Miracle Mill AG

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the technical consultant for a company called CMAS, which stands for community mentoring and support. CMAS is a growing organization that offers individual tuition for children that can’t continue with mainstream school.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Miracle Mill AG?

CMAS had 150 different staff to handle the needs of 500 children. They were working exclusively through paper, and they didn’t have any scheduling system or automated mechanism to contact stakeholders. They also didn’t have a very good accounting process to manage finances.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Miracle Mill AG was hired to design an organizational management system. The team worked off a brief I created, based on business requirements. It included a scheduling component to manage contracts. The system also enables automated reports from the system about the children’s progress.

First, we had a discovery session where they understood the requirements. Next, they designed the system using wireframes to get a picture of what things would look like for the frontend user. Afterward, they built the system on AWS. Finally, they provided various reports for child progress.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 12 developers. There was a core team of about six.

How did you come to work with Miracle Mill AG?

We found them on Clutch. We looked at 40 companies, and we got about 10 responses. We chose Miracle Mill because they were in the EU, and they offered a very realistic fee.

How much have you invested with them? 

We’ve spent £70,000 (approximately $99,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020. CMAS requested to slow development down because of Brexit and COVID-19. We wrapped up in January 2021.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new system has increased efficiency by two or three times for CMAS’ back-office staff. Now, they can get rid of all the spreadsheets. The system intelligibly suggests which staff members are free to meet children’s needs.

How did Miracle Mill AG perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent. We held regular scrum meetings, and they were efficient and organized. They were a pleasure to work with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their flexibility in pricing stood out. The attitudes of the people I spoke with and worked with were all great; they all sounded very happy. The team had high levels of knowledge, and they know how to use it. Whenever there’s an error, Miracle Mill is the first to ask for clarification.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they did the brief to my specifications.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear with what you want. Don’t leave them to guess. Work with them as an equal partner; if you do, they’ll give you great results.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner and founder of a consulting business. We assist organizations in managing change, especially in helping them avoid change fatigue and the associated negative symptoms of it.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Miracle Mill AG, and what were your goals?

I hired Miracle Mill to help operationalize our proprietary algorithm for measuring the magnitude of effort required by individual initiatives so that it can work as a software as service model.

SOLUTION

How did you select Miracle Mill AG and what were the deciding factors?

I selected Miracle Mill after interviewing five companies. All companies had experience and expertise. Miracle Mill also had a reasonable price and kept a team member from the interview on the project to provide constancy from start to finish.

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

The project involved an exchange of documents and a meeting to ensure an understanding of expectations, producibles, timeline, and work flow. the actual development happened in phases with new goals set every two to three weeks and a one-hour status meeting at the start of every week.

Our main interface was a project management tool, Asana, which was an excellent way to monitor tasks and provide ongoing feedback. Additionally, all meetings were held on MS Teamwork or Zoom.

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

In total, I worked with 5 different people during the course of the project. A project manager and two engineers were consistently present throughout the project. Additionally, there was another engineer for a more specialized phase of the project and a customer success position that transitioned in at the end.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The development of the site involved operationalizing proprietary knowledge regarding algorithms of change effort and visualizing the phases of these change efforts. It was a complex concept and a dynamic interface. The site is up and running and functioning exactly as I had dreamed it.

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

Project management interactions happened primarily through Asana and email. I drove the frequency of communication and the project manager drove the team to my expectations.

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

I was very pleased with the responsiveness of every individual that I interacted with. Whenever something was not quite how I envisioned it in my head, they were each more than willing to take direction or ask to ensure that their second iteration was what exactly what I had in mind.

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

This process went about as well as I could have imagined. hard to think of anything that could have been better.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Platforms, Media Solutions Agency

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Miracle Mill AG, and what were your goals?

We are building a customised ad server to implement in to ecommerce websites. We are also building other bespoke applications for media and advertising purposes

SOLUTION

How did you select Miracle Mill AG and what were the deciding factors?

We found them through Clutch when looking for well reviewed software development companies.

We were looking for a partner who were flexible with commitments and resources, understood clearly the scope of what we were aiming to achieve and confident in offering us advice about platforms and approaches to build in the most efficient way.

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

Scope was to build the ad server middleware, create DB and monitoring functions, filter requests from client sites to an API and manage responses The application was built on AWS which is a specialism for Miracle Mill

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

CTO Developers x2 UX Designer x1 for small ad hoc projects

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Project was delivered in time and expertly without any delays. Their deep understanding of AWS enables them to respond and resolve requirements/bugs very quickly

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

In our project, the CTO helped us define the scope and clearly articulated that to the developers. Once that was in place we had a very open communication with the developers on progress using chat tools.

