Ralabs

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian national media Hromadske. Our team covers Ukrainian and world events. Currently, we are focusing on the coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ralabs?

On our main site, we cannot implement special projects that would contain complex layouts and complex visual solutions. Therefore, Ralabs developed a special project for the Independence Day of Ukraine for us, which we were able to add to our website.

SOLUTION

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

We have worked with Ralabs before and were very pleased with the result. Therefore, we immediately decided to choose this contractor. Also, considering the socially important component of our project, Ralabs gave us a very large discount and actually implemented the project at cost.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

After a series of meetings, we agreed on our goals and shared vision for the project. The Ralabs company initially developed the design of the project (all pages) and offered layout options. After the design was approved, we proceeded to the development and filling of the project with content. Also, already after the release of the project, Ralabs kindly agreed to make all our additional edits that arose later.

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

In total, we worked with 5 people, including:

• project manager
• FE developer
• 2 designers
• QA

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project was successfully implemented (https://hromadske.ua/project-azovstal). It had a good response from the audience. Views of this special project were 3 times higher than usual for articles on our site.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between our organizations was very efficient. We had weekly meetings with contractors to discuss updates and next steps. The contractors performed all stages of the work on time and took into account all our wishes.

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

I was very impressed by the readiness to meet customers and respond to all our requests and needs extremely quickly. Special thanks also for the design of the project, which was very much liked by our entire team and was agreed upon with almost no changes. Due to our activity, we often deal with developers and designers, and I could say that they were one of the best teams we had worked with.

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

Everything was comfortable for our team in this format and we are very satisfied with the result.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on June 29, 2020.

Artem Arutyunyan

Head of Product, hromadske.ua

Media

51-200 Employees

Kyiv, Ukraine

Less than $10,000

Mar 2020 - Jun 2020

Project summary

Ralabs provided website development on a donation system for a media platform. Their team supplied an engineer and UI/UX design.

Feedback summary

Ralabs successfully brought significant engagement to the platform. They managed the project well and were very dedicated. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Product at hromadske.ua

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ralabs?

We hired Ralabs because we needed our website-embedded donation support system to be developed from scratch.

What were your goals for this project?

Hromadske.ua is a fully-independent media platform that takes no financial influxes from the media corporations or businesses. We are working for people and thus we are supported by people. Our goal was to have a user donation support system developed for our website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Ralabs have successfully dealt with a complete overhaul of our website, having improved its workload, hosting capabilities, and user’s experience. We were highly satisfied with their work, so the decision to hire them again was not even questioned.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our donation modules on Hromadske’s website required quite an improvement. The widgets that were used to attract the users’ attention and actually propel them into donating have been outdated and obsolete. So, we wanted to have them improved and polished as well, as having a separate donation hub for Hromadske.ua developed. We also required an enhancement of the visual framework of the donation tools which would make it easier for us to tell our customers about the benefits that a donation made can actually bring them like, for example, a subscription discount.

What was the team composition?

Ralabs have allocated 1 engineer, QA, PM, and UI/UX Designer to our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The system delivered by Ralabs helped us to engage hundreds of people to support Hromadske. As Hromadske is a non-profit organization, the development of the donut system for support was critical for us.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Ralabs manage their projects in a continuous manner. They start managing when you accept their proposal and do not stop until the maintenance phase is over.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are dedicated to what they do and it can be seen. And yes, they take your projects seriously as if it was their own product.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I cannot think of any. Having shown dedication to what we’ve asked them to do, Ralabs did not leave any blank spaces in our confidence that they are a truly reliable partner.

RATINGS

Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 4.5

Schedule: 4.5

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for a global advisory firm in London as an Associate Director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

As our cause-based campaign started picking up a lot of traction in the media, we needed our website to reflect the global positioning and outreach of the initiative.

SOLUTION

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

Ralabs approached us and offered to help us develop a new website, with improved functions, that would allow users to engage with the campaign. We decided to collaborate with them because their portfolio looked impressive and their team was experienced in such projects. They also showcased strong work ethics from the very first conversations we had with them.

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

Ralabs went above and beyond to provide us with a custom solution for our website, after website builder solutions failed to really cover our campaign's needs and accommodate the design. The team handled the project very professionally and always looked for ways to make the end solution work smooth for the users.

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

We worked directly with the founder, 2 people from the marketing team and an extensive team of developers and project managers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After launching the website, we received very positive feedback from the campaign's stakeholders and we saw an increase in website traffic, as well as an increase in session time.

