Praxent

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a creator and seller of hemp extract. We take industrial hemp plants and extract them for various constituents that end up being very health promoting. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Praxent?

We’re a relatively young e-commerce company, and when we first started out, we did all our own website development. It was really basic. We originally started working with another company, but by the end of their year-long contract, we were really dissatisfied with their work. They were always late, always over-charging us, and they weren’t responsive. So we started looking for another company to help us develop our payment platform and redesign our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praxent does everything for us in terms of the technical aspects of our website. One of the key challenges in our industry is payment processing; a lot of the systems out there don’t work for us, and we need a lot of custom code. Our original project had to do with our payment gateway solution and automating credit card information for a lesser-known processor, but we’ve been so happy with them that we brought them on board for our entire website redesign. At peak capacity, we had three or four Praxent people working with us, but for the most part, we have two people on staff. We have one primary contact, our team lead. We’re not always in communication, but he’s always accessible when we need him to be.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

We started working with Praxent around October 2016. We just put out a request for bids. One of the main reasons we went with Praxent, as opposed to some of their competitors, was that they were upfront about their payment process. Given the custom nature of our project, we just thought it made sense that they were charging hourly and that they were tracking hours on JIRA so that we could keep tabs on they were specifically working on and make sure it was what we wanted. We’re still tinkering with the old website even as we work on our complete rebranding and website design, and the best part is they can take the code from the old one and apply it to the new one, so it’s not wasted work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we first started working with Praxent, they ran an audit on our website for performance at different internet bandwidths. After several performance updates, they ran another round of analytics, and the difference was astonishing. We went from a load time of 28 seconds in 3G for our mobile platform to a little over two seconds. They used a process of minification, uglify and concatenation, resulting in a performance increase that averaged six times the speed prior to them coming on board.

How did Praxent perform from a project management standpoint?

Praxent used JIRA to ensure accountability and transparency, and since we had never used JIRA before, they even taught us how to use it.

What did you find most impressive about Praxent?

The most impressive part about Praxent is their accessibility. This past Christmas, we had an issue with one of our shipping websites. Our whole operation was brought to a halt during our busiest time because this one functionality wasn’t working. I was out of town and the owner doesn’t usually work with Praxent directly, but he sent them an email and one of the team members, Rico, was able to respond within the hour, even though it was off-hours during the holiday. They also hold meetings with us however often we need them. We have one weekly meeting that we call our backlog grooming meeting, where we go through all the tickets we’ve created with them and they touch base on where they’re at. Business needs change constantly, and Praxent has consistently been willing to change course at the drop of a hat when we need to modify some aspect of the project.

Are there any areas Praxent could improve?

For me, they’re really setting the bar for what other companies should be doing. They’re the best company we’ve ever worked with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My background is in IT, and I have worked as a government employee for 24 years. I worked within the purchasing department for the city of Houston. I was the information resource manager of the organization and was in charge of the strategic purchasing division - IT section. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Praxent?

When I started my job, paperwork was being done by hand. They were using typewriters for tabulations, letters and so on, on behalf of the city and the mayor's office. I was able to change that, implementing a full-blown network with desktops, laptops, and Wi-Fi. In late 1999, we had the first web presence for the city of Houston.

From that point, we started posting bids and accepting online payments. Our mayor was highly impressed with the results and demanded that we take it one step further and become transparent. He felt that we didn't have enough competing bids in order to drive prices down, so he asked my team to come up with a program that would reveal our contract processes and usage to the public.

We had been given 6 months to do the project and thought that it would be beyond our reach. It required integrations with our existing SAP environment, where all our financial and procurement data was stored. We needed to bring this to the web and come up with an interface or application program that could make the data look like a catalog. That was when Praxent came on board; they were responsible for building that solution. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praxent developed a phenomenal program for our group, which we call an online purchasing catalog. It featured the simplest and most user-friendly interface we've ever had. The platform has a SQL Server backend, which reads directly from our financial SAP. The interface works in real-time. Every time we issue a purchase order, the financial system reduces the amount of the purchase and it automatically reflects this in the catalog. If we were to budget 20 million dollars for janitorial or office supplies, not knowing how much we'd have to spend 6 months down the line, we could go to the catalog. It showed what the original contract was, the budgeted amount, what we had already spent, and how much we could still spend. All of this information was visible to the public. We could also drill inside the platform and see what, for how much, and from whom we made specific purchases.