There's no time/resource wastage with overkill on project management when it's not necessary. An open dialogue with highly skilled, fluent English developers was all we needed to make the project successful and that's how we continue to work.

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

The involvement of the CTO He's helped us immensely define and scope our projects by getting deep in to the technology we are using and the product we're aiming to build. That level of expertise is invaluable for small/medium businesses with limited technical resource.

Their also very flexible with resource, which allows small/medium companies to invest and scale teams when they need without having to over-commit - that was something we did not feel was offered by other vendors and was a big factor in our decision making.

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

Not currently. We've been 100% satisfied with their service to date.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a small software development firm that makes management business applications for the printing industry, in the form of packaged solutions. I’m the CEO of the company and am in charge of the development team. We have four in-house employees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Miracle Mill AG?

We were migrating our legacy software to a modern SaaS application. Our team was looking for external help for the transition.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Miracle Mill mainly focused on frontend development. The solution is a single-page web app written in AngularJS, which they built from scratch with us. They analyzed the previous desktop application and created wireframes based on it.

The part that they worked on is our production planning module. It’s basically a list of jobs that the print shop is working on, with a scheduling and planning section. They created a graphical calendar onto which users can drag-and-drop jobs to assign them to different machines. Printers can start and stop jobs as well as see how far along particular jobs are.

What is the team composition?

Miracle Mill set up a team with one UI/UX designer and 2–3 developers. Andreas (Co-Founder & CTO) was my main point of contact. He wasn’t directly involved in the project, but he had the overall responsibility and would follow up with me.

How did you come to work with Miracle Mill AG?

I found them through a referral. I’d heard good things about Miracle Mill from other people in the industry and decided to give them a try. We’d tried outsourcing development with 2–3 firms before finding Miracle Mill, but we had some struggles in those engagements.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $25,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Miracle Mill between January–June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The module isn’t live yet. It needs to fit with other parts of the software, which we’re still working on internally. It’ll have a big impact for our customers once it is live, given that we're using an outdated solution now.

Miracle Mill was dedicated to ensuring that all the functionalities of the old system would work exactly the same on the new one. Even though it’s often hard to understand the full picture from the start, they always adapted and adjusted functionalities until everything worked identically to the old system.

They redid work that wasn't completely meeting our requirements because they understood our quality requirements and the fact that our customers were used to a certain system.  

How did Miracle Mill AG perform from a project management standpoint?

We worked in a traditional scrum methodology with two-week sprints. Internally, we’re using Azure DevOps for scrum and backlog planning and Microsoft Teams for meetings and chats. Miracle Mill had no problems using those tools. It was ideal for us to continue using the tools we were familiar with, and Miracle Mill plugged into our systems.

We insisted on having the solutions completed before summer 2020, which made for a very tight schedule. Miracle Mill added an additional developer to meet the deadline.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The communication was great. Miracle Mill really took the time to understand our product and listen to our feedback. They adapted continuously to our requirements and feedback, unlike the previous firms we worked with.

We had difficult requirements, but Miracle Mill took up the challenge. They perhaps didn’t understand how big of a challenge it was, but they adapted and delivered as promised. That’s something I appreciated.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We were struck by the pandemic right after the project started, so we were restricted to having web meetings. Otherwise, it would’ve been nice to have a few physical meetings for better follow-up.

In hindsight, we should’ve spent a bit more time on the design. Given the complexity of the system, we should’ve designed some elements upfront and passed them off to them They were always willing to redo pieces that weren't right, but we could've moved faster if we had given them design direction upfront. Overall, things worked well.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should communicate early about the work they want to do, and they should take advantage of Miracle Mill’s broad experience. We could've focused more on deployment and infrastructure from the start.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of T34MS Sweden, an agile development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Miracle Mill AG?

We needed to find a company that had proficient developers and understood Swedish work culture.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re outsourcing developers from Miracle Mill AG. We’ve built a team with them: I’m the business lead, and they provide us with the developers. We primarily source web and mobile developers with AWS cloud knowledge. We’ve done a few projects with them.

Our clients can talk to the developers without having to go through me. We provide product ownership and scrum master positions. 

What is the team composition?

Usually, we have 3–4 developers per team. We’re running two teams concurrently right now. We plan to scale it up after the summer.

How did you come to work with Miracle Mill AG?

I’ve known them for a while. When we started this idea for providing composite teams, we got in contact with them. They were on board with supporting us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve received top-notch deliveries and seen excellent results. Our clients really like that our offsite developers appreciate and adhere to Swedish work culture.

How did Miracle Mill AG perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Microsoft Teams and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their time estimates are excellent, and their follow-ups are great. I love our working relationship – it’s easygoing and just what we were looking for.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m very satisfied with their deliverables.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be used to working iteratively.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of Fleet Trading. We connect car dealerships with buyers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Miracle Mill GmbH?

