Matellio

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our consulting firm develops products for various industries. I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Matellio?

We had written an online tool with a web and mobile interface. We initially outsourced the work to a company in India, but they couldn't provide the necessary quality and customer focus for us, as a US-based enterprise. Matellio bridged that gap, and not only delivered a good-quality working product, but also had excellent customer service and an ability to think outside the box.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Matellio developed an enterprise-level time sheet application for our company. It's a secure software used by companies to log time, broken down by different projects. It allows managers to gauge how much is spent on sales or marketing, how many employees they have, and so on. Time spent travelling to conferences, as well as expenses, can also be tracked, making our software a one-stop-shop for billing allocation. It offers a bi-weekly payroll functionality, through which expenses can be returned to employees.

We have a web interface which can be used globally, and our app is also available on iOS and Android.

Matellio excelled at creating a user interface. Whatever I envisioned was developed for me without any resistance. Matellio could see our point of view, which was an incredible advantage for me. Matellio proposed designs to us, and we selected the ones we wanted to use. We had the ability to pick how we wanted to work, and enhanced on the designs provided by Matellio, bringing them closer to what our vision was. We were working from a usability perspective. If an individual is travelling, they need the ability to log their time easily and fast. Matellio used PHP among the development technologies.

We had an 8-10-person team from Matellio, including a graphics designer, who was very good, as well as 2 developers for Android and iOS respectively. We also worked with a user interface designer, a project manager, and some leadership people from Matellio.

We also used a content developer from Matellio, for creating a user guide and training documentation. We also developed a basic product page using Matellio.

We primarily worked with the project manager from Matellio, but I chose to speak to our designer directly in order to convey exactly what we needed. I worked with the rest of the team directly when needed. Our user guide, for example, needed to be very US-centric, and have a certain feel, so I had our content creator present on calls.

How did you come to work with Matellio?

We weren't familiar with any offshore companies that could do this sort of work, so we went through a request for proposal process, contacting 3-5 companies, asked them for bids, and received several responses. We looked at the available feedback for each candidate, as well as their cost. Matellio was neither the cheapest nor the most expensive option, but they were a lot better than the low-cost options. The higher-up companies had a lot of documentation in place, which we didn't need. We wanted a product, rather than documentation.

How much have you invested with Matellio?

The total cost of our project with Matellio has been around $40,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Matellio in March 2016, and our product was launched on July 1st. We are using Matellio for support and enhancements. We still have weekly calls in order to keep development moving. We chose to prioritize the core functionalities, and develop further enhancements later on.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Matellio produced a top-notch, high-quality product. They provided thought analysis, coming up with functionalities which I didn't even consider in the beginning. For example, there are different security levels and permissions within the system. Matellio was superior to what I would have imagined an offshore company to be, in terms of quality.

We have developed a private tool, which we license to other companies. It has been very well-received and accepted throughout its community, far-surpassing our expectations.

How did Matellio perform from a project management standpoint?

Matellio stuck to our schedule and budget. We started off our collaboration by using Excel-based metrics, but we moved on to Trello, which offers design boards and task prioritization.

What did you find most impressive about Matellio?

I appreciated Matellio's design capabilities, commitment, and speed of delivery. Matellio actually delivered the exact designs that we discussed, which I didn't find with other developers.

Are there any areas Matellio could improve?

Testing wasn't built into the contract. We didn't have any allocated testers, and didn't realize how big of an impact this would have. We don't have the bandwidth to actually conduct the tests, so we wanted this from Matellio. There are many ins and outs to consider, like scenarios for forgotten passwords and other things that go on within a website, which people take for granted. The improvement would be on a contractual level. Once we asked Matellio for this, they did deliver on it.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Matellio?

I've been approached by quite a few people, both individuals and smaller companies, wanting to develop a certain product. I always recommended Matellio heavily to them. They helped me, so I'm sure that they would be able to help other people.

BACKGROUND

As cofounder of small startup, I was charged with the development of a mobile-based affinity-centered messaging app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Our team lacked a CTO and a development team with skills to bring our envisioned solution to the market. I scoured multiple outsourcing sites and conducted a few interviews with independent contractors and development companies. Most companies either seemed dogmatic in their approach, inexperienced, or too pricey.

The Matellio team designed a prototype, identified a customer base, and solidified a marketing plan for our affinity-based messaging app. Through focus groups and interviews, we gained consumer insights that helped to refine the product.

