Naturaily

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of a PR and marketing company that combines traditional PR communications with cutting-edge technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Naturaily?

We had an urgent deadline for a completely new development project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Naturaily built a custom web app. It is a fully cloud-based web app that uses Ruby on Rails, and the team provided backend development services. Part of the custom development was the integration with third parties such as Stripe payments.

There was an automated translation service as well, different from Google Translate. There were some other integrations, and these were not always very easy, especially for the custom integration work.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one of their software developers.

How did you come to work with Naturaily?

A trusted resource I had been working with for quite a while referred me to Naturaily. He had a good experience working with the company and with this specific developer as well. 

From the start, there was a very good and trusting relationship. I did a technical interview, spoke with the developer, and asked a few questions. He was experienced and was able to start quickly.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in May 2020, and the engagement lasted about two and a half months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The developer went the extra mile. Even when he hit some bottlenecks and technical limitations, he worked around them and found solutions. He was able to deliver a working, production-ready solution. We had high expectations for the quality from start to finish, and he fully understood that and delivered on that.

How did Naturaily perform from a project management standpoint?

We had regular stand-ups that were virtual since this was a remote position. We also had a weekly summary call where we did planning as well as looked back, kind of like a retrospective, on how things were going. We used Slack as well as Google Meet to communicate throughout the project.

The project management was done on our side, so it was mainly sending instructions and providing specifications, and working out specifications together which is a nice thing when you are working with someone who is already quite experienced. They understood the task at hand and didn’t need full details. 

They figured it out and asked the questions they needed in order to implement the features or fix a bug, and they also came back with suggestions on how to do it faster or simplify it. In general, Naturaily was very proactive in terms of communication, providing feedback, and coming up with suggestions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were open to constructive feedback, which was important, and they were able to adjust. Sometimes you work on a certain feature and when it’s almost done, the team members on the business side review it and might change their mind. Naturaily was able to quickly adapt to the changing needs and that was definitely a very positive point.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing jumps to mind right away. If anything, there was some last-minute scheduling and rescheduling because there was another project that the developer had been involved in for which he had to provide some follow-up support.

Sometimes we had to adjust, whether he couldn’t work in the morning or on a certain day, but he definitely made up for that at another time, and even over the weekend. I don’t have any real criticism, just that we had to work around some scheduling issues. We knew that would be the case in advance because they had communicated that to us beforehand.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Especially when working with remote developers and designers, it’s important to have open, direct, and frequent communication. When you feel something should be done better, changed, or adjusted, communicate that directly. Don’t be afraid to hold back to ensure a smooth collaboration.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Chief Operating Officer of CoinFLEX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. When I first contacted Naturaily, I was the CTO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Naturaily?

We hired 2 Ruby developers from Natruraily to work on initial projects relating to KYC / Saleforce integration and an Affiliate prgram. Further projects on an exchange token, competitions, custody and further Saleforce integration projects were also completed.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to set up the exchange initally with basic services - hence the first KYC / Saleforce project. The ongoing goals were to add product inovations to the exchange to try and increase user engagement.

SOLUTION

How did you select Naturaily?

We initially contacted another company for their services (one that we had worked with before) but they were busy with other projects, so they recommended Naturaily to us as a good alternative partner for our projects. In addition, we interviewed candidates from other consulting companies, but we felt the candidates from Naturaily were the strongest we spoke to.

Describe the project in detail.

Once we had secured the 2 resources, we created specification documents and implementation guides for the 2 initial projects - KYC/Salesforce integration and an Affiliate Program.

I worked closely with both developers on the projects and we had daily standups / scrums to give brief comments on progress and any blockers to be resolved. The later projects on the exchange token, competitions and custody followed a similar workflow.

What was the team composition?

In these projects, the "team" was just 1 developer per project and they reported to me for any questions or blockers. For the testing phase, there were members of the risk and operations teams who were involved in the final acceptance testing before live release.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Both initial projects were completed in 1-2 months and the exchange launched successfully on the back of these projects being in place.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was effective after the initial planning dicussions had taken place and the requirements and implementation documentation had been shared and understood. The daily touchpoints were important moments to discuss any blockers or questions.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Naturaily had a good depth and quality of Ruby resources and the communication and rapid turn around of contracts was appreciated. Securing and onboarding those resources quickly allowed us to launch our exchange in an acceptible timeframe.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We were satified with the engagement and quality of delivery. The developers were both able to work longer hours when required and the turnaround times were more than accetible. Not much to improve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of a technology agency that specializes in building headless PWA storefronts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Naturaily?