The development would be done off-site but Praxent also spent time on-site, determining what would be required for a connection with our system. The programming was done using ASP.NET, JavaScript, and Ajax. Google Search Appliance was integrated for deep searches. Our IT department didn't know how to make this integration, so Praxent was brought on site for the installation. They physically performed a lot of work on-site and off-site. Our on-site team from Praxent consisted of 3 people, and we were also in touch with 3 team members remotely. Praxent assigned a dedicated graphic designer to our project, as well as a project manager, a .NET developer, and a database administrator.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

We met with Praxent's CEO, who made a presentation for our mayor's office and the people from the procurement and finance departments. Their presentation showed us how the task would be accomplished. We met with 2 other companies besides Praxent, but they stood out through that presentation. We felt confident that Praxent could achieve the task within 6 months.

How much have you invested with Praxent?

The budget was substantial. The final bill was well into the six figures for our e-catalog.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Praxent around 2005 to 2006, and the electronic catalog project had a 6-month duration. The platform was implemented and installed. It's very stable, so we hardly ever had to call Praxent. I'm sure that their company will be the first one we'll call in the future for any additions. We gave an additional contract to Praxent later for other automation tasks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When the vendors found out that they'd become visible to the public, many of them threatened to sue us, the government, because they felt that those were private. Since they were behind the scenes deals, vendors thought the special pricing shouldn't have been seen by the public. This went to our legal department, which made the decision that those were public records, which is true for any document entering the government. We didn't go to court, but some of the vendors dropped the city. The majority did stay with us.

In fact, our e-catalog served as a tool for bringing in many more vendors wanting to beat the current prices that we had. In just the first year, that e-catalog saved the city 20 million dollars. We are continuously getting lower and lower prices because our deals are visible to the public. Anyone can look at any product and determine if they can beat the price. After the automation, the city was able to save more than 40 million dollars, if we factor in the manual labor that was no longer required. Before, we had to account for the various people involved in getting offers. We had to move them to IT, assign a programmer for the task, and get back to the mayor's office for approval, as well as the media relations involved. The interface created Praxent, with all of its integrations, has saved the city a significant amount of money annually. We won an award from the federal agency in Washington for the successful implementation of a transparent system. Other cities have followed suit.

How did Praxent perform from a project management standpoint?

I appreciated the fact that we never had to wait on Praxent's team. There was always a backup person available who knew what the project was about. We never had to give long explanations and we got assistance on the spot.

What did you find most impressive about Praxent?

We've had bad experiences with other contractors in the past, having to leave them messages and waiting to be called back. There were usually waiting times of a few days before a deal was resolved, but Praxent's response time was instant. Their CEO was hungry for the business, so he delivered as promised. We will always refer business to Praxent for this reason.

Are there any areas Praxent could improve?

My only suggestion for Praxent would be that they open an office in Houston if they are to do additional business here. Our city has come up with an ordinance by which businesses which reside within its limits are given priority. If I wanted to contract Praxent, I may have a hard time doing it. The problem with this ordinance, which I've been fighting, is that it awarded business to local companies that could have prices up to 3% higher. It was meant to encourage local companies to participate in government jobs, but the local vendors have been taking advantage of this. They’ve pumped up their prices by up to 3% because they know that they can stick within that range and still be chosen. This works against our interests and against those of Praxent.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

First Crush Tastings, Inc. is an in-store tasting company operating in Texas. We provide marketing services specific to spirits. We also operate a platform-based business for the same industry, called Palatera, connecting suppliers of beers, wines, and spirits and tasting agencies like ours. The aim is to provide better insights into the tasting process, track performance, and better analyze the data. Businesses can thus spend smarter and increase their ROI [return on investment].

I am the chief executive officer and owner of both companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Praxent?

Our company was in a growth mode and had reached a maximum output possible from just using Excel sheets and other tracking forms. We needed a platform that could help us communicate with the teams and manage the incoming jobs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praxent was initially hired in order to build an internal platform that would help us manage the level of business coming in. A reporting function was eventually added, too. 

