telemedicine visits — all thanks to Light-it’s support. 

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

The engineers work directly with our project manager as part of the organization, helping us achieve our goals and deadlines. They’ve been fantastic, so we’ve met a majority of our key deadlines. If we ever miss a deadline, it’s not because of Light-it; it’s often due to external or medical product-related reasons. To communicate, we use Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Light-in team actually puts effort into their work. I’ve met plenty of offshore firms and augment teams. A lot of time, the people involved in them create a separation between the team and the company. 

By contrast, Light-it truly works with us to integrate their developers into our teams and workflows. They also push us to create better processes. In fact, they’ve brought in a couple of engineers that have helped change our technology and set new processes. In other words, those senior engineers have served as leaders in our organization. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. Light-it has been extremely adaptable to our workflows. Martin understands and provides our needs, so I don’t have any direct negative feedback or suggestion for improvement. However, I do quarterly reviews for each of their developers, just like I would do with any other employee. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure the Light-it team understands your business goals and priorities and that they align with them. They have plenty of expertise, one of them being in healthcare. Connect with the team and understand their skill sets. If you’re a healthcare company looking for product engineers, go for Light-it. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a software design company that provides web design services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed additional web development resources to help us develop a freelancer job search system. We specifically needed help with a subscription payment platform. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Light-it provided us with UX/IUI design services using SketchUp and a Vue.js framework to execute the frontend development. They also provided backend development in PHP web development services — Light-it helped with our Laravel project. For the payment system specifically, Light-it used the Stripe API. Once the project was complete, Light-it handled some maintenance. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with five teammates from Light-it, and the project manager was our main point of contact. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $50,000 with Light-it. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Light-it was from June 2019–February 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Light-it’s team boosted our productivity — by having these extra resources, we could execute projects and meet our timelines and goals. Overall, Light-it was an excellent team to work with and executed our project well. 

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

Light-it managed the project well, and we communicated via Slack and emails. We also had multiple project meetings during the week. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Light-it’s used their experience and expertise in Laravel and UI development to bring great development ideas to the table and then executed them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any concrete suggestions for improvement for Light-it. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise customers to have a thoughtful business plan ready and keep their end goals in mind because if Light-it has that information, they’ll meet the client’s project goals. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the consulting CIO and CTO at an online travel management firm for B2B customers. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our former technology resources weren’t performing well, and they built our platform badly. We were looking for a new team to develop our product and fix the issues we had from our previous vendor’s work. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Light-it provided us with a solid team of resources with managed services capabilities. They have different skill sets, including frontend development, backend development, environment development, design, and more. 

First, Light-it conducted a technology assessment of our existing platform. They identified recoverable parts and looked at what needed to be rebuilt. After that, they thought of ways how they could improve our product. They’ve executed from there, and they’ve been developing our product since then. 

They use PHP and Python for the backend and React for the frontend. The platform is available as a white label — there’s a web option, and it can also be consumed as an API. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 10 resources. Alan (CEO) is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Light-it?

They reached out to our CEO. They were flexible with our requirements, so we decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $150,000–$200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve started working together in August 2021, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Light-it has successfully produced a solution that meets our requirements. We’re positive that it’ll perform better than the competition once it goes public.

They’ve understood our problems and goals and provided the right person to help us fix our issues. Their screening processes are highly structured and thorough. All the resources they’ve recommended have performed exceptionally well. 

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

Light-it is outstanding at project management. We’ve had a tight timeline, and they’ve gone above and beyond to deliver and meet our deadline without compromising their work’s quality. They collaborate exceptionally well as a team. 

We use Slack and Atlassian to collaborate. We have three stand-up meetings per week for general status and daily stand-ups for details. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Light-it can put themselves in our shoes and understand our requirements — they ensure that they provide exactly what we need. They’re not afraid to tell us if we’re asking for the wrong thing. We’ve had some tough conversations, but they’ve always been positive. In addition, their team is very flexible in resolving staffing issues. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you understand the difference between a vendor and a partner, and treat Light-it as a partner. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-founder and head of business development at a healthcare startup. We provide virtual scribing services for busy healthcare providers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed help with the development of an internal software platform and a customer-facing application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Light-it helped me develop an iOS app for doctors and healthcare providers. The app has a recording functionality for doctors to record information about their patients and then send the recording to our scribes team. It’s also HIPAA-secure and meets all the privacy and compliance expectations.

We finished up version one of our app in January 2021. They currently provide ongoing maintenance for our servers, and we’re in the process of developing an additional version of the app.

