Neoteric

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of a digital advertising platform. Our main customers are in the publishing industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Neoteric?

We wanted to try them out, and we just needed to offload some of the work from us to them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did two projects with Neoteric. Our first project web development project with them where we needed a certain functionality in the frontend. It was a graphical feature or a special advertisement where a video would be playing, and we developed that with them.

We gave them a dummy as a template and they basically reprogrammed the whole thing so that it would actually work for us. This was a test pilot to see if we could outsource some work to them.

We also did a data exploitation project where we explored some of the data which we collect, and the focus was on understanding our data and maybe deduct AI possibilities or projects from it.

We had a lot of questions around our data which we couldn’t really figure out on our own because we lack certain skillsets, such as statistical or mathematical skillsets. Neoteric helped us set up a base project on where we would be able to start with the whole data topic at our company.

They provided workshops and 2–3 week-long sprints with a physicist who dove into the data and looked for certain relations that might have been there and were trying to verify or falsify a lot of things. He basically tried to verify things we were assuming about our data.

Examining the data, they looked for relations or tried to verify or find out new things about the data. They generated a report and presented the data to us. We could then deduct some information from that.

What is the team composition?

We have worked with three people, and there were two more people that were involved in the meetings.

How did you come to work with Neoteric?

They were recommended to us by a colleague of mine. He was at a roadshow event and told me that we should check them out to see if they could help us with our data project.

How much have you invested in them?

It is around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started with them in January or February 2020 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With the data project, it is quite hard to measure because we are still in the exploration phase. It isn’t a numerical thing, but we basically are building up an idea right now on how this data could work for us, how AI could play a role in the future, and what the road would actually look like. This has been pretty helpful for us because we are always generating ideas and brainstorming about stuff, but we never really had a practical way of approaching this whole thing. With Neoteric, I know that we have a partner there which could actually help us get started with this whole data thing. It was very broad and I am pretty sure they will help us actually lift off with the data stuff.

How did Neoteric perform from a project management standpoint?

From the data project, it was pretty good at the beginning when we did the kickoff. During the project, generally, it was pretty good, but sometimes communication was a little bit slow. Overall, I would give them a B+ or A-. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

In general, their spirit is quite good, and I think the data team has a really interesting structure. I met some of the AI team there in Poland, and they really lived the whole research idea. It is different than working with normal software developers. They really have a scientific approach which is extremely interesting and something I think is really helpful if you are just starting with data. They keep you open-minded, and they have their own culture there which is quite cool.

Are there any areas they could improve?

With these kinds of projects, you always have some starting problems on how to provide the data or providing them with the right data. There was a little bit of a back and forth, and we had a little bit of a delay of two or three weeks until we really could get started. There was a bit of a miscommunication from sales to the start of the project. This could have been smoother, but it was still good in my opinion.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

With the web development stuff, I still think this can be helpful if you need to offload some work from your own organization. It was a very small project and it was quite good that it wasn’t connected to our other stuff in our company because I think it was a little hard to integrate them into all of our processes. If I would recommend something, I would tell anyone to just start with one small project that isn’t related to anything else in the company if that is possible. You can then get an idea of how they work and the quality they generate.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Egain International are a technology company that links intelligent software, big data and human expertise to provide self-optimized and energy efficient buildings

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Neoteric?

For our user portal we have an web application, that lets the user to control, review and optimise his buildings, and also see consumption data and more. We hired Neoteric to implement the Frontend GUI for several of our features we are offering.

What were your goals for this project?

Give the end-user several new advance features to supervise their buildings and houses on several levels

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

By several different intervjus with several company's, we finally chosed Neoteric due to their professional solutions and good knowledge. They where also speaking good English and had an attractive offering

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Advance Frontend GUI & graphs for our Edge IOT customer platform

What was the team composition?

Two frontend developer and one Tester from Neoteric

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to the development of the GUI, Features and functionality from Neoteric we where able to deliver several new features on time we had planed in our roadmap

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project was developed with SCRUM process. All deliveries were according to plan with good quality. Neoteric developers worked as fully member in the Egain developer-team

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Great deliveries, self going developer and good English

Are there any areas for improvement?