SOLUTION

Matellio was the best fit.  After discovering work from one of their developers online, I reached out to discuss some of his solutions.  This email discourse led to discussions around potential solutions for our product and the feasibility of creating it. I felt that Matellio could act more as a thought partner in the development of the product versus a WYSIWYG developer or a "high and mighty" one. 

I also thought about piecemealing the development, but Matellio quickly gained my confidence when they offered a full end-to-end solution. They had the right milestones in place for us to agree on the appropriate progress of the application.  

The project was initially scheduled for 3 months but ended up taking 4 months because ofvmy team deciding to change functionality and features along the way. Matellio's flexibility and willingness to modify on the fly was perfect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

A strength of Matellio was the constant communication between my team and theirs. This resulted in our project sticking to schedule with little variation to the original budget. Matellio stands out in that they are professional service providers who are more interested in servicing and meeting my team's needs than sticking to an "outdated" plan or their own agenda. 

In hindsight, one area of improvement would be greater transparency.  There were times that they could not meet all of our demands and we would have to probe to understand why.  At the end of the day, Matellio's reasoning made sense but they could have done a better job explaining why upfront. 

BACKGROUND

We are based in the Washington, D.C., area and offer custom IT [information technology] solutions to retail clients. Most of our clients are major players in the retail space and need sophisticated, custom IT solutions. Our technologies allow our clients to track customer behavior better, increase the bottom line and gather great data. I am the CIO and make all buying decisions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We needed stable and very efficient mobile apps that would cater to our and our customers' needs. Matellio served and went beyond expectations. Every project had different requirements and most of the clients were large corporations, so there were many rules to follow.

Generally, we needed a larger agency with experts in many technologies, so we can rest assured that they can handle any incoming request. 

We wanted to locate a stable company to do all our mobile app development, and we have found it in Matellio.

SOLUTION

Matellio has handled several projects now, primarily tracking of fleet and equipment using web services on iOS and Android platforms. Most of our clients in the retail space need an enterprise application.

Matellio is able to create and deploy enterprise applications with ease. They can help our clients improve operational efficiency when it comes to merchandising and product tracking, and so on.

We evaluated and interviewed several vendors and went through a vetting process at our end and finally selected Matellio.

We have easily spent $100,000-plus and have no plans to stop the projects. Most of these engagements are in the tens of thousands of dollars total. These are major undertakings and not just a startup app with few users or functionalities.

There are so many projects so we always have some ongoing and some completed. Some of the apps are being enhanced and upgraded and then some are just new apps.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

My customers use our products every day and are very happy with what we have given them. We get reports from clients all the time that the applications are being used in practice and making a huge impact. I can't recall any instances where Matellio made major mistakes or failed to satisfy the client.

Matellio was excellent. They always met and exceeded our expectations. Their team is very responsive, they have attention to detail, an awesome project manager and team, dedication and, most of all, are very diligent. I cannot say enough positive things about their team.

There is always scope for improvement – maybe add a few more back-up folks on a project, but again I am happy the way they are doing it now. They could use a few more support staff in case we are late for a deadline.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a business consulting company. As part of our services, we offer a 360-degree marketing package that includes web development, SEO [search engine optimization], and business consulting.

What is your position?

I am the president and owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Matellio?

We wanted to develop a mobile app for our company.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Matellio developed several web applications for us.

How did you come to work with Matellio?

I hired them based on previous feedback and the research I did on their company. We interviewed other agencies and determined if the candidates would be able to deliver the product and understood our requirements.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I’m sorry, that information is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them three years ago. Our project took one year to finalize.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from your work with Matellio?

They have been meticulous about delivery. The way in which problems are addressed, and their level of commitment, mattered most to us. We’ve appreciated all this about Matellio.

How did Matellio perform from a project management standpoint?

We used a portal for exchanging feedback on their work, which was very important to us. Everything is documented and tracked, which means that they are accountable for any issues.

What distinguishes Matellio from other providers?

Matellio's communication was the distinguishing factor. It’s important to have good communication when working with remote teams in order to ensure that they understand what the deliverables should be.

Price, quality of work, and the time invested are all important considerations. A company that can do all three things will bring a winning recipe.

Is there anything Matellio could have improved or done differently?

There are always areas of possible improvement, but given our time constraints, Matellio met our requirements, which is what mattered most.

BACKGROUND

We're a location-based shopping app that helps consumers to find or buy any item in stores nearby, and help end world hunger. Our target market is college students and millennial parents who believe in convenience and practicality at the same time. The app will be available nationwide when it launches near the end of the month.