Light-it’s team also helped us develop an internal platform for our team members, where they can log in and see the recordings that came through. It was a more complicated project because it needed to interact with hardware. They had some familiarity with how the platform should work, but we were all learning how to make the hardware part work with it.  

Their team built a web-based platform and a Google Chrome Extension that interacted with a foot pedal. The foot pedal would help our scribe’s team control the audios with functionalities like playing, pausing, fast-forwarding, or rewinding it. 

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with Martin (Co-Founder), who served as our main point of contact and account manager. He then manages with members of his team to finish up all the aspects of the project.

How did you come to work with Light-it?

One of our consultants worked closely with Light-it and recommended them to us, so we decided to give them a discovery call. We chose Light-it based on the quality of the projects they produced in the past, and their affordable prices compared to other companies. Since we’re a small startup, it was important for us to have quality and affordability.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $65,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Light-it in June 2020, and it’s an ongoing project. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were really happy with the first version of the app. The app is exactly what we needed it to be. The design is extremely simple to understand. Our providers can just input the patient’s information, do the audio recording, and send it directly to our team. 

Light-it had intelligent and creative solutions for the bugs that had to be fixed. For instance, the Google Chrome extension wasn’t something we initially planned. However, when we mentioned we would be using a foot pedal, they suggested it — it was a good solution.

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

We communicated with Light-it through Slack and weekly video calls. They are very good at meeting deadlines and flexible when it comes to extending them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the things that have impressed me the most is Light-it’s willingness to listen to what we have in mind for our product. Martin explained the industry standards and how he thought the product should work. However, he always happily accommodated if we had a different idea for it, based on our users’ needs. He’s done a good job walking the line between knowing the industry standards and taking our feedback, to find a balanced solution that would work for our users.

We’ve relied a lot on Martin to educate us on the process of developing. Even though we are not developers and don’t have an in-house development team to do all that for us, he has led us through it. We are learning about the things that we can deliver to help their team in the development process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they could improve. I’m really happy with everything they’ve done for us — they’ve done a great job.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Partner & CEO of Lars Partners, a multi-brand clothing company. We seek to provide design and quality to the market with a focus on warmth and human development. Our current brands are Rotunda, Maison Rotunda, Pappolino and Ora.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Light-it?

We hire Light-it to ideate, design, and develop our new website. We needed a new website to tell our customers about our values and history.

What were your goals for this project?

We have different brands that were completely independent. Our goal was to strengthen the image of all of them by creating a new brand that involves all of them. To accomplish this, we needed to create something that represents all of them.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

A friend of mine has been working with Light-it for some time and highly recommended me to try them for this project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We started with some discovery meetings, where we explained everything about our company, our values, our goals, and ideas. It was after those meetings that the design process started. The design process consisted of 4 stages; Information structure, wireframes, mockups, and coding.

What was the team composition?

We worked together with a project manager, a graphic designer, a web designer, and a developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Now more resellers are approaching us for information. Also, Lars Partners was featured in the main newspaper of the region. I believe this project really helped.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

From our side, there were people involved from the strategy, marketing, and design departments. The workflow was really fluent, they created a Slack workspace with different channels to chat about the different topics of the project. Work was delivered every week so we could give quick feedback on it. We also had meetings/calls every week.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their creativity and expertise in web design and UX/UI were impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

dLocal is the only 360 payments technology platform designed to handle mass online payments in growth markets across LATAM, APAC & EMEA. I am Israel Product Lead there.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Light-it?

We hired Light-it to develop the Hosted Payment integration of our system with Shopify. They were in charge of development, testing, deployment, and in-house stafftraining.

What were your goals for this project?

We have several customers with a Shopify store who want to process payments in emerging markets, so we are now providing them this out-of-the-box solution in Shopify. We needed an integration that allows us to receive payments and refunds, audit transactions, integrated to our merchant panel.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

One of the founders of Light-it worked at dLocal before and we knew about their professionalism and great work. It was essential for us to hire an agency that has a good understanding of our business, as part of the work was ideating and designing the solution.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The first phase was an investigation, where they studied both documentations in order to have a good picture of the possible solutions. The next step was to design the architecture so as to smoothly develop & test the integration. Finally, they deployed the code in our infrastructure, giving us support and training for our team.

What was the team composition?

One project manager, a backend developer, and DevOps engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a list of merchants in China waiting to have access to this feature in order to have a better conversion rate in the payments they receive from Latam countries. Some of them are already using it and seeing really good results.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We had a shared channel in Slack and weekly meetings to discuss previous and future tasks. Communication was effective, fluent, and transparent.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive thing about them was their involvement in the project. They not only participate on technical decisions, but also product & business-related ones.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not necessary, extremely satisfied.