Luminos Software

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive of Mela Solutions Ltd.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Digital Health Company, supporting critical care units with their reporting and audit.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Luminos Software to accomplish?

• Review the UX/UI of the existing application
• Evaluate provisional wireframes for a new version of the application
• Share design and UX recommendations product
• Create a design system using Figma
• Implement the new design system as generic components and layout elements in React
• Establish modern front end development process and up-skill the client's team
• Implement multiple new front end applications in React and integrate with backend services.

SOLUTION

How did you find Luminos Software?

Online Search

Why did you select Luminos Software over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Company values aligned
• Good relevant case studies

How many teammates from Luminos Software were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Full redesign and assist with redevelopment of the core platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• New design system in a matter of weeks.
• Intuitive and responsive front-end build that has received excellent feedback from customers.
• The wider engineering team has strong engagement and collaboration with the team from Luminos.

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

Yes - fortnightly check-ins allowed for 360 feedback and ensured projects outcomes continued to be delivered at pace.

What was your primary form of communication with Luminos Software?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

• High-quality deliverables and outputs.
• They've shown excellent communication and real partnership, always providing support outside of the core project requirements.

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

-

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO & Founder of Invyted Ltd

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Invyted is an influencer marketing platform and app that streamlines the collaboration process between influencers and brands.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Luminos Software to accomplish?

• Concept development
• Product roadmap
• Web & mobile design system
• MVP scope
• MVP delivery
• Product-market fit

SOLUTION

How did you find Luminos Software?

Referral

Why did you select Luminos Software over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Luminos Software were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

When I first started working with Luminos, we had a series of meetings to talk through my idea for the product and what the vision for the company was. It was very much a collaborative brainstorming process where we went through the details of the product idea which has been built to solve the problems I was facing myself as a food influencer on Instagram & TikTok. 
Luminos were really instrumental in this stage to help conduct market research to better understand the landscape and what type of tech products would be best suited for this type of project.

After we completed the workshops and refined the overarching product and idea, Luminos then started building out a development proposal for an MVP and roadmap of features, which was deployed in November 2022. We concluded that the best products for this project would be a web based platform for brands and a mobile app for influencers, serving as a two-sided marketplace. 
The platform is designed for brands and influencers to connect, whereby influencers who have 10k+ followers can apply to join the app, and brands can sign up and post out offers and events to the approved influencers on the app. The influencers are then able to book in and collaborate with the brands instantly.

There is also another part of the platform which is the backend admin panel, which is used for the internal team to manage and operate the platform effectively.

We continue to work with Luminos to develop new features and make sure the platform is running smoothly on a day to day basis, with many exciting new features in the roadmap.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• 1600+ active creators with a total combined audience of over 190M.
• 200+ brands signed up to the platform with more in the pipeline.
• 4500+ bookings faciliated through the platform.

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

Luminos have been so great with project management since the start. They are very attentive and always super responsive when I ever have a query or question. They made sure every task was tracked and completed within the set timeline, with an easy process and systems to log this. They also delivered a huge number of features and made sure they were fit in within the timeframe to fit certain deadlines.

They always made sure to keep me updated on the project's progress at all times. They were proactive in their approach, often anticipating potential issues and addressing them before they could become a problem, which is always very helpful in the early stages of running a company.

What was your primary form of communication with Luminos Software?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I would say the flexibilty within the team. They were always willing to make necessary adjustments to the project plan when required and adapted to our current needs. They understood that the development process is dynamic and were always ready to pivot based on my needs or market trends, which has been very helpful in the early stages of building a company.

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

I wouldn't say there are any areas for improvement. I have really enjoyed working with the Luminos Software team. Hence, I believe we will work together for the foreseeable. Luminos are very professional, hands on and dedicated team, delivering to a high standard and really made an impact with building the company to what it is today.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior VP and head of global consumer support at CSS Corp, a leading provider of technology support services. We provide a range of support services, including customer support, technical support, tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 tax services, digital enablement solutions, geospatial engineering solutions, and management solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Luminos Software?

We wanted to launch in Romania, and we already had a registered office. Unfortunately, due to the travel restrictions caused by de pandemic, we didn’t have a lot of options to fly there, so we didn’t have a local presence.