We’re entering a new era of e-commerce that is focused on building new stores faster. A lot of people are leaning towards a progressive web app approach. We’ve been working towards that, and we’ve found a lot of areas where we could streamline the things we’re doing. We wanted an internal tool that could help us find the best approach for it.

That being said, we didn’t want to derail our team from building internal teams and products. We wanted to focus on building these storefronts in a way that would be impactful for our clients. We tapped Naturaily for a software project. We told them what we were struggling with and what we thought we could automate.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They came to the table with some UX/UI flows and showed how we could use this internal tool could be used from a development standpoint and product owner standpoint. They continue to work on developing the software for us.  

What is the team composition?

We work with Marcin (CEO), then we have a dedicated team that consists of a project manager, one frontend developer, one backend developer, and one designer.

How did you come to work with Naturaily?

I was referred to them from my CEO at a previous company I worked for. I was able to use some of the software they’ve built before, and I was pretty impressed with it. I thought they had a strong understanding of the e-commerce world and how it ties into SaaS and how it can empower service-based companies like ours.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $15,000–$25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first engaged with them in April 2020 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The impact has been great from an internal standpoint. Before engaging with them, we had an MVP. They were able to extract those pieces and create an actual tool we can use. We’re trying to make it foolproof for our entire organization, so we can see how it’s going to impact our organization, but we’re still working on it.

How did Naturaily perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything is done through Slack and email. Communication has been great. Going into the project, one of my biggest concerns was the time difference between our team and theirs, but everything has gone really well. They provide status updates, they let us know if something is going to take longer than originally planned, when something is getting done, and when they need our feedback. They’ve been really good on that front.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When we’ve worked with other developers in the past, they just give us the finished project. Naturaily, on the other hand, invested more in the strategy. For example, they will recommend we use AWS or Google Cloud based on our needs. They make sure that we make the right decisions by offering their expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s hard to say right now because we’re still early on in the engagement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have all the information up-front. With the time difference, it helps if you have the majority of your idea fleshed-out so they can effectively deliver. Otherwise, it will be difficult for them to establish a project roadmap.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The A. W. Niemeyer GmbH or AWN is a German yacht and boat supplier. AWN sells goods in shops, in internet shops and by mail order. The origins of the company, which has developed from an ironmonger to an internationally renowned ship chandler, go back to the first half of the 18th century. A.W. Niemeyer is one of the oldest trading houses in Hamburg.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Naturaily?

Finalizing the Launch of the German Shopify E-Commerce Shop by migrating from Magento and improving the Shopify fronend, based on the experience with awn24.at. Then continuous development for UX/UI improvements.

What were your goals for this project?

To achieve a leading UX in E-Commerce for boat supplies and thereby to increase AWN's online sales.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

AWN has been approached by Naturaily as a specialist for Shopify development. AWN was in search for a development agency anyway so it was a win-win-situation.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed a new shop-frontend, based on the status in Austria, with focus on increasing UX and thereby increase the conversion rate.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of a project manager and 2 developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The conversion rate of awn.de in comparison to awn24.at increased by 30%. The sales on awn24.at increased, after relaunch, roughly by 40%.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management was very smooth and efficient.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Naturaily always looked on the development tasks from a business perspective, so on how the development tasks affect the sales volume of the shop.

Are there any areas for improvement?

For the ongoing day-to-day business, availabilty of developers for complex adhoc tasks could improve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Work For Impact. We’re an online marketplace that connects freelancers with organizations. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Naturaily?

We had a backlog in the build of our site and needed developers to come in and help us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with hiring a frontend developer from Naturaily to work on tasks that involved Vue.js. We were so happy that we hired some backend developers to come in and build in Ruby on Rails and Elasticsearch. Naturaily also helped us integrate interview software and telecommunications and messaging software. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with three developers.

