Potado

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of an education company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a recruitment agency for teachers in Thailand but also have a network of international schools (Singapore, Japan, USA, UK, Australia) that we manage.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Potado to accomplish?

• Develop software that is easy to use by people with low technical skills.

SOLUTION

How did you find Potado?

Referral

Why did you select Potado over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Potado were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We wanted to digitise the operations of all the schools we manage. We pitched this to one of our schools first, which is a Japanese international school in Thailand and worked with Potado on the project. We then expanded this to our other schools. Many people that work in education don't have high technical skills and many of the every day administration tasks are conducted manually. This is time consuming and ineffeciant. So the goal was to digitise this.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We started building the software in stages. If the first stage was liked by the administration, we would move to the second and so on. After every stage the schools administration would get back to us about several new ideas for things they could digitise. That showed us that what be were building was a success and that we should continue expanding the project.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

I would say management was really good. They are based in a different country than us, but there was only a 1 hour difference. Communication was always fast and we had regular video meetings. Everything was very transparent from the start. After the second week we felt very comfortable that we would achieve our goals after seeing how smooth things were operating.

What was your primary form of communication with Potado?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I'd say the advice regarding features and user experience that they provided was very helpful. We would give them a rough idea of that was needed and they would make some suggestions. The team has a really good understanding of how to build software for people.

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

We have been working together for an extended period, so we did have some small complaints. This was related to the frequency of our meetings. We felt a lot of meetings weren't necessary but they would schedule them to please us. After we mentioned this to them, we only scheduled meetings when there was something to discuss.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a group of venues mainly in London and Singapore. I am also the founder Sipp.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I was looking for a technology partner to help me develop a mobile app to promote local nightlife venues. I am not a technical person so I needed a team to do all the lifting for me. This included an app for Android, iPhone and web, as well as the database and an admin dashboard to onboard venues and allow them to manage their profiles. I initially wanted the app to be developed in a 3 month timeline, which we were able to do. We had to hold back launch due to covid lockdowns but it was great that the app was ready for when we needed it.

SOLUTION

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

I approached a few vendors and the reason I worked with Potado was because I received a lot of really useful advice during initial calls. They were not trying to sell me their services like others were. They were actually just trying to work with me to see how the app could work in the market. I was also very impressed with their past work and the pricing was very fair and transparent. They also offer very flexible contracts to startup founders with no forced maintenance post development, which I liked.

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

So we first worked together to draw up some rough sketches and then they took those and presented some nice designs along with a data structure and a few options for theme colours. I was then able to make a few changes and once I signed off development began. We first developed the mobile app and a simple website for users and then we worked on the business admin dashboard. The web platforms were built using Javascript and React and the mobile apps with React Native.

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

I worked with a team consisting of a manager who I was mainly in contact with, but there were also 2 engineers and a designer on the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Once the app was completed we spoke to many vendors and they were thrilled about how easy it was to use and how nice it looked. Our launch has been delayed due to covid restrictions, but we already have venues ready to sign up and hope to be active in by the end of 2022.

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

Working with Potado was professional but casual as well, in a good way. We did weekly video meetings where we ran through the progress and roadmaps. Communication was done over Whatsap and responses were quick. This was not expected from them at all, but very impressive. The project finished almost on time, just a 1 week later than expected due to some changed I needed to get done.

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

So I would say their design skills were top notch. Unique, and very beautiful. Also general understanding of the app market is great and I received a lot of valuable advice and suggestions.

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

I was fairly happy with everything really. It would have been nice to have more in person meetings, but understandably not so easy during a covid pandemic.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder of a Travel and Teach company that aims to help people live in Asia and work as TEFL teachers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Many schools are looking to hire foreign teachers and some of them don't have any staff that understands how to communicate with them while they are not in the country. They then have to hire recruiting agencies that have high fees. We decided to create a job board with Potado that will allow them to find teachers easily and affordably.

SOLUTION

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

We were refereed to them by someone in our network who had previously worked with them on multiple projects. They offered us a quick development time as well as the ability to do some custom work that others were not experienced with.

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

They designed and developed the entire project for us. They started with drawing up some rough sketches to show the flow and then went on to design the interface in Figma. Once we were happy with the look and flow they developed the project using React as well as Next for server side rendering as we needed our content to be indexed by Google for SEO. The project including the ability to Authenticate with Email and Google, creating and viewing job posts, a content management system for blog posts, and TEFL course profiles that include reviews. Firebase was used as the backend solution. We also required them to develop a scraper to pull content from other sources and this was done using NodeJS and Puppeteer.

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

We worked with a total of 5 people. There were 2 developers working on the project, 1 designer and 1 project manager. We also worked 1 person to assist with strategy before we started the development. This was really helpful and one of the reasons that we enjoyed working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was completed within the timeframe we discussed and actually weeks early, but this was part of the time estimate as it was meant for testing. We were able to run through the project and iron out any issues and optimise and improve before launching. We also like that the team will be able to continue working with us on a "when needed" basis with no lock in contracts.

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

We were very happy with the way the project was managed. It was all very simple and we used Email and Whatsapp for communication as well as Google Meet for video meetings and Github for progress tracking. We were sent regular screenshots asking for feedback and also with suggestions from their team.

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

The best thing was the collaborative nature of the team we worked with. They constantly offered suggestions on how things could work better and let us first try what they suggestion and see for ourselves. We are not used to working with such proactive people so this was great.

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

We were happy with they way they worked but if we need to pick something we would suggest having more in person meetings because we are old school so working through video calls is very new to us, but it was all perfectly fine.