Planet Argon

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We run a real estate e-commerce business that sells vacant land. I’m the vice president.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Planet Argon?

We had an existing Ruby on Rails backend and we had been struggling to find new, experienced Ruby developers to work on it. We had our own internal developer, and then after about 2 months, we let our employee go. Instead of getting a contractor or hiring another Ruby developer internally, we decided to try an agency for our ongoing development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Behind that website, we have an enormous backend that populates our website but it also runs workflows for a lot of different things. They have made a lot of improvements and upgrades to that system. One big project they did was a customer preference center. Customers would get an email every time a new property is marked ready, which is a feature we didn’t have before. Another big project that they did was moving our whole frontend onto Rails from WordPress. Now, we are able to have more flexibility with our frontend. They dealt with the problems in the legacy backend and they’ve done a great job of navigating it. They also upgraded our versions of Rails and Bootstrap. They have made sure the whole system is in better shape. There are staging and testing processes that we didn’t have before.

We have an assigned project manager. We’ve always had between 2–3 developers and a frontend person occasionally. That’s 2–3 backend developers that are familiar with our system. When we have a frontend need, a frontend person will jump in. We are mostly interacting with 1–2 points of contact.

How did you come to work with Planet Argon?

They were one of multiple possible partners that we approached and considered. I found them online and they happened to be local to us. It wasn’t a necessity to be local, but they were. I liked the vetting process with them. They had been around a while so they weren’t here today, gone tomorrow. I also liked that they employ their developers. It wasn’t one guy that said he had an agency and then he hires out a bunch of contractors. It was a real agency where they have all their developers on their payroll. To me, that’s a sign of a successful agency, and that was one of the reasons I chose them. It was the best fit for us.

How much have you invested with Planet Argon?

We’ve spent at least $150,000 on their services. It was slow at first; we were starting with a monthly retainer that was small. We’ve done both retainer and project work with them, and we’ve done some projects alongside our retainer. I feel like they do tackle things to be as efficient with your budget as possible.

What is the status of this engagement?

It’s been over two years since we began. We’ve been working with them every month with a steady retainer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m sure someone else could have done some of it, but I feel like they are very efficient. They are on top of things.

How did Planet Argon perform from a project management standpoint?

They do weekly progress reports and set up JIRA for communication. I’ve worked with other agencies that are not as attentive where stuff just rolls week to week but nothing really gets done. As far as making real progress, they are way more on top of it compared to other agencies that I’ve used. They are checking things off and getting through tickets instead of working on a lot of things without getting anything finished. In retainer work, sometimes a lot can happen but not a lot gets done. That’s one area where they stand out—they can actually get something finished.

What did you most impressive about Planet Argon?

They're really top-notch as far as communication is concerned. Like I said, in my experience, I’ve had poor agency work that is not as defined and specific. They follow through and document everything, meticulously. I’ve appreciated the reporting and follow-through.

Are there any areas Planet Argon could improve?

None. I don’t have any issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Executive Director of the Independent Wine Education Guild, Canada's largest and senior WSET school, providing wine, spirits and sake education and certification programs to wine and spirits, hospitality and retail professionals (and enthusiasts).

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Planet Argon, and what were your goals?

Our current website, built on Ruby and Rails technology, became inaccessible due to an automatic database maintenance on Heroku.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We searched for a specialist firm with expertise with Ruby on Rails technology and with a proven track record of resurrecting websites.

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

Planet Argon (Robby Russell) activated emergency services after scope was agreed. The application was redeployed to Amazon Web Services and an older version of a Linux operating system was installed since the older versions of Ruby were no longer supported by Heroku.

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

We worked with Robby Russell

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After approx. 48 hours they site was resurrected, switching to Amazon Web Services, then a further major glitch involving transaction processing with PayPal was further resolved.

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

They were collaborative, fast, calm, and very focused.

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

The speed at which Robby worked and the pragmatic problem-solving solutions that he proposed to resolve the emergency.

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

No. We are very impressed and grateful to Robby for getting us out of a bad situation.