How did you come to work with Naturaily?

We found them through a recommendation from another software house. We did some code review and tests with them, and they came out better than the other candidates we considered.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $80,000 USD.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019, and the work is ongoing. We’re about to launch in a week.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re very particular on code and documentation, so we do a lot of work on the architecture and the application so that they’re focused. The quality of Naturaily’s code and documentation has been exceptional.

How did Naturaily perform from a project management standpoint?

They embedded the developers in our team, so they don’t have much to do with the project management. We’re happy with how well they communicate. We’re in regular contact over Zoom, phone, email, and Slack. They’re proactive in communication as well as clear and concise in their messaging.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their development stands out. I also appreciate their ability to communicate and understand quite complex tasks.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes, the scheduling around holidays and days off was a little bit short notice. I’d appreciate more advanced warning in the future. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Diffia AS is a Norwegian eHealth company delivering IT-solutions designed for the need of hospital clinicians and their patients. Our main focus is on user friendly and useful mobile collaboration, communication and documentation tools for clinicians, as well as seamless remote care of out-patients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Naturaily?

We needed to supplement our dev team with developers for back-end and front-end work on our application for clinicians - Nimble Clinic. The stack used was Java, PostgreSQL, (Redux), React.

What were your goals for this project?

Development of features for Nimble Clinic, with a robust and responsive back and front-end including documentation and automated testing - ensuring the satisfaction of clinicians, and hospital ICT security and privacy requirements

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

A thorough selection through interviews with potential vendors that reached out to us. A thorough interview process of candidates presented to us by the vendors sales team.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project per se was (and is at the moment of writing) an ongoing development process where the resource provides us was onboarded, and made part of our in-house team to work continuously on the project. The developer worked on many aspects of the application being developed, everything from front-end features in CSS and React, to refactoring and testing to database/back-end optimisation.

What was the team composition?

1 product owner, 1 product manager, 1 designer, 2 senior developers and the vendors resource. The team mainly remained the same throughout the period where we engaged the vendor.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The burn-down rate on the jira-tasks completed (weighted) per sprint increased as a result of resources from the vendor. The project itself is/was a long term R&D done on collaboration with Norwegian hospitals, which in turn led to the company winning a significant procurement in the region. This took a team effort, in which the resource from the vendor played an important role.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The product owner presented and broke into smaller pieces the user stories that would become the jira-tasks. The developers and the project manager estimated each task and put that into the sprint. The sprint contained sprint reviews/retrospectives for optimising the work estimations and flow, and there were demos for the product owner and management for each sprint.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We're in particular happy with how easy to work with and solid their deliveries have been. No fuss and great communications.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There always is when looking for perfection, but nothing in particular comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a SaaS business in the translation space, and I’m also in charge of product development. We provide development tools that allow the easy translation of apps and other software into different languages.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Naturaily?

We wanted to find a long-term software development partner.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They mainly provide frontend development of our SaaS platform, which means they work in Vue.js along with HTML and CSS. They’ve helped us redesign the application and implement the design changes. They’ve also developed a dashboard, a couple of form views, and settings, while we’re now working on a text editor for translations.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with two frontend developers who are experts in Vue.js. We have engagements with other team members as needed, such as when we need designs or other work.

How did you come to work with Naturaily?

I researched a lot of vendors, focusing on skills in Ruby on Rails and Vue.js. I stumbled upon Naturaily and read their Clutch reviews, but I had calls with 20–30 different options.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe the cost so far has been $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September or October 2018, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their developers have helped ours to learn different styles of development, and they’ve accelerated the rate at which we can ship our product. Naturaily’s code is really reliable.

How did Naturaily perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m the project manager—they do provide the service, but since our developers work together, we decided I’d do it. They deliver on time and on budget and are really helpful in setting expectations.

I typically specify issues, then we do an estimate and they write the code, contacting me when it’s done. I do a quality check and they fix any small problems that need addressing. There’s a constant flow between us that works well. We use GitHub Issues and Slack, and we have daily standups with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Vue.js is very mainstream now, but it wasn’t at the time of this project. Naturaily already had a few good developers for it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re looking for Java developers, but they don’t provide that currently. Most of their developers have a good level of English or are working on improving it.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Have clear expectations and communicate them—that allows both sides to think about the engagement and how to best proceed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a researcher and social scientist at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, which focuses on the development of health systems in developing countries. Our unit’s expertise is in Health Economics, as well as Knowledge Management. We facilitate several online communities with thousands of members.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Naturaily?

