Meritocra

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the COO of Rightfoot

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Series A startup building financial data infrastructure APIs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Meritocra to accomplish?

• Designing & implementing MVP & beta of our core product
• Building & launching our end to end product in product
• Responding to support tickets, supporting on-call
• Assisting the team with everything from design, to development, to testing, to launching of our product
• Hire a team of remote engineers to complete our engineering goals

SOLUTION

How did you find Meritocra?

Referral

Why did you select Meritocra over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Meritocra were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

We hired Meritocra to work on everything from designing our product through to testing & implementation. As an early stage startup, we needed them to wear every hat in order to complete the deliverables. They were a critical part of our team. 

We had tight deadlines to deliver enterprise-ready APIs for financial institutions. It was their responsibility to ensure that we were delivering a high quality product that was able to withstand the scale and quality that we expected of our product. We build payment and data APIs, meaning our product needs to be highly reliable and secure. 

They helped construct the design, develop and test the APIs and then assist in on-call demands post launch. They were critical contributors to our product from start to finish.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I can't recommend this vendor highly enough. The impact that Meritocra teammates had was profound - it's hard to put into words the impact they had. They were the highest output engineers on our entire team, measured by story points. They were able to complete tickets and solve problems at a fraction of the time of other engineers. In their time here they:

1. Delivered 3 distinct products from idea to implementing at scale in production
2. Went above and beyond to contribute to company strategy by researching new product directions & market trends 
3. Served as a key member of the on-call team on two week cycles 
4. Reviewed PRs for the team in record time with high attention to detail 
5. Consistently the highest individual contributor to story points over the course of 2 years 
6. Mentored other team members and moved the entire team faster

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

They were consistently delivering on schedule or ahead of time. Consistent and clear communication. Very responsive and always went above and beyond to respond to our needs or requests.

What was your primary form of communication with Meritocra?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their commitment to learning beyond their role. They would research market trends and different product iterations for the purpose of driving the business forward. Consistently, they found ways to drive value for the company above and beyond their role, making them a key asset to our team.

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

They work incredibly hard. I'd only wish that they'd given themselves a break sometimes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a business expert at Commerzbank AG, a major German financial institution that provides a wide range of banking and financial services to individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, and large corporate clients. Our services include retail banking, corporate banking, investment banking, asset management, and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Meritocra?

We needed help figuring out how we could introduce new AI functionality into our internal software, taking into account all the security concerns we had.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Meritocra has helped us create a proof of concept (POC) to prove the feasibility of our ideas. The team has suggested possible solutions to our problem, recommended approaches to cover our security concerns, prepared an architecture vision, and implemented a piece of functionality to confirm the feasibility of the decisions we made. Meritocra has also provided documentation and code.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three teammates from Meritocra.

How did you come to work with Meritocra?

Someone referred Meritocra to me. I chose them over other options because they offered good value for the cost, and their company values aligned with ours.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent around $30,000 with Meritocra.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Meritocra in October 2023, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Meritocra has successfully developed a POC that demonstrates the feasibility of introducing AI functionality into our internal software while addressing critical security concerns. In addition, we've gained valuable insights by working closely with their team of experts. Through collaborative brainstorming sessions, we've been able to define a clear future vision and roadmap for further development, ensuring a strategic alignment of our goals and priorities at Commerzbank.
Moreover, the main KPI for this project is to check ideas and find solutions within the given budget, and Meritocra has achieved this goal. Regarding security compliance, we've compared the proposed solution approach and architecture with our internal security standards and guidelines, and we've found no gaps.

How did Meritocra perform from a project management standpoint?

Meritocra's project management is good. The team delivers on time. We communicate via virtual meetings, emails, and messaging apps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm impressed by Meritocra's engagement and readiness to dive deep into our problems and suggest different solution options. The team's openness to discussions and up-to-date expertise in the most innovative topics is also impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything Meritocra can improve on.