We would like to add more developers from from Neoteric to the team, when the current situation in the world has changed

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director of engineering at an identity resolution provider within the ad tech ecosystem. We are historically known for data onboarding, connecting brands and customers to every destination in the marketing ecosystem.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Neoteric?

Our organization underwent a very large migration from our data centers to the cloud. This also happened in conjunction with a company split where we sold a part of our business to another organization. 

Along the way, we needed to move items from our legacy data center to Google Cloud, and we were on a tight timeline. We needed flexible resources to achieve this goal because there was a temporary spike in the work we had. So, we were looking for contractor resources to help us out, which is why we hired Neoteric. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our relationship with them has evolved since we started working together. However, for the initial project, which was related to migrating some of the legacy European systems to the cloud, they worked with us on some of the requirement gathering.

Additionally, they were actively involved in designing the technical solution and all the implementation. The team also worked with us on another project where they built out a couple of UIs that helped to make one of our proof of concept (POC) products a little more usable.

Most recently, we've had a third engagement with them that has included a backend service component and a UI component.

What is the team composition?

We work with four engineers, a team lead, and a scrum master and project manager. 

How did you come to work with Neoteric?

When she heard I was looking for partners for this project, one of the engineering leads within our organization put me in touch with Greg (CTO) with whom she had previously worked. Afterward, I and a couple of other people went to Gdańsk, Poland where they’re based and spent a couple of days from them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $100,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them on the data migration project from July 2019–January 2020. We’re still working with them on another project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very satisfied, and still are, with Neoteric’s work in general. They put the customer’s needs first and are willing to deal with ambiguous problems. Migrating an existing system isn’t easy, but they managed to do it successfully and on time. 

How did Neoteric perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is definitely one of Neoteric’s strengths. In any project with a tight timeline, there are often corners you have to cut at certain points of time. In order to do so, you have to identify them early enough to make the right decisions, and the team did this very well.

Their communication is very strong, which is important when working with a contractor shop. Karina manages all of the sprints in an agile format and is in communication with the stakeholders and me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

All of the engineers and project managers at Neoteric are very comfortable communicating in English. I am also impressed by their willingness to learn new tools and technologies in order to work within the confines of our organization’s existing set up.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They tend to push back against the customer and not take what we say from a technical perspective at face value. That’s the one thing that they can improve on, although it’s not a major issue.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ask for a project manager and clarify basic requirements early and revisit them regularly. It’s important for stakeholders and the team to meet regularly, and we did this on a biweekly basis. Another key part was integrating them successfully into our engineering development environment and giving them access to tools fairly quickly.

By doing this, the team was able to know early on exactly what they needed to learn and plan accordingly. They told me that what often  happens with other clients is that it takes time for them to get access to the different elements that they need to complete the project, which is a big obstacle when engaging with contractors. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Business Intelligence Group, a business solutions company that provides AI and consultancy to private healthcare organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Neoteric?

A group of our clients was trying to find solutions for the cancer pathway. It was an AI solution that would allow organizations to plan their capacity in order to better meet demand.

A particular goal of this project is to reduce delays for patients on cancer pathways. It’s quite unique, and the benefits are going to be quite huge, once we’ve developed an MVP that we can deploy to different organizations and once we’ve carried out further development.

The scope was provided by six organizations working together. We partnered with Neoteric to create software using machine learning to analyze data from these organizations over a series of years.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The initial piece of work with Neoteric was investigating whether our hypothesis was possible. They carried out tests over a series of weeks, and built the algorithm for us, proving that it would work. The next stage was of course to expand that. We went to Poland for two days to ensure that we captured every aspect of what we were trying to deliver. 

After those two days, the project management lead and team were able to collate an accurate document covering exactly what it was we were trying to deliver. Once we approved it, we moved to the product development stage.

Neoteric built the software from scratch using various technologies, including Python and Open Library. We’re using technologies like Qlik and SQL Server to present the data that’s continuously being calculated. 

The team gave us a number of options in terms of the visual output and has also started to use linear regression. There was a lot of statistical modeling required for creating this product.

What is the team composition?