I'm the Chief Executive Officer of the company. I wear a bunch of different hats and am in charge of UX/UI [user experience/user interface], project management, business development, and marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

The problem that we wanted to solve is that it's inconvenient and time-consuming to find the closest or lowest price store for specific items. We were looking to build a solution to that issue.

SOLUTION

We decided to develop a location-based shopping app to find or buy any item in stores nearby.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

I hired the Matellio team to build the iOS app and Node.js app for the back-end. They've been an absolute joy to work with. I find it very encouraging and enjoyable when the team pushes back on ideas and designs because they believe there is a better way. I am open to any feedback and open to change if I agree with it. The app has become much better as a result of the pushback and updates we've made since then.

Communication is a big factor with a remote team, and so far they've done an excellent job keeping me up to date and being very detailed in their explanations. Being the project manager, it's my responsibility to know how everything works but not be the person to code it. The people working on the project are software engineers, not just software developers. There is a big difference for people that have experience in the tech world and it's been a blessing to work with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company developed four interactive websites.

What is your position?

I am one of the owners.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Matellio?

We hired them to build 4 websites in WordPress for us.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They have done all the development for our websites, including a custom back-end, and a standard and mobile version for each site. The websites are quite advanced, featuring interactive elements.

Our company worked on the actual design, but they do give us feedback for our design and structure.

How did you come to work with Matellio?

We first discovered them through Elance. Currently, we work with them through Upwork.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total cost for all websites built by them is around $35,000. The cost for each website includes the initial development price plus ongoing maintenance.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've worked with them for five years, and the work is ongoing. We collaborate with them on a weekly basis and plan to continue our work for years to come.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We always ask customers to give us a review and have gotten hundreds of positive responses about the websites and their usability. It's very rare that someone will complain about server issues or anything else.

How did Matellio perform from a project management standpoint?

We are satisfied with Matellio. Even if they're busy with other customers, they will make time to talk to us and resolve our problems. This is reassuring because glitches can always occur. They're also very polite and nice to deal with. They always deliver on time – without exception.

What distinguishes Matellio from other providers?

They are professional and responsive, being available for us 24/7. They do take Sundays off but, aside from that, they respond to any problem, glitch or inquiry from us right away. They always say yes, and there's nothing too big for them.

Is there anything Matellio could have improved or done differently?

I have nothing important to note here.

BACKGROUND

I am the President of Business Catalyst, a training and consulting company. We are based in Miami, Florida, USA. We provide bilingual training and consulting to help companies grow their people. My role is to provide the strategic direction for the company and find the right partners to help grow our business. We target markets such as manufacturing, transportation, construction, and government.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Our customers needed a way to synchronize training, communication, assessments, and evaluations of team members. Many companies have multiple systems to help them in these areas. Our niche opportunity would be to provide a multilingual solution to integrate with multicultural and multinational organizations. Having such a solution would help organizations of all shapes and sizes streamline the management of their people, particularly in the areas of training and development.

SOLUTION

The solution provided would focus on communication, training, and planning. These areas would serve as the core solutions to help our customers. The selection process was narrowed down to seven service providers. This service provider listened well to our needs. This was a big plus for us. Moreover, the service provider had prior experience in developing complex Software as a Service, Saas, platforms. The service provider remained flexible throughout our design and implementation. This has been one of the biggest benefits for us. We have to make changes often once things are in production and they have been very flexible with these changes without charging us for every one of these changes. The service provider developed our solution from scratch. This provided the highest level of security and flexibility. As of today, this project has continued for 2.5 years and we recently submitted another phase.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Matellio has performed very well. They have helped us develop significant solutions to our customers problems. The solutions provided have served to increase communication, increase employee retention, reduce operating costs, and improve operational visibility for our customers. We have worked through 10 phases with this service provider. The scope and deliverables have been performed well. We developed a good communication system that has served to expedite changes and requests for modifications. The strength of this service provider is their ability to design and develop solutions to solve real problems. The only area I believe the service provider can improve on is the website design for the user experience. I am very picky about design and they have done a good job. I simply feel this is an area that can be improved, but it is not due to any poor quality of design.

BACKGROUND

Our company organizes French photo contents. We use an app and a website to motivate users to take photos and upload them in our database. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of the company, and am in charge of technical issues.

I went to visit the company for a week and I know their team very well.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We wanted to create a database, which could be used on a mobile application and on the web. We also needed to implement GPS features on the application and to connect our database to the Salesforce platform.