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

The communication with Ralabs went very smooth, via email, Zoom, WhatsApp, and they always managed to find time to reply to us very promptly.

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

They really went the extra mile to accommodate our requests and implement the designs very rapidly. We were also very impressed with the way the CMS was set up to allow us to further update the website very easily.

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

Everything was amazing in this collaboration.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of Sales and Strategy at ODSC. We host large scale Data Science conferences globally. I lead the corporate sales team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

With the pandemic hitting, in-person events disappeared from the map and many organizations were hosting virtual events with platforms that were "ok" but not to our standards.

SOLUTION

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

We searched for a company that could help us build the next virtual conference platform and when we found Ralabs and their vast experience in a wide variety of projects we decided to go with them.

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

We had a kick-off meeting when we presented our project and what were our goals. After that, we presented a project plan with the requirements for the first MVP. Then we worked in bi-weekly sprints to make sure all priority requirements were in track.

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

A project manager was our primary POC. We also had 2 full-stack engineers, one front end engineer, a designer and a QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Clients and conference attendees have praised the user experience when using our platform. The look and feel of it has been also a point many people have enhanced.

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

We had a sprint planning call at the beginning of every week. Daily standups and one platform every other week. Timelines were always set realistically and if any delay would happen the Ralabs team would explain the situation and work thoroughly to deliver on time or the less delay possible.

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

It's very easy to work with an organization and team. They were very flexible and always willing to help. They really adapt to last-minute changes.

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

A few minor bugs appeared during the conference but they were promptly fixed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a front-end lead developer at a startup. We are developing a highly innovative product in the facial recognition industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Support with React Development. We hired a couple of developers to help us boost our software development process. The main goal was to launch the MVP fast and the team helped us with it.
• Also we were cooperating with the Project Manager to ensure smooth communication and great task management.

SOLUTION

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

• A friend of mine recommended reaching out to Ralabs since they have proven to be a reliable and professional team.

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

• We have been working with React developers that were helping out with fronted tasks. Mostly we were working on the dashboard, login page and incorporating designs that UI/UX agency has provided us.
• The project manager Olha was taking care of the communication, task management and tracking the progress.

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

• 3 people have been involved. 2 Senior/Middle React Devs and a Project Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to Ralabs team we were managed to release a great MVP in a short period of time. Our investors were pleased to see the outcomes so did the first users. Now were are getting ready to proceed with more complex functionality and we will ask Ralabs team to help us with it.

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

We had regular daily meetings, always on time. The team always were within the deadline. We used slack for written communication and hangouts for online meetings. All the tasks were tracked in Jira and supervised by the PM.

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

Being a human being. They were always trying to find the best approach, or a win-win solution to benefit us in the first place. Also, they are very professional to work with while also very friendly and easy to talk to.

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

all was good!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital marketing director at a financial tech firm called InvestiNet. We simplify the debt collection process by automating it through software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ralabs?

We needed someone to provide us with React software development and UI/UX design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ralabs uses a lean methodology to develop our web app through WordPress. They work in two-week sprints that start with UI/UX, which will eventually move into breaking down different items into time buckets and prioritization. From there, several aspects are implemented and further developed.

It’s fundamentally a payment portal, but we also incorporate different payment types and connect it to APIs and various systems — we also send information to Google products like Analytics through JavaScript.

What is the team composition?

Over the past year, we’ve worked with several front- and backend developers, DevOps engineers, UI/UX designers, and senior designers.

How did you come to work with Ralabs?

Our company was already engaged with Ralabs prior to me accepting this position. We’re continuing to work with them because we’re pleasantly surprised by the results they give us.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested somewhere close to $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership with Ralabs started in January 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of their work is superb and as a result, we haven’t experienced any bugs or technical issues on our web app.

How did Ralabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We had some turnover where Ralabs had to bring in a new product manager, but the handoff was excellent, and the team continues to deliver and stay on top of our projects.

They manage the project through JIRA and we typically communicate through Slack and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with how they manage the project because they don’t let anything slip. We also like how their UX designer is able to translate our weird and complex challenges into a great experience consistently.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive criticism at the moment.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say hire them sooner rather than later.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technology director for House Buyers of America, a real estate company that’s into home buying and selling. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ralabs Design?

We have our own website, but we want to start a new project and design a new system. Because of that, we’ve hired Ralabs. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ralabs is designing a new portal for us using various front- and backend technologies, including Angular. They’ve built APIs on the front- and backend sides using PHP, among other tech stacks. Meanwhile, they’re also creating a mobile app that uses a piece of technology that can be used on both Android and iOS systems. 