We needed to create a platform that would serve as a link between our projects and members of the community who want to be involved in. Each user would need to create a profile that would connect them with one of the projects or discussion groups that interest and suit them. As a mini social network for global health professionals, the platform would encourage and improve peer-to-peer actions and knowledge co-production among experts. Since our needs were very specific, we didn’t find an existing solution that could do the job. As a research institute, we didn't have an in-house development team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Naturaily developed the backend of the platform from scratch. We’re working with our own designer, and their job is to implement those designs on the frontend. They’ve also offered expert technical advice and identified existing solutions we could use. They continue to build new features and provide maintenance.

What is the team dynamic?

We work with 1–5 developers, depending on the needs of the moment. Some of them are part-time because the project had low-intensity periods when we only needed 1–2 developers. At its peak, 5–6 people were working on the platform at the same time. We also have a team manager who is involved in the strategic and design aspects of the project.

How did you come to work with Naturaily?

While the institute is driving the project, we are working in cooperation with another company called Blue Square, a technology company based in Brussels. They helped us find Naturaily. I’ve also met all of the executives of Naturaily.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $50,000–$199,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2016, and we’re still working with them. There are still a lot of things to develop, but we will progressively go on maintenance mode.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The pace of development significantly accelerated from the moment Naturaily joined the project. Previously, we worked with another company that didn't have the capacity to develop and adapt so quickly. As a result, the platform was being developed more slowly, with minimal fixes for bugs and technical problems.

Since we started working with Naturaily, we’ve been able to do what we want. I don't have metrics, but we are really happy with the work that they are doing. The work is delivered on time and built in a clever way. They tried to understand what we wanted and gave excellent advice. Their involvement has also given us human resource flexibility. I consider them a partner.

How did Naturaily perform from a project management standpoint?

The entire team is responsive and seems really committed. Communication is easy, and I am constantly in contact with the person in charge of project management. While I’ve never met the developers personally, I can talk to them daily using a project management app.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I am impressed with their creativity and reactivity. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to improve their capacity to estimate the workload. Sometimes, we needed to review the schedule because there was a little more work than we expected.

Another little weakness is their English skills since it’s not the native language of the development team. While that’s something they can still improve, our overall communication is great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a software-as-a-service [SaaS] provider. We have developed an expert knowledge community that we sell to scientific and B2B [business-to-business] publishing companies. I am a co-founder and the chief technology officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Naturaily?

We needed the option of scaling up our in-house development team. Naturaily has provided a good way of tapping into additional resources reactively, based on client demand.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Naturaily initially helped us with maintenance work for the Ruby on Rails technology stack. They helped us through a large version upgrade; from 3.0 to 4.0.

We've also used Naturaily for building new features, as well as bug fixes and maintenance. We use other technologies in-house, but Naturaily has only worked on Ruby on Rails tasks.

We've used up to 3 developers from Naturaily. We tend to manage the project work ourselves, and generally, drop developers into our existing team.

How did you come to work with Naturaily?

A sales person from Naturaily dropped me an email when we were in the market for this type of service. Naturaily was a good fit for our company in terms of size, and we thought that we'd get a good amount of attention from them, instead of being one of a hundred different clients.

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

The cost of Naturaily's services has been around $50,000 over the course of 10-months.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been in contact with Naturaily for around 18 months, but only engaged them for work in January 2016. There's been at least one full-time developer working on our projects over the last 10-months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Naturaily has definitely helped us by taking on maintenance work and allowing our core development team to focus on value-add tasks. Once that work was done, we were also able to package up features that were quite easy to scope and offer them to Naturaily, while our internal team worked on items that required a lot more thinking and communication with the product owner and the customers. Naturaily is quite good at taking simple-to-scope features and delivering them within our Agile process.

How did Naturaily perform from a project management standpoint?