This was our first version of developing the application, and we needed this solution to launch our service into the market.

SOLUTION

To find them we posted a job on E-Lance. Matellio showed us an application very close to what we were expecting. We decided to work with them on a first mockup piece.

The relationship has lasted for a long time. In 3 years, we have launched 3 different versions of the application.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Matellio has a team full of hard workers. They are working 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. Their employees are very dedicated to their job and they have terrific management. It's been a great relationship with understanding on both ends.

BACKGROUND

We are a software product company based in Toronto, Canada. We are approximately 25 people with satellite sales offices in United States and England. Our company is primarily a platform vendor in the Internet for space targeting manufacturers that are trying to make connected products. I'm the CTO for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We were looking for a vendor to develop an advertising product using Android tablets and developing a back-end CMS [content management system] for managing advertising content, security, and reporting. This was done to develop a new product.

SOLUTION

They provided a fixed-budget project, they completed the project within budget, slightly over time. However, we had delays with requirements, and we added some minor functionality and additional scope along the way.

The main advantage is that Matellio has very good organization and were strong in communicating the status of the project.  Their management skills helped make the process go much more smoothly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a technology company and we're located in Rhode Island. We create apps – our first app is for social gifting and preference sharing.

What is your position?

I'm the chief executive officer and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Matellio?

I started working with another mobile app company, and they were awful. They just weren't getting the job done. They were order takers. They just did what you ask them to do – and nothing else. Usually, people like me who have all of the ideas can tell development companies what we want, but the developers need to tell us if there is a better way to go or if we should scale something back. You find that some companies you work with will do only what you tell them to do, and they charge you for the time.

Ultimately, it wasn't working with the other company. They didn't have any ideas or solutions. They would just expect us to tell them exactly what we wanted them to do. When we wanted to know how we could accomplish certain goals, they never had any ideas, and the cost was through the roof.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of Matellio's involvement with your company.

I have a graphic designer who has designed the UI [user interface], but they have given us a few ideas for the user experience. Outside of that, Matellio helped us with our website, which they built. They built the whole back-end of our app and all of the admin tools. We did the iOS version first, and they're doing an Android version now as well.

How did you come to work with Matellio?

I was introduced to Matellio through investors. I interviewed several different companies, and I liked Matellio initially because of their cost. Their owner in particular showed that he had a lot of knowledge, and he seemed willing to put himself out there. I knew he would fight back and give us ideas on how we could get the work done in different ways. Matellio will deliver what you want, but they are also a team player, not just an employee.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I'd say we've spent about $60,000 to $70,000 working with Matellio.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship started in November 2014, and we're still currently working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from this engagement?

They do a great job in terms of delivering on time. They work in one of two ways. One way is for them to put together a spec sheet and give us a hard price. They'll estimate all of their time, and they will stick to the time frame and stick to that price, even if we add a few bells and whistles, things that we thought would be there, but were never actually discussed. Even if there's a misunderstanding, they still deliver, and it doesn't affect the price.

The other way they work is they will give you the option of paying by the hour while still giving you an idea of what they think the cost will be. They can just build it, and if it comes under, they'll charge less. You get that kind of flexibility, which is nice.

You can get the most out of Matellio if you have someone in-house on your side that understands app development. I was never in the app world before, so any issues or problems I had were due to my lack of knowledge. During the last few months, I've brought in another gentleman on my team. Matellio is so much more effective now that I have a voice on my side that can tell Matellio exactly what we want and then they will deliver.

Others in the industry have told me that as we grow, we'll eventually want to bring our team in-house so we won't have to rely on a company like Matellio. However, we've not found that to be true. If you can find a Matellio, you will never want to bring your team in-house. It's just not cost effective. You'll want to have a small group of high-level thinkers who understand how to code, but you'll always want to leverage a company like Matellio if you're lucky enough to find one.

What distinguishes Matellio from other providers?

The major concern of having a development team in India is communication. For example, you ask someone to build you a house. They build it, and then you ask them where the door is. That's always the fear when working with teams from India because they are likely to come back and say that you didn't ask for a door. They always do only what you tell them to do.

Matellio will put in a door. They'll fill in the gaps. People I know in the industry have warned me that I have to be so thorough and outline everything when working overseas or I will not get what I want. There are pros and cons when you work overseas, and that's one of the potential cons, but I haven't experienced that problem at all with Matellio. I've found that they can identify the gaps, fill them in, and let you know what they have done.

Is there anything Matellio could have improved or done differently?

I have nothing negative to say about them.