The portal and the mobile app talk to each other using various APIs, and the idea behind this entire system is to manage our business operations better. The Ralabs team has designed the project from scratch, and they’re currently working on the products’ development. Their resources also do QA tests; they’ll also provide post-delivery support.  

Right now, we haven’t officially gone into the maintenance phase, but we’ve already gone live. We’ve finished phase one, and we’re only working on some fixes and mobile app design tasks. To be clear, the portal isn’t a public site; it’s only for our internal business operations. The same goes for the app. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with around 10 people from their team, including junior and senior developers and designers. A project manager also works with us. If I want to split the team in two to work on the portal and the mobile app, 3–4 people will work on the app, and 3–4 people will handle the portal; one QA tester, one project manager, and a DevOps specialist will work in both teams. 

How did you come to work with Ralabs Design?

We found Ralabs through Clutch — we use Clutch when searching for vendors because of the reviews; we’ve also found good companies on the platform — and that was how we connected with them. We wanted to outsource the project to a team in a different time zone, and Ralabs matched our requirements. 

Apart from that, we also asked them for references and looked at the quality of the websites they’d done before. We asked them to present those sites, too. Then, we explained the project to their resources, who gave us the best technical feedback we’ve heard. 

Another deciding factor was their pricing and hourly rate. We didn’t want to hire a team that was too cheap. We also checked whether they could provide senior technical experts. Other vendors would tell us they provided us with senior developers, but they’d only deploy junior developers in reality. Given that, Ralabs let us talk to their designers and developers. Finally, Andrew (CEO) himself was also a technical specialist, so he understood technology. That was another deciding factor for us. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $100,000–$200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Ralabs in June 2020, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Ralabs provides great designs. Their designs don’t have many flaws, and their designers are always available for review. 

Moving forward, we expect to have 100% dependency on the system; we’re trying to move away from manual paperwork — we want to do everything online. In a couple of months, our operations will be 80% dependent on the system that Ralabs has designed — we expect that that will have a high business impact on us. 

How did Ralabs Design perform from a project management standpoint?

Ralabs is great in terms of deadlines. They’ve missed some timelines since we’ve changed some orders, but their overall performance has been great. To communicate, we use Zoom. Our members use Jira as a project management tool. Their resources also use good design tools such as Figma when designing wireframes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their design is highly intuitive, and the team understands our business needs. They have amazing designers that seem to read our minds because of the way they know exactly what we need. They’ve spent about a month learning about our needs, and then they’ve delivered perfect designs. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their QA tests weren’t good at first. However, they’ve gotten better eventually. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Your requirements should be written out so Ralabs can start working on them quickly. Your requirements should be clear — that’s the most important thing in any engagement. You should discuss such requirements with the team.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a founder, CEO of a flower shop - theleno.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ralabs Design?

Our offline shop was doing good and we decided to expand by creating a website that could help us reach customers we don't reach offline.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Friend of mine recommended them so we met for a coffee and decided to shake hands.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

• The design team started by collecting my requirements, goals and expectations.
• We had extensive calls and interviews to gather all needed info.
• Afterwards they proceeded with research
• analysing market, competitors and best practices for flower shop website.
• In couple of weeks they showed me a mood board with different concepts to pick from.
• Once we agreed on the visual identity they proceeded with wireframes and the overall structure.
• Once a week we had a call to discuss the progress and soom enough the UI part was ready.

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

• we talked with Lead Designer and two more designers were involved.
• also there was a project manager to keep track of everything

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I was very happy with the result since we had be delivered a great website where people could purchase flowers and compositions. Also they managed to keep the same look and feel online as we had in our physical store so the visuals didn't contradict. once the website was live we managed to increase our sales a lot!

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was easy to communicate with a design team and an assigned project manager. We had regular meetings and follow ups send via emails.

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

I appreciated how they truly wanted us to succeed. They take your business goals very seriously and help out not only with design but giving you some business advice too. They came up with amazing upsell opportunity while designing a shopping cart.

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

all was perfect!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Lead Engineer driving all fronted work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ralabs Design?