We needed to create an auction platform for listing and selling cars, since doing so manually was no longer efficient. 

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to create an online B2B auction platform for car dealers, making the process more efficient and increasing overall sales. We also wanted to create a platform that was better than the ones our competitors offer. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I heard of Miracle Mill through a mutual acquaintance. I spoke with them about the project and asked what building a web and mobile platform would entail.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

First, we designed the platform. Miracle Mill helped us conceptualize the whole platform and effectively design its functionality. The initial development phase has taken approximately eight months.

What was the team composition?

When we started, the team had four or five members. Now we have a team of about two.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we launched this platform, our company became more professional and reputable in our sector.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The workflow and communication are always strong. We talk briefly each day and have standup meetings twice a week. We plan each Monday and review what we have completed each Friday. I visit their office and work with the team both in-person and remotely. Working with them is great.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their level of structure and technical competence are impressive. Miracle Mill is organized and helpful. They do what they say they will do and keep their word about deliverables. Not many companies do that.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I can't think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of Top Marine Sverige and bryggshoppen.se, the company started in 2016. The company is selling floating pontoons and accessories, building custom hardware, and essentially dealing with everything that floats.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Miracle Mill ?

We needed a software development company to create and maintain an e-commerce website that allowed users to purchase products.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to start an online e-commerce shop that would act as the selling portion of the project. The goal was to have higher online visibility and internet presence. We are one of three companies in Sweden that sells these types of products.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I met the CEO of Miracle Mill at a local event in North Macedonia, we formed an acquaintance and began talking about the project. When it was time to take the next step and build the project we contracted Miracle Mill.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We were very open about the project, we did not have much to say about the creation of the site other than the main goals. We had two-three meetings with Miracle Mill and they discussed our options and all the technical aspects of the site. These meetings helped us to understand the development process. Miracle Mill also helped to make the branding and the logo. The plan was to make the site simple, with clear UX/UI, that would be understandable for our typical customer profile. They included payment processing for the site via Klarna, this was a bit tricky to implement, due to external circumstances not dictated by Miracle Mill, in the end, they found a solution and everything is working well.

What was the team composition?

Input: The team was composed of about three people, working on the planning, design, and development. We are currently still working with Miracle Mill for any maintenance. Now, we have a dedicated contact person if something needs to be changed or fixed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to establish our goals of creating the site and maintaining it. We had a simple working relationship. I was able to go into the local office and the communication was great. Now, we work together remotely. We hold all our meetings on Skype and communicate over email. Overall the answers and solutions are quick.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Very effective, they are quick to respond and easy to work with overall.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Miracle Mill was creative when it came to the design. We did not give them much information, we only had a name. They were fast to show us ideas. The ideas were great and we were able to select one, allowing us to begin and for the development to progress quickly. They were able to show us that they were close to and understood our way of thinking.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing that comes to mind. Overall we are pretty happy with the results and the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of a manufacturing company based in Sweden. We build paper boards used as construction material for shop fittings, fairs, and exhibitions in 40 countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Miracle Mill?

We were trying to create an online network to publish information for a specially-invited group of product users. We needed a partner to manage design and programming tasks which included building a login wall and database.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s a very broad scope. Miracle Mill has done everything from building the first iteration of the website to creating an automated marketing campaign through Mailchimp. The team has designed email templates and built a partner community.

Miracle Mill resolves digital and system challenges, directing our technological choices. They also support domain strategy. The team understands any challenges we describe in plain language and translates it into a technical solution. I’m not in the best position to provide technical details but I know I can always turn to Miracle Mill.

What is the team composition?

I usually connect with Stefan (CEO, Miracle Mill) and Andreas (Co-Founder & CTO, Miracle Mill). But I've also worked with a project manager, architects, and developers.

How did you come to work with Miracle Mill?

I’ve known one of their founders for several years and have worked with Miracle Mill on behalf of several companies. For one of these companies, they built a database and helped us with automation processes. I described the project at hand, and they came back with a reasonable quote that balanced cost and solution. Whenever I have a project, I consider them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began collaborating in 2017, and it’s ongoing. However, my relationship with Miracle Mill spans the last ten years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m perfectly happy with them. Miracle Mill is the backbone of our digital marketing efforts.

How did Miracle Mill perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re using Asana as a tracking tool. We work with them week by week, which has actually sped up project timelines compared to having a regular project plan with set due dates. Miracle Mill follows our business objectives which we separate into individual paths.

We hold an in-person meeting once a week during which we discuss path priorities. Things change all the time in our area, so any plan we have is bound to change. Miracle Mill is flexible with redirection and reprioritization based on our needs. The team commits to their tasks, producing deliverables on time.   

What did you find most impressive about them?

