Ronas IT

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of a startup in the travel industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

We wanted to develop a property management system and a channel manager. This would manage our sales channel and integrate them with the property management system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The solution has a Django framework and is written in JavaScript. They also provided graphic design and UX design. They’re our exclusive development partner on this project. They were involved in the technical discussions as well as the functional discussions of the features. The solution runs on desktops, phones, and tablets and updates in real-time. The app is based on the web for now, since we haven’t done a mobile app.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with about six people, including a project manager/analyst. I mostly interact with the latter.

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

I found them online. They seemed quite competent and they agreed to a staggered payment structure. Rather than just accept everything about the solution, they questioned things that didn’t make sense to them, which made me feel that we’d have a good working relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $128,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since May 2018 and are close to completion. We’re integrating a final service and are hoping to launch soon. We’re also planning on integrating with other international accommodation booking services.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s mainly been the functionality that they’ve delivered. So far, they’ve given us everything, and we’ve worked on anything that required changes.

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Delivery is good, but the project management hasn’t been good. They didn’t provide designs initially, which I didn’t like because I’d rather look at a design first before we actually started. We communicate over Skype, Telegram, GitLab, and Upwork.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their work stands out the most. They’re knowledgeable and provide useful feedback. They wouldn’t let us end up with a bad product because we asked for it. They’ll ask questions and help us come up with a better solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Getting an initial design would let them easily discuss with the client what they want.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder, Logobly.com

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ronas IT?

Development work for Logobly, my software as a service logo maker app.

What were your goals for this project?

Bring to life my designs via code. Create a fast, reliable and stable web based app.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I found Ronas IT online via an outsourcing website.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The guys provided the code for my web based app plus some other smaller coding requirements.

What was the team composition?

A highly skilled team of project managers, front end coders and back end coders.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Fantastic service. The guys went above and beyond. They also suggested improvements to my app which I really appreciated - as apposed to doing exactly what I asked, it resulted in a better product.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Communication was constant and clear. I also had a view of project progress and things that were done and getting done. Very effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Ronas IT works with you, as apposed to working for you. This results in a much better experience and product at the end of the day.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not really, these guys are fast and thorough which is great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of McPond.com, a machine e-commerce platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

We needed additional development done on our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ronas IT helps us with web development. They implemented some additional features on our platform. We had to integrate some third-party applications. They also provided testing.

What is the team composition?

We worked with eight people, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

We found them on Upwork. Their experience made them stand out and is what made us decide to partner with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $20,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Ronas IT is excellent, and they have done their job very well. They’ve gone above and beyond, giving us suggestions on some features. It’s been a very good experience. We’re very happy with them.

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

During the web development process, everything was well documented. The provided updates at each and every step. We communicate via Skype, and they provided us with a project manager. We use GitLab to track our project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication is the best part of working with them. Our project manager is always in contact with us, giving us timely updates. Sometimes, they’re available outside of working hours. If there’s anything that needs to be addressed urgently, Ronas IT is always willing to step in. The team is very flexible. They understand our requirements well, and they use relevant technologies for our product. Everything has been great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had a good experience with them. There’s nothing that needs to be improved.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are a good company to work with. Keep your project description clear.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a graphics design marketplace.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

Our lead developer needed assistance with network and server administration.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They made sure our backend infrastructure was performing well. That included server and database optimization, software patches, and making sure we had a good backup system.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two members of their team.

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

Our lead developer went to the same university as the head of Ronas IT. We hired them through a freelancer platform.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent just about $15,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together April 2013, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the last 10 years, our site has performed well and we’ve had very little downtime.

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s usually my lead developer that communicates with them. As far as I know, it’s been straight forward and they’ve been very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When things were growing fast for us, and our site was starting to slow down, they were able to do some impressive optimizations. They got us a fast running site while using minimal hardware.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. They do what they say they will.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that both parties are clear on what to expect out of each other and things will go very well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of a private company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

We hired them to provide specific IT services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provide systems administration, PHP development and frontend development. Some of their services also include graphic design and UI design. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with around six people from their team. 

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

We ran an ad on Upwork and hired them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $60,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2010 and we’ve been working together since. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work is very high quality and we’re happy with it. 

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication has never been an issue. Their English language abilities are very strong. We’ve used Jira in the past, as well as GitHub. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team is reliable and produces high-quality work. They get it right the first time. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing they could improve at this time. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you go in with an idea of what you want first and what the end result should look like.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a principal at Visual Engineering, a software company in the San Francisco Bay Area. We specialize in highly interactive, visually oriented, technical analysis software for the financial services industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

We needed help with UI and web development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our software is very complex and we provide a lot of user options. In addition, our products run a many different platforms and we try to maintain a similar UX between desktop, web and mobile. We hired Alex to address specific interface issues but he has also designed the entire UI from the ground up. They’ve also been responsible for designing several of our websites over the years.

