Lightstone Labs

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder an agritech startup. We work with smallholder farmers and farmer organisations in the fresh-fruit supply chain.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We had built a mobile application to streamline our field-level operations. We hired Lightstone to integrate an open-source ERP system, develop web-application and add two-other key features to make it an integrated farm procurement system.

SOLUTION

How did you select Lightstone Labs and what were the deciding factors?

I was referred to Lightstone by people in my network when I was looking around for quality developers who can take ownership of the product.

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

We had discussed the project requirements in detail and deliverables and also tried to provide context with regard to agri-sector. Their team has been very diligent in doing their homework, understanding the feature requirement vis-a-vis business requirement and wherever possible provided elegant solutions. Technologies included- Django, Kotlin, ReactJs.

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

A project manager is our main point of contact. Besides him, there is one full-stack developer and another mobile developer on their team working with us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As our product is foremost an internal tool, we had positive response from our employees who are the primary users. They were also thrilled to see quick fixes for problems raised. We are yet to rollout the product to market but we are confident that for a POC, we have been able to build a very decent product.

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

We used Slack for team coordination, Notion to keep track of pending tasks and whatsapp for communicating about bugs that needed hot-fixes. Project manager has been very hands on developed a good rapport with my team members as well to better coordinate rollout of features in production.

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

They understand exactly what is needed and put just that in our hands.

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

As our features got more intricate, the estimated timelines got pushed slightly, which we understand. That was not effectively communicated to us in the first 2 weeks. However, that has been long fixed now and there are no qualms.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

MSMEx is a micro-advisory platform for small businesses, wherein we have a pool of experts in various functions. We provide an opportunity for small business owners to connect to those experts and get their queries and challenges addressed through audio or video calls, webinars, and podcasts. 

All interactions happen virtually, and there’s a lot of automation that goes along with the scheduling process. I’m the head of operations and product for the company. I look after the functional part of product development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Lightstone Labs?

We were looking for a team that could take ownership of our product. We had a basic version built by a previous team, and we wanted to improve its performance and UX. We also wanted to develop functionalities that would reduce manual intervention.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lightstone Labs provided development support with the web app and its backend, security, and debugging. I was the point of contact on our end, relaying business requirements to them. They came up with plans for how to do it.

The team used React.js on the frontend, Vue.js on the backend, technologies like Bugsnag for performance tracking, and Amazon CloudWatch for tracking the state of the web app. We also have a JavaScript-based admin portal. 

They used tools like Hotjar to track user journeys and interactions. The platform is entirely web-based, but we’re planning to come up with a mobile component as well.

What is the team composition?

I was directly engaged with Vivek (Co-Founder & CEO) for project management, and there were three other members who were intermittently in touch with us: a frontend developer, a backend developer, and a designer. 

There was also a senior member in the company who was in charge of technical architecture and served as a CTO. We were in touch with him around once a month. I was in contact with around five people, but I’m sure there were more teammates working behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Lightstone Labs?

The founder of our company had done a project with Lightstone Labs and recommended them. That added credibility, so we started an engagement with them.  

How much have you invested with them?

Overall, we spent $30,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Lightstone Labs between November 2019–April 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve received feedback, and there’s a lot of scope for improvement and feature additions. The work they did was quite seamless, and I haven’t encountered a lot of bugs or breakages in the regular functions. 

Their old code might get disturbed when we release a new feature, but that can be resolved quickly. Lightstone Labs was kind enough to extend support even after the project. If there’s something we need to understand, we can reach out to them, and they’re always there for us.

How did Lightstone Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

We worked with them in two-week sprints, and we had calls reviewing the previous sprint and defining the items for the next one. I was in touch with one teammate on a regular basis, and we had a system for reporting bugs. 

Plus, we maintained a backlog of features to be added. If there was an urgent requirement, I was able to call them directly. They gave me access to the Jira board where they managed sprints. It was quite transparent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What stood out about Lightstone Labs was their ownership over the performance of the system they developed. Secondly, it was their patience in listening to and absorbing any new requests or recommendations coming from the business side. They’re a smart team, coming from leading colleges in India.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there were no particular areas of improvement. I’d have wanted 20–30% faster delivery, but that’s a subjective evaluation. From the business end of things, we’d like everything to be released as fast as possible, but they had a process to follow.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

In order to get the most out of their team, it’s best to have a bit more clarity on the client’s end, and give them requirements and tasks in an organized manner and as much in advance as possible. Once they’re given clear instructions, they can actually commit.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the CEO of PLMP Blockchain PTE LTD based out of Singapore. PLMP Blockchain is an IT Development company that specializes in Blockchain technology. PLMP Blockchain has a number of product verticals in both the Public and Private space. Being the CEO I was in charge of leading the various development verticals while building towards the future goals of the larger organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Lightstone Labs?

We employed Lightstone labs to design and develop a cryptocurrency exchange. We had a solution that was built partially inhouse and it was suffering from a number of issues including stability, security, and scalability. To address these issues we decided to scrap our internal exchange entirely and employ Lightstone Labs to design and develop a cryptocurrency exchange for us.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to build a scalable, secure, and most importantly stable crypto exchange. Building such an exchange was difficult for us to achieve inhouse. We also required integrations with our existing applications and also the ability to quickly list other tokens(and create new markets), specially ERC-20 tokens. Since the exchange was a core application for our business process, we could only execute our business vision once the exchange was fully functional.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We vetted a number of crypto specialist companies and finally decided on Lightstone labs having looked at their existing body of work and the demonstrable expertise in the domain. We considered around six other companies. With talks going to an advanced stage in 3 of those, including Lightstone Labs. The deciding factors were the existing solutions that Lightstone Labs demonstrated as well as their ability to integrate with our existing systems very quickly and securely. I was leading the selection process along with the company founder.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We provided the requirements for the required functionality. These were fairly basic docs. We wanted a very particular UI/UX design language that was communicated over a few meetings. We also explained the custom market mechanisms that were required for business operations. And we also communicated the necessary blockchain integrations we would need per cryptocurrency. Lightstone Labs were required to build the entire web application end to end with customization that was specified to them.

What was the team composition?

There were about 6 resources dedicated to our project . One architect, one project manager, 3 developers, and 1 devops. There was an additional frontend resources that was roped in during peak demand.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We used to operate a fully manual OTC that was able to manage a throughput of 5-7 clients per day. With the Exchange the number went upto 100-120 per week. There was trade worth greater than 10 Million USD that was done by June 2019. And another ~7 Million USD since then. We did not face any events of downtime or any security breaches. And the throughput of the exchange was never a bottleneck in the many months of operations.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The collaboration experience was quite good. Our deadlines were quite tight but we didn't experience any delays except due to unavoidable circumstances. Responsiveness was prompt and support was where the relationship did the best. The support service was one of the most responsive I have ever experienced. We collaborated on Slack, Github, and Asana. While we internally used Jira, we collaborated over Asana with Lightstone Labs. No communication was not an issue. The team was fluent in English.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The project management and the schedule of development were very much in line with our expectations. The application was well-architected because we required a number of changes over the months and the changes to the development went smoothly. There are very few blockchain vendors with mature products/solutions in the market. This in my opinion sets Lightstone Labs apart from other vendors.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We assumed that a 2.50 hour time difference would not be much of an issue but we had to consciously arrange timetables around it.