We work with three developers — one senior, one frontend, and one backend — a senior data scientist, and a project manager. We’ve worked very closely with their CTO, their director of business development, and their CEO. 

How did you come to work with Neoteric?

After researching a number of companies that had clear examples of using machine learning to create products, we contacted some Hungarian and Polish companies. Neoteric had the most robust portfolio. 

Once we had a discussion with them, they came up on top of 15–20 other companies we had spoken to. The CTO, CEO, and director of business development were the three key people we initially approached to explain what we were planning to do.

How much have you invested with them?

The initial stage cost just under $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Neoteric in December 2019, and our engagement is ongoing. There are different aspects we’re going to be working on with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We used accurate data from the last few years, and the goal of the module was to calculate to the best possible accuracy, relative to that real-life data. The accuracy rate was just over 80%. Considering that this was just an initial model, we only had a 19% error rate. 

Neoteric developed quite a strong model, and we’re continuing to strengthen it to make it even more accurate, using data from more years. The prediction of the model was pretty close to the real-life data. 

The software is initially being used by one organization, the pilot organization in the group. It will then be deployed to all organizations at a later stage.  

How did Neoteric perform from a project management standpoint?

The team is very professional. There was a total of four core team members allocated, but their senior members were also very much involved, checking up on where we were at each stage and supporting us with the project. The customer service was outstanding.

They allocated a project manager who, along with the lead developer, supported us in carrying out the initial scoping exercise. They called it an AI sprint. The location difference wasn’t an obstacle because Neoteric used platforms we were comfortable with, including Slack. 

They often called using videoconferencing tools. In addition to the two touch points we had during the week, there was also communication throughout the entire path of the project. There was no communication gap. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed by their experience and understanding of what we’re trying to do, as well as their creative approach to bringing our idea to life. The communication of this team is really second to none. 

It feels like they’re an extension of our team, as opposed to just a company trying to gain profit. They spent a lot of time working on it, going above and beyond, and their hospitality was really great when we went to Poland.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing in terms of room for improvement is the language barrier. We sometimes have to doublecheck what they mean, because they speak English differently. That’s really minimal, though. They speak great English, our interpretations just need to be elaborated on sometimes to make sure we’re on the same page.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They’re absolutely open to having regular communication. It’s just a matter of going there and understanding how the company works. We went over there and saw how they worked, what their offices looked like, and who their teams were. 

It enhanced the relationship, and it made them feel like the project was truly theirs. It feels like an extended team, as opposed to a third party that’s been asked to do something, which is something we don’t always see.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Coherence Design (CloudSET) develop and licence extension apps for the Zendesk customer service platform. I'm the CEO and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Neoteric?

We needed a Rappid/JointJS specialist to help accelerate our adoption of this technology as a component in our business process application.

What were your goals for this project?

PoC that we could evolve further ourselves towards a completed solution.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were recommended by the Rappid/JointJS vendor, conducted internet research, including Clutch. We held a couple of scoping meetings and Neoteric provided and demonstrated samples of their work and answered questions relating to the suitability of the technology to meet our needs.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We scoped a SoW and they executed this in sprints with evolution cycles to build a working PoC on a hosted environment Neoteric provided. The source code was then handed over for our further development

What was the team composition?

Project Manager, Software Developer, and Designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very pleased in the results, both with the technology, and Neoterics expertise and professional approach. Our objectives were fully achieved and has enabled us to realise our vision of using a graphical interface for defining and configuring embedded business processes.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management was well implemented and effective, sprint deliverables were made on time, and feedback acted upon.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They could answer our detailed questions, which showed a deep knowledge of the technology.They also made suggestions as to best approaches which helped us key into best practices in this subject domain. Leadership team involvement was also appreciated in the getting to know each other stage. Neoteric also ran at the fast pace we needed, even starting the week before Xmas and in between to set-up an intersect point in our project plans.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No really, the process went very well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We deliver IT services tailored for the asset management industry. I am product manager in charge of a new suite of software to which Neoteric has contributed.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Neoteric?

We identified a set of business needs that could deliver value for our asset managers customers but were not able to scale up rapidly enough to meet our ambitious delivery date.

What were your goals for this project?