We have cooperated with Ralabs Design to create our dashboard. They did amazing work working with us, listening to our needs, and communicating flawlessly. They did UI/UX research, proposed a roadmap, and created both web and app designs. Also, they helped us with React development, they have a great dev team available as well.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

A friend of mine recommended them. After working with a freelancer who ghosted us, we decided to reach out to an agency for better speed and stability and it was the best choice ever.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We have discussed with the Ralabs Design team our needs, goals, and expectations. The team conducted a reaserch and showed us the first concept. When we agreed on the concept they produced all the designs we requested and proposed some things from their side. They were always on time with all the mockups and the fronted team appreciated the easiness of implementing them. We believe that their designs will help us find the right customers and raise funds.

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

We have worked with 2 designers, a project manager and a middle react developer. It's a hack of the team!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

https://getxix.com/

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had a regular daily meeting organized by the project manager where we discussed the progress and feedback. They were always available for our requests.

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

Their discipline mixed with problem-solving skills amazed us. The Lead Designer - Serhii seems to have deep knowledge in Ui/UX design and has suggested to us some ideas that we have never would come up on our own.

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

all good! we hope to continue a fruitful collaboration.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a product manager at Utopic Software located in Tampa, Florida. We provide products to all forms of business, government, hospitals, schools, etc to keep their devices always up and running and have minimal downtime.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ralabs?

We hired Ralabs for Web Design (UI/UX) for our management console. Our current management console is very dated and we wanted to completely redesign it to make us more functional and easy to use for our customers.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to make sure that the user would have a better experience and ease of navigation on the new UI. We wanted to minimize the number of clicks and more visual information. Also, we wanted to add support for the UI/UX for phones and tablets so that customers can easily do the same functions on it.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We searched online and looked at the vendors that had used them in the past and felt that Ralabs was perfect for this project.

Describe the project in detail.

Once we started the project with Ralabs, we went over the current web management console. We went through the areas that we knew about where we needed to add improvements. Ralabs also performed interviews with some of our customers to get their feedback on what areas that they felt needed improvements.

Once we had all the feedback, Ralabs proposed few design options based on our and customer inputs. They provided pros and cons of all designs and we selected the design that we felt was best for our customers and our product.

What was the team composition?

We were assigned one project manager and two UI/UX engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project was completed successfully within the time frame. We are extremely happy with the new management console and the improvements that it will provide to our current and future customers. It will take some time for us to release this new management console to our customers but customers are really excited about this new management console.

The feedback from UI/UX engineers and giving their inputs based on their experience was very helpful to make this a very modern and easy to use web management console.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The communication was very clear and had weekly calls with the Ralabs team to go over completed functionality and the next steps. They brought up issues and possible solutions right away to make sure the project would not be delayed. Ralabs performed demo and completed functionality and provided their inputs as the project move forward.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were extremely happy with the Ralabs team and their knowledge. They were extremely professional yet fun to work with. The communication was great and we were always looking forward to our weekly calls with the Ralabs team. We are very happy with how the project was handled and completed successfully.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are fully satisfied with Ralabs work on this project and looking forward to working with them in future.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I oversee the software development of one of the products of our company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ralabs?

We hired people from Ralabs to augment our software development team with frontend and backend developers.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were to develop a product (web application) being able to use the data processed by our company and provide actionable insights to our customers for maximizing the profits from their business.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had to conduct a series of interviews with the company's top management and their software engineers to see if they had the right talent to augment my software development team.

Ralabs' pitch was that they will provide us the top-performing talent and in case we claim anyone not being a good fit - they would provide alternatives with no questions asked and without impacting our project's deadlines. They were very motivated to be engaged in our project.

Describe the project in detail.

Once this vendor was selected for our project we had a series of interviews with the candidates submitted by Ralabs. I needed very strong senior software engineers into my team to develop the front-end and the back-end of the product.

What was the team composition?

We hired 2 front-end and 1 back-end developers from Ralabs with the plans to extend further our relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The vendor's employees have blended into my team and quickly became an integral part of the team. They were part of all the scrum ceremonies actively contributing in every stage of the SDLC.

They were technically strong, producing deliverables with high quality and working transparently. There was no need to micromanage them and they quickly earned my trust and built the confidence that they will deliver the committed features on time.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I had a dedicated delivery manager who was in continuous contact with me helping to make all organizational aspects of our collaboration go smooth. And it worked very well.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

This vendor has access to great talent and their services are reasonably priced. They work very hard to earn and maintain trusted relationships. They ensure a guaranteed quality of service and stick to their promises.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Since our requirements for the candidates were very strong and demanding, it took us some time until we have found the best fit. But it was worth it since the software engineers I got were of top-notch.