Miracle Mill translates business challenges into technical solutions. The team’s ability to communicate complex technologies without requiring me to understand IT is instrumental.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When working with teams of different nationalities, there are bound to be differences in communication and expression. This is true of any international organization, and Miracle Mill’s founders are experienced in working internationally.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Spend time thinking about the scope and problem to reduce the number of alterations during execution.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Funtoad. We provide a platform for mass spectator events, which allows artists and performers to connect with the audience through mobile devices. We send commands to mobile devices to accompany the event in real time.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Miracle Mill?

We wanted to build a reliable mobile app that could distribute commands to mobile devices from beacons, Wi-Fi, and the web. We’d worked with another firm and had the skeleton of the app, but that firm wasn’t able to deliver. The apps they built were buggy and problematic.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Miracle Mill developed our app for Android and iOS. They did a good job of fixing the mess the other company left behind, allowing us to move forward.

Miracle Mill worked with us to reach deep into device peripherals to do all sorts of nifty things, like displaying flashes based on vibration patterns. They implemented different color patterns that are associated with various musical instruments so the audience can contribute to the sound in the concert.

We collected user feedback and made changes based on user recommendations to make it more intuitive and user-friendly.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a couple of developers, and we had quite a few conversations with their CEO as well. I reach out to Andreas (CTO & Co-Founder, Miracle Mill) frequently to brainstorm. He gives a lot of guidance to his developers, who are young but capable.

How did you come to work with Miracle Mill?

We attended an accelerator for startups in London, and we met an individual that worked with Miracle Mill and recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost has been $50,000–$100,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Miracle Mill in May 2017 and the collaboration is ongoing. They’re doing maintenance and fixing bugs, and we’re also adding features often. We’re happy with them, and we’ll continue to use their services as much as we can afford.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Miracle Mill’s work enabled us to participate in mass spectator events in Israel. We’ve been part of a show for the national theater for a year and a half. The shows are built around the use of the app. Their work got our apps working sufficiently to participate in these events. 

How did Miracle Mill perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re self-funding right now, so we’re using the money we’re making from the events for development. In show business, these things are unpredictable, so our workload with Miracle Mill has varied. We’ve had busy periods of 2–3 months, and there were other times when we didn’t give them any work because we couldn’t afford it. Miracle Mill has been very accommodating, and they’ve given us our two favorite developers.

Their estimates have been good. They were never too conservative, and they’ve always come in on time or early. I’m happy with their project management. We use Asana for tracking.

Not only have we challenged them, but we’ve had unforeseen circumstances, and we were late in our payments. They were incredibly understanding and accommodating and never pushed us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve spent time brainstorming with their CTO, and they never charged me for this. He’s happy to offer his expertise, and he’s like an employee of the company. We can reach out to him without worrying whether we’re going to be charged for it or not. We’ve had critical bugs during events, and their developers were able to help us during the weekend and at night. The fact that we have a direct line to their developers is fantastic. They’re able and willing to help us anytime. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Miracle Mill should hire more people. The developer we want isn’t always available, but this is partly because our work can be sporadic at times. Were they to get a few more developers, they could better assist other customers like us.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients shouldn’t be afraid to give them difficult tasks. They’ll figure it out, one way or another.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Clarifi Media Limited, a company that creates apps for live music events, sports outings, and medical research.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Miracle Mill?

We needed a partner to create native iOS and Android apps to connect to the backend that our in-house dev team had been developing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Miracle Mill works mainly in JavaScript and Objective-C to develop apps that perform well and are highly scalable. They also create visuals and the customer experience, integrating with various external systems via different APIs. Since initially hiring them, they’ve also taken over some backend and web services work, using Neo4j and DynamoDB. They’ve worked on three different apps from start to finish, including their maintenance, and ensure that our apps are able to scale and perform as required.

What is the team composition?

The team varies, depending on our needs. We’ve worked with anywhere from 1–5 people.

How did you come to work with Miracle Mill?

I did some research and found them. I interviewed them and was confident in their abilities, so I hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in September 2013, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has had few bugs, all of which have been resolved quickly. If they weren’t our partner, we wouldn’t be able to afford to do these projects at the same level of quality.

How did Miracle Mill perform from a project management standpoint?

We have daily meetings to understand project progress and setbacks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re more focused on providing excellent outcomes than on billing us as much as they can. The team is proactive and always willing to take on new problems. We have a respectful and collaborative relationship, and they’re extremely reliable. They know how to handle hard situations and train new resources on their own dime. Unlike many other firms, they pay attention to details and have a friendly team that has a broad knowledge across various subjects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They do good graphic design, but it needs to be edgier.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Engage with the project and communicate with them regularly. Instead of outsourcing your own product, foster a comfortable working relationship with Miracle Mill.