Parafernalia Interativa

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We have been building a new desktop operating system designed specifically for people who didn't have computers previously. It's not a widely-known fact, but more than 70% of the planet's population does not own computers, partly due to their replacement by mobile devices. Our operating system will solve the issues faced by those people, acting as a productivity platform for their daily jobs.

I am one of the founders of the business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Parafernalia Interativa?

Parafernalia Interativa has been our developer since the foundation of the company almost five years ago.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with Parafernalia Interativa on a number of projects, ranging from applications to the actual operating system that we're developing, our website and its content management system, and software-as-a-service prototypes. The technologies used include CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and Python for the web side of things.

We've always worked with at least two developers from Parafernalia Interativa's team, and there have been moments when we used eight resources. We reserve a minimum number of hours with Parafernalia Interativa and allocate more people as needed. Our contract has been continuous since the start of our collaboration.

How did you come to work with Parafernalia Interativa?

Parafernalia Interativa's principal is an easy to deal with, both from a technical perspective and relationship wise. He is very proactive and flexible in finding solutions to our problems. Parafernalia Interativa is not a very large company, which means that they only take on projects that they're interested in. They're also an affordable option, compared to the quality.

How much have you invested with Parafernalia Interativa?

The cost of Parafernalia Interativa's work is around $200,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Parafernalia Interativa in 2012. The collaboration is ongoing. I estimate that we've worked on more than 50 projects with Parafernalia Interativa, and there is always something new to tackle.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I've been very happy with our collaboration, and have no plans to end it. In fact, the relationship keeps growing. Parafernalia Interativa has provided consistent quality, and they are very professional.

How did Parafernalia Interativa perform from a project management standpoint?

We use a number of tools for project management, including Asana. Everything is kept on track by Parafernalia Interativa.

What did you find most impressive about Parafernalia Interativa?

Parafernalia Interativa has the ability to say no when they're not able to work on something. I like their honesty and know that they will be able to deliver. I don't think that Parafernalia Interativa has many customers as consistent as we are because they generally only get into projects that interest them.

Are there any areas Parafernalia Interativa could improve?

There's nothing that I can think of. Parafernalia Interativa isn't a perfect company, but the collaboration simply works.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a social startup. We focus on recruitment, offering precise socioeconomic profiles for people and matching them with jobs for which we can predict their performance. Currently, our company is an 11-person team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Parafernalia Interativa?

We needed to develop a platform featuring 13 games. Through these games, we could perform simple data analysis for users and determine their psychological profile. The aim was to match them with relevant job offers through those profiles.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Parafernalia Interativa developed our native Android application. It was built using Java and Amazon Web Services as a backend hosting solution. The application interacts with our internal data analysis system through a Python-based routine. We worked with three full-time developers for a four-month period.

How did you come to work with Parafernalia Interativa?

We are located in the same co-working space as Parafernalia Interativa's team in Brazil. I was quoted by three different companies for our project. Parafernalia Interativa estimated the highest number of hours while being the least expensive.

How much have you invested with Parafernalia Interativa?

The cost of Parafernalia Interativa's work was $110,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Parafernalia Interativa in August 2016. The first phase of the project consisted of the actual development and ended in December. The second phase will consist of minor adjustments based on our A/B testing. We continue to use Parafernalia Interativa's services on an ongoing basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our application was ranked as one of the top 2,000 most stable applications on Google Play, which earned us an award from the company. Google has actually invested in our company, but the award was given to us independently. According to our latest metrics, we are 99.98% bug-free, with a user base of more than 20,000 people.

How did Parafernalia Interativa perform from a project management standpoint?

We have used Scrum methodology and worked through two-week sprints. I headed project management while Parafernalia Interativa provided a Scrum master. We worked as a single team, with daily stand-ups and weekly sprint reviews. The integration was the most important part. We use GitHub and Trello for project tracking. We have a system for automatically creating issues in GitHub, using Trello. It's a small tool developed by Parafernalia Interativa, which is actually very useful. It's a very good integration between the two platforms. These are the tools we're using within our own team as well.

What did you find most impressive about Parafernalia Interativa?

The quality of development work in Brazil is abysmal. By comparison, Parafernalia Interativa is delivering premium quality at a third of the price. This is a very good selling point for them. The team is comprised of average and good coders, but the time spent during quality assurance is one of their key strengths.

Are there any areas Parafernalia Interativa could improve?

Parafernalia Interativa has good coders, but they need to be managed better. I've mentioned this to Parafernalia Interativa's team lead. He's a very good project manager and organizer, able to translate needs into an actual project.