We were looking for a consultant to help us start our business there and find the right location for our office. We were also working under a very tight timeline and had to launch this entire site in less than three months, making it a complicated task.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Luminos Software helped us set up our entire BPO IT shop in Romania. They’ve been involved during the entire process, from selecting a region to launch our site to hiring and onboarding our staff.

We have an accounting firm we use, but Luminos Software has worked with them to ensure the company profiles and employee records are sent on time. They‘re also 100% in charge of our recruiting, which includes understanding our requirements, designing the job descriptions, posting the job offers, screening resumes, doing the initial interviews, and working with us through the following 2–3 rounds of internal interviews.

We rely completely on them, and we intend to keep working with them as our local partners in Romania.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with Darius (Country Manager for Romania), and he has 3–4 people working on our account.

How did you come to work with Luminos Software?

They were referred to us by someone that I knew. We were looking for a consultant and evaluated 3–4 people. Luminos Software came across as a passionate and incredibly hungry company, and they were invested in our success. Additionally, they offered one of the most competitive prices.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2021, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to Luminos Software’s help, we’ve already gone live. We hired a 30-member team in less than two months, and they were all onboarded on time. Training also started on time, and all the candidates we hired have passed the training with flying colors.

Luminos Software has walked us through every step of the way; it has been a seamless experience. Overall, they’re amazing, and they’ve made everything very easy. So far, they’ve been true consultants and partners to us.

How did Luminos Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Luminos Software’s project management has been seamless. They’ve not missed a single deadline, and they’ve been fabulous throughout the entire project. We use Slack, Zoom, and phone calls to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Luminos Software’s trust and transparency are amazing. They run in a very high ownership model, and they’ve been an absolute pleasure to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I’d have them improve. Maybe they’re not perfect, but working with them has been flawless.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want and be open and transparent with them. They’re true consultants., so take their advice seriously. They’re invested in your success.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a project management SaaS company. We’re an online project management tool for data and analytics teams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Luminos Software?

We needed a software development agency to build our MVP and post MVP features for our product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Luminos Software did a consultation on the MVP phase of the project. I had an idea about my product and what problems it needed to solve for my customers. They helped me drill down into the product’s actual value to build the first iteration with speed and cost in mind.

The first stage was that consultation with Alex (CEO) and one of their chief product managers, and it went very well. After that, they came back to me with a proposal about what they could build for me, the timeframes, and budget. The second phase of the project was developing that MVP, and it took around 3–4 months. With that MVP, we communicated with different prospective customers to understand if we were hitting the problems they had.

After that second phase, we moved onto the build-out of the broader product. We worked in an agile methodology, having two-week sprints and releasing different features requested by our customers or designed by ourselves. Now, we’re in that third phase, and we’ll come up to the end of that phase in 2–3 months. We’ll probably move into a fourth phase, which would be maintenance.

What is the team composition?

In the first phase, I worked with Alex, and in the second phase, with Dan (Project Manager & Scrum Master), who is our project manager. We’ve also worked with a technical lead and three developers: one senior, one mid-level, and one junior. We also have two QA analysts: one part-time and one full-time. They’ve all been doing that nitty-gritty work for us.

Also, we temporarily brought on a UI/UX expert to redesign the application about a month ago, and it has been really successful as well.

How did you come to work with Luminos Software?

I found them through a referral, which is how I initially got in contact with Alex. We spoke to several different agencies, and after going through nine different ones, we decided to go with Luminos Software.

We were looking for a company that we could trust. I’m a non-technical partner along with my co-founder, so we needed somebody who understood our position and business challenges to recommend the course of action that rightfully benefited both companies.

In that sense, we found that Luminos Software made the best business-based arguments. They were very focused on our business challenges and what we were trying to do for our customers rather than the technical challenge. Other agencies tried to justify why they couldn’t do something from a technical standpoint rather than why things should be done in a certain way for the business's ultimate success. That was the main reason why we chose Luminos Software.

How much have you invested in them?

The cost was between $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our partnership in May 2020, and it’s still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s difficult to put a number on it. They’ve been responsive to my queries, and their response times have been almost instantaneous. For example, the turnaround time from the initial design brief to its actual implementation in a sprint was like a week. Compared to some of the conversations I’ve had with other agencies, that’s lightning-fast.

How did Luminos Software perform from a project management standpoint?

In the year and a half that we’ve worked with them, we’ve only had one instance where they haven’t met a deadline for a piece of work. Again, compared to the previous experiences I’ve had, that’s exceptional.