The platform has allowed our company to grow threefold in size, and we were able to handle the additional volume seamlessly.

The size of our team will depend on our budget for a particular month. At a minimum, we will work with 2–3 developers but have used up to 5 people from Praxent. We interact with them directly, on a weekly basis, talking about and demoing what was built the week prior, as well as planning for the upcoming week.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

We interviewed several local companies, but Praxent was the only group which was engaged from the beginning. They came in and took the time to learn why we were needing what we needed, how our business operated, what our pain points were, what was causing them, and how the software could solve that. The level of questions and involvement from Praxent was one of the main reasons for choosing them.

How much have you invested with Praxent?

The total cost of Praxent's services has been close to $1,000,000. We have a time-and-materials engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with Praxent for 6 years, and have an ongoing development process.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've built a best-in-class platform. Suppliers can generate reports from tastings and gain insights into the results. I've regularly been told that we have the best reporting system on the market.

One of our brand managers launched a product nationally, starting in Austin. Through our reporting, they were able to gain insights on how to market the brand nationally: if it needed any tweaking, or could be launched as-is.

How did Praxent perform from a project management standpoint?

Especially after working with someone for 6 years, it's rare to say that we've been on budget and on time every time, hitting our goals at every stage of the development. Praxent has provided a tracker that helps me visualize the team's performance, what stage we're in, and what our budget is. I can see our budget broken down for an 8-week period. 

What did you find most impressive about Praxent?

Praxent is very easy to work and communicate with. Whenever I've presented my ideas around what the next stage of development should be, Praxent was keen in providing further insight, taking my vision to the next level. If Praxent's team sees an opportunity to expand on my vision, they'll communicate it. On most cases, we move forward with the recommendations.

Are there any areas Praxent could improve?

There's nothing that Praxent could do better, from my experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a non-profit 501(c)(3) youth football and cheerleading league. By the number of participating organizations and members, we are the largest independent group in the state of Texas and one of the largest in the country. The league was founded 23 years ago and our headquarters are in San Antonio. We are self-governed, operating on a volunteer basis.

I am the executive vice president of the organization and I'm in charge of IT. I exclusively manage our partnership with Praxent.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Praxent?

We certify kids for gameplay and cheerleading, looking at their birth certificates and gathering information about them. Our aim is to have kids participate in games on an equal footing, instead of having older players grouped with younger ones, and so on. Before our project with Praxent, this was pretty much done on paper. Players and parents filled out paperwork and signed waivers. We also had manual IDs. It was time-consuming and forgetting to bring an ID could lead to forfeiting a game. We wanted to become paperless and have everything built into 1 system. We had been working with someone else in the past, but their attempt at building something was a disaster.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Praxent has developed a web-based app, which allows our organization to upload kids' information. Parents receive emails when a child has been put into the system. They can then click on a link, fill out the remaining information, and sign waivers. Certifying kids and coaches is also paperless, and we can create real-time digital ID cards. During games, any coach can bring up a roster on their mobile devices, scroll through the pictures of their teams, call out names, and verify that everyone is in place. If a child is not in the system, they don't get to play. I can use my phone to suspend any kids for fighting and so on, and this won't allow them to play.

Volunteers can log in, create their own profiles, pay online, take tests, and so on. They can log in to our system on tysasportsnetwork.com, which acts as our backend. Members have access to data but limited to their areas alone. However, our team has access to the entire system in order to address issues. The system allows us to cover organizations spanning half of Texas.

During meetings, we communicated with a project manager from Praxent, as well as with what I refer to as a thinker. He was the one who took my ideas and conceptualized them, determining what could and couldn't be done. Once we had a frame to work on, we gave it to the programmers. Our initial group from Praxent consisted of at least 4 people. Over the last 2 years, we've continually increased what the platform was able to do and changed elements in order to make it faster and more user-friendly.

How did you come to work with Praxent?

I found Praxent through an online search for Drupal developers. At the time, that was the platform for our front-end site and I was looking to work on both systems. Praxent came up, along with a few others. We had an interview with them and I liked everything that I saw and heard. We agreed to have Praxent provide exactly what we were looking for.

How much have you invested with Praxent?