We desired to deliver a MVP for a workflow solution (mobile and desktop version), ready to go to market by our delivery date.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We needed to scale up rapidly, so we looked for local and near-shore IT service providers. We found about Neoteric on Clutch and selected them out of a pool of 12+ companies. We received a comprehensive and down to earth evaluation of our project goal (in terms of team size and duration) and were seduced by the quality of the people we interacted with (notably their ability to tailor their deliverables to our specific requests).

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Neoteric provided us with a team made of back-end, front-end and mobile developers, along with some project management support and QA. Neoteric was responsible to design, implement and to setup automated testing on the application. We delivered detailed functional requirements that we discussed and adjusted hand-in-hand with Neoteric's team as part of refinement sessions. We interacted with Neoteric complete team from sprint 0 (back in July) up to the last day of the project in December the same year).

What was the team composition?

Neoteric provided a total of: - 3 back-end developers - 3 front-end developers - 1 mobile developer - 1 project manager - 2 QA engineer - 1 account representative (for the contractual and administrative work) The team size started on day one with 6 people and scaled up to 9 (excl the account rep.)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We achieved a functional MVP that generated a lot of interest from our customer. We remained roughly on time (we extended the initial contract by a month to cleanly close the collaboration) and within budget. The commitment demonstrated by Neoteric to our project success was tremendous. From day one, we met with professionals in all roles who demonstrated their skill, experience and contributed excellent feedback into the product team to improve the quality of the final product we delivered.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

After a couple of sprints to find the exact velocity of the team, we managed to have a very high percentage of delivered commitment after each two-weeks iterations (even achieving a couple of 100% sprints). We collaborated using JIRA for the backlog definition and work tracking, AWS CodeCommit for the source code, Google meet for our remote meetings and Agile ceremonies and finally Slack to ensure a constant contact between the development/QA team and the product team. We never actually met face-to-face but the communication and transparency was exemplary from one end of the project to the other. We achieved a very high level of trust and responsiveness between Neoteric and us. Never has language been an issue. We had quite a few perfectly fluent people on the team and all members had a perfectly functional mastery of the English language (both written and spoken).

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We felt as partners in our endeavors and not "another customer". The commitment offered by the team was top-notched, especially when deadlines were closing on us. We had complete transparency and an extremely polite and professional communication from all parties during the whole project. We achieved a high-level of trust in each other that translated into: - Our ability to clearly understand progress made and where obstacles needed help from the product team, - Neoteric team demonstrated a great understanding of the business objective and provided many useful feedback on features or user experience, most of which have been included in the final product, - We achieved a working relation where distance was no longer a factor, notably through our constant availability and high responsiveness via Slack.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing outside of usual custom development challenges. I have no complaint regarding the way we worked together and would try to achieve a similar work structure for future collaborations.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of ThreeLeaf, an advertising agency based in Texas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Neoteric?

We engaged Neoteric to help us with a backend software development project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We developed the frontend of a software platform and Neoteric provided the backend development, building an API that acts like a microservice on Amazon Cloud. The platform allows for the storage of information to the database for a real estate company. 

What is the team composition? 

I work with one main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Neoteric?

We reached out to Neoteric because they were listed as a recommended vendor for the type of technology we wanted to use. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about $50,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since December 2018 and plan to continue working with them indefinitely. As we test the platform, they continue to provide support as needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Neoteric has helped us develop some cutting-edge technologies, refining our ideas and turning them into a reality. 

How did Neoteric perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager does a great job of staying in touch with us, providing daily and weekly reports regarding progress. They met all expected deadlines and we're so happy with their work that we don't intend on working with anyone else in the future. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm most impressed by the ease of use and quality of the end product they built. We've also found that their knowledge and expertise are as good as similar vendors local to us, if not better in some areas. They've been willing to do more than other companies, including working past business hours to ensure our deadlines were met. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of their pricing estimates were a little off, and we ended up spending more, so that part could've been improved. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to be on the same page as their team before and during the project to ensure expectations are being met in terms of timelines and the budget. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Chief Revenue Officer at bPol, a software house based in Poland.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Neoteric?