Honestly, they’re great at managing our expectations. If we ask for something and they know they can’t deliver it, they’re upfront about it from the beginning. Also, their scoping work is so good, it’s almost impossible for them to fail to deliver because they certainly don’t overpromise.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re good at everything. I wouldn’t say they’re world-class at absolutely everything, but there’s no space where something is under par or they’ve failed to deliver. Additionally, their speed of delivery is fantastic. Even the number of bugs we’re experiencing is minimal, and the quality of the actual platform has been high.

Overall, their design work is high-quality, and there’s consistency across all aspects of the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are the usual things where we go back and forth about pricing and that sort of thing, but that’s quite normal. I wouldn’t say there’s anything to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get involved in their process. They have a couple of things where they want to go for a business model canvas with you and have consultative sessions. When I first heard of these sessions, I was skeptical and thought it was just an additional way to generate some money out of my business, but I actually found it invaluable.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of Clarity Thought Partners. We are a consulting business in Australia, and we help leaders communicate complex ideas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Luminos Software?

Luminos Software was developing an add-in for Microsoft Word to help our client organize their ideas more effectively. The add-in helps by removing some of the practical roadblocks from using the methodology that we teach.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They help design and code our add-in, which is a piece of software that we sell to clients who then include it in Microsoft Word. We're early in the process; so far, they have delivered a prototype that we've been able to test and deliver to our clients. 

What is the team composition?

We work with three people from Luminos Software: a developer, a solutions architect, and Alex (CEO), who is the program’s founder and works as the project manager.

How did you come to work with Luminos Software?

Alex is a friend of a friend of mine, and we have developed software before. I was looking for somebody to develop the add-in for us. I approached him to see whether he might be able to help, and he was hands-down the best person that I found to do the job. 

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we have spent about $40,000 AUD (approximately $30,700 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2020 and continue to develop the add-in.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don't have metrics because I haven't created any, but compared to our previous vendor, Luminos Software is professional and absolutely thorough in scope. They are very easy to work with, flexible, and reasonably priced. It's been absolutely delightful the whole way through.

The quality of their work has been outstanding, and we've had very few needs to refine or rework anything. Even though English is not the first language for some of their team members,  there have been no problems. English is Alex’s first language. Their recent material is outstanding and contains almost no bugs.

How did Luminos Software perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of meeting deadlines, they’re on time. To communicate, we use a mix of tools. We use Jira to add any fixes or changes to specifications. We have a weekly call to check the progress, and we email in between those sessions. 

Early on, when we were through the design phase, we used a mock-up tool. We left comments through the tool, and then those came through email. After seeing the comment, they addressed the issue. The communication has been a real mix of agile, real-time methods, and regular Zoom calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed by their balance between professionalism and price. They offer really high quality for a Romanian price.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They've been so responsive and easy to work with. I can't think of anything to improve.

Any advice for potential customers?

Allow them to run the process and provide them with everything they need. Also, work with them intensively upfront so that you can define your requirements really clearly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of a marketing and advertising firm that has many different brands across different sectors. We work on a cost-per-acquisition basis where our brand ambassadors would go door-to-door on behalf of our clients to have people sign up for their products and services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Luminos Software?

The brand ambassadors that we work with needed an electronic POS tool for when they were speaking to customers.  We needed someone to develop and design it for us, so we hired Luminos Software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Luminos Software developed an electronic POS tool that allows our brand ambassadors to conduct electronic signup with full, validated data. The POS uses third-party applications like bank, email address, and postal code validation tools, making the final process happen in a smooth and compliant manner.

We also did social distance enhancement in response to COVID-19 where the brand ambassadors don’t have to hand over any physical devices. They could simply pass the electronic form over to a donor or a customer’s mobile phone. This allows them to safely complete the final process.

We’re currently working with Luminos Software on a vetting and recruitment tool that will be used for hiring brand ambassadors. It gives us control of the documents and is integrated with signature tools. It allows for strong, seamless, and professional compliance reporting.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with the owners, a senior developer, and product managers. We are in contact with five people.

How did you come to work with Luminos Software?

They were recommended to us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2016. The project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The instrumentation of the technological solutions is very good. Luminos Software has held our hand and guided us through the process. They’ve done everything from helping us train our staff, to offering frontline support for GoLive, retrospectives, and any needed fixes or enhancements.