We've used Slack for day-to-day communication, Google Hangouts for video conferences, Trello for user story management, and GitHub for code reviews. We treat Naturaily as a proper team member, with only some restrictions on access.

What did you find most impressive about Naturaily?

Naturaily's responsiveness has been great. They're good at keeping in touch and not leaving us in the dark about where things stand. I don't have to chase them very much, which is great. Naturaily has made the effort to learn our technology, and I feel that they're an extended part of our team.

Are there any areas Naturaily could improve?

Naturaily's team could improve in terms of English language skills. This has been our main drawback. The main reason for Naturaily not being as integrated as we'd like them to be is because of language skills. We tend to rely on written communication, and Naturaily doesn't take part in our daily standups.

BACKGROUND

Please introduce your business and what you do there.

We develop custom software for a range of clients, as well as providing consultation services, helping them decide what to build from scope, architecture, and design standpoints.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Naturaily?

We rely on Naturaily for team augmentation, from a development perspective.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Naturaily worked with us on one project to date, but we intend to engage them for more work.

Naturaily has provided web development for our company, working on custom-built solutions. The technologies used were Ruby on Rails and JavaScript.

Naturaily assigned us 2 developers, one senior and one junior. We have hired a third person who is scheduled to start next week. I work directly with Naturaily's Chief Technology Officer in order to source our resources, but the project management is handled by our own company. We give tasks to developers directly.

How did you come to work with Naturaily?

I received an outbound email solicitation from Naturaily. From my conversation with their Chief Executive Officer [CEO], we found that we have a similar specialization and philosophy to Naturaily in terms of how our teams are built and trained. They also had a try-before-you-buy approach, allowing us to spend 1-2 weeks working with developers and determining if we have a good fit. Naturaily's CEO had a commitment to his people and we've received good quality work from them. We've had no reason to switch since then.

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

The total cost of Naturaily's services has been around $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started negotiations with Naturaily at the end of November 2015. Our project started in December.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

From our perspective, feed-back from clients has been given based on our choices for solutions and how we attacked certain problems. Typically, positive or negative feed-back will rely on the work we provide in-house. Our clients haven't had the opportunity to speak directly on the quality of specific blocks of code. Determining success is based more on negative effects: was the code buggy, was it improperly written, did it take too long to write, and so on. We haven't experienced any of these issues with Naturaily. Our experience will tend to be binary: we're either happy or we're not. So far, working with Naturaily has been good. The output from Naturaily has certainly met our requirements.

How did Naturaily perform from a project management standpoint?

We work on a time-and-materials basis with Naturaily, so coming in on-time and on-budget is predicated on our management. Naturaily was always responsive and able to produce code in a timely fashion and we've been happy with the output.

We use 4 primary tools with Naturaily: Slack for communication, Trello for project and task management, as well as GitHub and BitBucket as code repositories.

What distinguishes Naturaily from other providers?

Naturaily has a willingness to stay behind their team. We also appreciated the opportunity to try out their services in the beginning. Ultimately, our satisfaction came down to Naturaily's quality of output. Relative to cost, their quality was good. The responsiveness and communication between me and Naturaily has also been good, from the executive level down.

Given the fact that I'm located in Boston and we have team members all over the world, while Naturaily is located in Poland, being able to communicate via remote tools may not have turned out well. Many of Naturaily's competitors don't do this particularly well, so the fact that Naturaily has this ability is a good feature.

Is there anything Naturaily could have improved or done differently?

No, there haven't been. Naturaily has done a good job of being clear about the skill level of the people who are provided to us. We didn't have miscommunications in terms of what we paid for and what we received in return.

We have provided Naturaily clear directions and showed them exactly what we wanted to build. Naturaily has been able to execute our instructions very well. If another client comes to them with well-specified products, I am certain that Naturaily will be able to execute. I think that Naturaily could offer a lot more, but we haven't had the opportunity to give them a general concept, allowing Naturaily to make a number of general decisions, coming back with conclusions and a built product. I can't speak about how well Naturaily could architect and construct a solution from scratch, but as far as taking directions and being thoughtful about their output, Naturaily has been very good. Any customer with a well-specified project and willing to communicate extensively with the development team, will be a good fit for Naturaily.