We needed development support for an extremely large, robust project as we had run out of our own internal resources.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We used them to help with an e-commerce platform, using Node.js for the backend and React on the frontend. They participated with a number of sprints and were actively engaged in the development. The aim was to improve the efficiency on the frontend and deal with some bugs and feature development in the backend.

What is the team composition? 

There were two developers.

How did you come to work with Neoteric?

They’re one of the leading software houses in Poland.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–October 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The client was 100% satisfied with the results.

How did Neoteric perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was great—we used Jira, Slack, and GitHub to oversee the work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They take ownership of what they’re doing and approach tasks professionally. They take a creative approach to problem-solving, without compromising the quality of code.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, it was seamless.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Invest time in the beginning to pencil in the objectives and pay attention to detail. That will give them to have a full understanding of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO and founder of App Orchid. We’re a startup that builds enterprise AI applications for companies that have a high exposure to risk.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Neoteric?

We had an idea to create a visual designer for building AI applications. We needed a partner that understood open source products to help us create that app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave them a broad outline of what we wanted. They took the lead from there to build the app. It’s a visual designer app, similar to a flowchart tool. For example, users can drag and drop different AI components on a canvas. They used Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs that feed into our system behind the scenes. Companies can use the platform to visually compose AI applications.

What is the team composition?

I wasn’t personally involved with the work, so I don't know the names of their team members.

How did you come to work with Neoteric?

While looking for vendors, we came across a well-publicized open source tool. I reached out to Neoteric, and they were able to turn around a quote really quickly. It was more economically viable for us to work with them than to build our internal capacity.

How much have you invested with them?

I think it was somewhere between $25,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them on this project from January–March 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

My team tells me they’re a great company. We’re still in the process of incorporating their work into a product. However, we're able to build models in a visual way thanks to them. That’s a big accomplishment because most AI work is programming-centric, requiring a data scientist or an AI expert to build models. By our estimate, the app will help build AI models at 40%–50% faster once it is fully implemented. That will loosely translate into several man hours of coding saved.

How did Neoteric perform from a project management standpoint?

I'm not familiar with the details of their project management, but they delivered everything on time and on budget. We plan to work with them again. I'm confident that they'll deliver the same proficiency.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very professional. They know what they're doing and they were committed to the project. They understand UX design as well as the open source platform. Neoteric was a great choice for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They were pretty good all around. As a fairly small company, they seem a bit tight on staff. We have more projects that we can work with them on, but we've been told that they lack capacity. They should invest in more resources or training.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a co-owner of Gearcom, a startup software developer building a product for electronic circuit and phone design. The company is made up of two owners and three employees. We’re based in Gdansk, Poland.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Neoteric?

We had finished the first development stage for our software using another company. The project itself was quite difficult. We were not happy with that collaboration, and needed to fix some performance issues. We were running out of money and starting to wonder whether our developer could finish the task.

At the time, our user interface had been designed by programmers rather than graphic specialists. We needed help creating a new one.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Neoteric analyzed our code, applied fixes, and refactored some functionalities. We needed to adapt our scope to accommodate certain browser limitations. They also built a new user interface based on our design mockups.

What is the team composition?

Mateusz [CEO, Neoteric] was our project leader at the time.

How did you come to work with Neoteric?

We researched the development market and found them along with two other companies. It was important for the provider to have good technical and communication abilities, as well as to be flexible and committed to our project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Neoteric in February 2016, and the project ended in May. We’re not currently working with Neoteric because the product doesn’t require any new functionalities or bug fixes at this stage. We’re focusing on populating databases.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product has not been launched to the public yet, so I cannot provide any statistics.

How did Neoteric perform from a project management standpoint?

I was happy with the management and communication on Neoteric’s side. They explained what was possible within our budget and time limitations, which was helpful for planning and avoiding delays.

We had frequent meetings and calls. Mateusz was always available when we needed to discuss something. They provided accurate estimates for each part of the project and delivered before the deadline. When we wanted to present the product at a conference, we gave them a task with only two weeks’ notice. They were flexible, increasing their efforts to deliver on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were quite engaged with our project and wanted it to succeed. It was good to know that we had Neoteric on our side.