How did Luminos Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Luminos Software always meets deadlines. The product management is very strong and the communication between us is very good and flexible. We don’t have to arrange meetings all the time; if I need to reach somebody, I could always rely on them to be responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The engagement has been fantastic. They’re probably the easiest, most personable people I’ve worked with. They were flexible to the needs of our business. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re very good at doing feedback sessions or retrospectives. Anything that we could have tweaked or done differently always appeared at every milestone in the different projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear understanding of what you want but go in with an open mind. Allow Luminos Software to guide you in the best way to get to your goal. Embrace agile development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of The Modern Milkman. It’s an online grocery retailer in the UK that has its own network.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Luminos Software?

We brought them in to help us redevelop the app for our delivery drivers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Luminos developed our new delivery app. They did a consultancy piece upfront where they reviewed our existing application, and came up with a proposal for making it sleeker and more usable.

They did a bunch of work on the UI/UX, and since we liked what we saw, we progressed that into them providing the software engineering team — they worked alongside our UK colleagues on the requirements.

The use of our driver app is different, in that we deliver overnight, and our drivers do a lot of deliveries in a relatively short period of time — around 250 deliveries in just a few hours. In addition, we have a subscription model with regular customers getting deliveries three times a week from us.

With that, relationships build between drivers and customers, so we added functionalities for drivers to respond back to customer issues.  

We have a nice log of any app crashes, and we can see the diagnostics quite easily. One of the things we’ve added on the back of that is the ability for the app to work offline. When a driver is delivering to a house with no internet connection, they can still mark it as delivered. The previous version was Android and Java-based, but Luminos was able to build an iOS version using React Native. 

They’re currently helping us rebuild our customer website and apps.

What is the team composition?

The core team during the consultancy period was made up of about four people, but the team size varied between 4–6 people over time. During this period, we also had business analysts and more UX designers, as well as Alex (CEO and Co-Founder).

The current team involves one lead software engineer and another engineer. We’ve had a part-time UX consultant with them throughout the project, as well as testers.

How did you come to work with Luminos Software?

They’d done some work for one of our early-stage investors.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost we’ve invested so far is around £180,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We got going properly with the consultancy around August–September 2020. Luminos spent the last four months of 2020 building out version one of the new app, and we launched just before Christmas. We’re continuing to build on its architecture and functionality.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got really great feedback from the drivers. Since the project started, we’ve tripled the number of drivers using the app — we have around 220 drivers now.

As for the product, the UX is much nicer than the one on the previous app, and it has created a base for us to build in extra functionality and improve our operation. After we implemented the functionality for drivers to respond to customer issues, the number of contacts to our customer service team reduced by 25%.

It was one of the key achievements of the work done by Luminos for us, as we now have an app that we can scale out.

How did Luminos Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We treat Luminos as an extension of our team. They’re very responsive to any issues, and they also introduced some nice live monitoring to track app errors. For the delivery, they formed a scrum team and their people did the general storyboarding and everything. We’ve always tried to work in a partnership in that area, and it has worked out well.

We haven’t suffered any massive delays or underestimations. Some things take quicker and some take longer, but everything’s within normal limits.

Project management has mainly been on us, but Luminos does the estimation for the pieces of work within that. We use Jira for project management and do our daily communications through our shared Slack channel.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The thing that really attracted us to Luminos, and what they do very well, is their understanding of what the project is going to be about. I’ve outsourced projects to other offshore companies, and it was a matter of “here are some developers, do with them what you will!”.

With Luminos, it’s much more collaborative. They think about the end-user, and they actually care about the application they’re building.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They find it hard to scale up when we have a peak in demand, compared to offshore companies that have lots of staff on the bench. Luminos has to go through a recruitment process, which takes too long, so we basically have to plan quite a long way ahead if we want to bring in more people.

We’re a massively growing business, having gone from 3,000 to 72,000 customers in the last 18 months. We’re currently expecting to have 200,000 customers by the end of 2021, so that means we have to keep growing quickly internally, but it’s a bit harder for Luminos to keep pace with our growth.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Anyone who works with Luminos needs to treat them as a partner and trust them. The client should get their thoughts and insights, let them do an upfront piece, and review what the project’s about.

I recommend taking advantage of their UX knowledge — someone just looking for people to code is probably better off going somewhere cheaper. For people looking for a team to work with them on delivering a solution, Luminos is a good fit.