The cost of our project with Praxent has been around $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with Praxent for 3–4 years, tweaking the product for each upcoming season. Praxent was able to knock out the product starting from zero within 6 to 8 months. Praxent has always kept someone available for us for any issue, especially within major certification periods.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Praxent put together an awesome product for us. There are no other leagues using this system. It's not only tailor-made for us, it also gets rid of paperwork and makes everything real-time. For the past couple of years, the system has worked without a hitch. We used to spend a couple of hours per organization, and there are a lot of them, in order to process 100–150 kids, cheerleaders, and coaches. We can now finish the process in an hour or less, using 2 people instead of 4 for the same work. When a child or a coach comes to us, we can find them quickly, ask a few questions, snap a picture, and be done. As soon as this happens, the data becomes available in the system. That quickly, the team can then walk out and play a game. The system has revolutionized what we do.

How did Praxent perform from a project management standpoint?

Compared to places I've dealt with in the past, Praxent's process was quite unique. They break up the work in sprints and delegate tasks using cards which represent difficulty, from 1 to 5. There would be an X amount of points for every 2-week period. At the end, I would usually visit Praxent's office and have a review. If there was anything to test, Praxent showed me the work, and I would decide if it was good or not. I have conference calls with them now, for the most part, given that we're mainly tweaking things.

What did you find most impressive about Praxent?

Other web developers I've worked with would perform tasks willy-nilly and didn't give me an idea of what the result would be. With Praxent, I always knew what would be done for the next 2 weeks and had a chance to test the results. The concept was quite refreshing.

Are there any areas Praxent could improve?

Absolutely not. As a non-profit, our budget is real tight. Praxent was an expensive shop, but I received results way beyond the cost through what I was able to save in terms of time, paperwork and IDs. I was spending somewhere around $75,000 or $85,000 per year on physical IDs alone beforehand, along with the time and effort to process things by hand. I don't have to do that anymore. The system has easily paid for itself, as far as I'm concerned. And the whole processes is now less prone to error, which is another huge benefit.

I've worked with other companies in the past that seemed to spend all their money on fancy offices, but couldn't really do the work. They looked the part, but couldn't program the part. Praxent had simple offices with no cubicles or fancy, big windows. They were simply nice people who got the work done well, in good time. This was what finally sold me. There were few times when we've had to go back and fix something. These issues were usually related to changes we requested that had ripple effects.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of a software company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Payments and communications platform for SMBs

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Product Design
• Rapid Prototyping

SOLUTION

How did you find Praxent?

Event

Why did you select Praxent over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Praxent were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Nearshore Product Designer for 10 hours per week, and Principal Delivery Lead for 2 hours per week. 

Product Designer: Activities will include the production of UX design assets and may also include collaboration on user research, competitive analysis, customer journey mapping, personas, UX and content audits. The Product Designer will be retained for a minimum of 10 hours per week. 

Principal Delivery Lead: Activities will include providing a weekly touch point and status report on the timeline and budget of the Services, as well as, serve as an escalation point for potential issues or changes in objectives over the course of the engagement. The Principal Delivery Lead will be retained for a minimum of 2 hours per week.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Excellent UX/UI designs delivered via Figma

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

Yes, the team was always prompt and delivered on time.

What was your primary form of communication with Praxent?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Solid communication Reliable

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

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Chief Operating Officer of Elementus

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Blockchain data and analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Brainstorm new product designs
• Design new product UIs
• Revamp our product to make it more user friendly

SOLUTION

How did you find Praxent?

Referral

Why did you select Praxent over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

What was the size of Praxent’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

We engaged the Praxent team to revise the UI/UX for two existing products. This engagement involved detailed reviews of the products and workflows, interviews with key stakeholders, and review sessions with key stakeholders.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Redesigned UI/UX for two products in scope

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

The Praxent team has done an excellent job with project management. We had project manager assigned to our engagement and he was extremely well organized and efficient throughout the project. Our project team was also excellent and all deliverables were on time. The team was also extremely responsive on Slack (our preferred communication method).

What was your primary form of communication with Praxent?

Virtual Meeting

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

Top-notch team that was extremely fun to work with and aligned with our values / approach to designing innovation products.

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

None - the team was great!