We’ve worked with Alex on many different projects and they all begin with a detailed description of what we’re looking for. They would generally include visual examples, highlight a specific approach we wanted Alex to pursue, or leave the design approach open-ended. We would present the designs internally or to our clients, in either static or animated form, receive feedback and iterate on the design before we begin coding.

What is the team composition?

I work directly with Alex (Technical Lead Developer), generally providing project requirements, feedback generated from design concepts, and coordinate timing. We have worked with others on the Ronas team but more from the standpoint of getting preliminary development and cost information on projects we would pitch to our clients. We haven't had the opportunity to work on a long term basis with other Ronas team members but they have been responsive and helpful on a preliminary basis

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

We found them on a freelance platform.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent within the $25,000–$50,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2015, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our products receive excellent reviews for their design and relative ease of use. UX is always rated highly. 

Our clients frequently come to us and Alex for constructive design reviews and we always come back with alternatives that exceed expectations.

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management is well organized. We use a variety of tools, as the cases dictated. When we get feedback, internally or externally, we would just give it to Alex and he would take care of it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been in business for many years and Alex’s approach to UI design has been pretty consistent with our own. He demonstrates an excellent understanding of user needs and all of his designs are creative and elegant in their simplicity. They’re very well thought out and have an excellent response to feedback. All of these qualities are why they’re our go-to user experience experts.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. They met our expectations 90% of the time and the other 10% we came to a good solution.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Invest enough time to specify the project upfront, and give them enough time to prepare. We’ve done that and our projects have never gone south.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the manager of a few websites in Silicon Valley.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

We hired them to build a very sophisticated website. We first contracted another vendor to build the site, but it didn’t stand up under a high traffic load. We contacted Ronas IT to fix the site, but they said the code was so bad that they had to rebuild it from scratch.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ronas IT rebuilt the site in PHP, Apache, and MySQL using the Zend Framework. I’m happy it was built with a framework. They’ve also built other sites for us.

What is the team composition?

Initially, we worked with a full-time developer, a part-time tester, a part-time systems administrator (sysadmin), and a part-time graphic artist. The developer left the company about a year ago. Ronas IT didn’t have a replacement so we hired a person outside their company to fill in the position. Ronas IT has been gracious to the developer and let him work with the project manager and team.

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

We found them on oDesk, which now goes by Upwork. It let us search contractors, read feedback and ratings by other customers, interview those customers, and hire them. We did that with Ronas IT and got very positive feedback from their customers. Because of that, we felt confident that they were a good team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership started in June 2009. We’re still working with them on a limited basis — about 3–4 hours per week. We’ve scaled it down since our developer at Ronas IT left a year ago and we found a new outside developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The original timeline estimate was for six months, which we thought was optimistic. Ronas IT eventually finished the website in about a year. We tend to expect developers to take 3–4 times as much time as they estimate, so the fact that Ronas IT came in at just twice their estimate pleased us!

More importantly, the website quickly grew in traffic to four million visitors a month and withstood the heavy load. It’s a sophisticated, database-driven website. We’ve experienced some performance issues, but Ronas IT jumped right on and fixed those. Overall, we’re pleased with its performance.

We since have had them upgrade the site and work on another website for us. I’m really pleased with them and glad we found them. I’d be happy to recommend Ronas IT to other people who want to use them.

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very responsive to our requests. Ronas IT’s engineers are very talented and capable, and they have very good English writing skills. We don’t speak very often; instead, we communicate in writing over email and our project management system. We’re using their system this day. It’s been helpful to control the project; it opens tickets and lets us communicate with the Ronas IT team.  Occasionally, we’ll text over Skype or SMS messages, and if something’s very important, I’ll talk to them on the phone.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had one issue with an engineer that wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing. We turned that over to the project manager; they were clearly angry with the developer, didn’t charge us for those hours, and reassigned a new engineer. I was pleased with that.

However, Ronas IT also hasn’t upgrade servers to the latest version, which they probably should have. I asked them to because I was concerned about security. They turned down the request because we had a firewall and were unlikely to be attacked. Down the road, we found out that we wanted to use some new features on our website that weren’t available on older versions of our server software. I wonder if it was because we were on a tight development schedule, and that would have pushed our timeline. But I wish I could better understand their thought process.

Any advice for potential customers?

Things have gone smoothly for us, obviously. We’re still using them after over 10 years. I’d advise customers that are using them for sysadmin tasks to make sure they update your server applications.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I manage Marshall Innovative Solutions, which is a software engineering company. We focus on custom software development, SharePoint initiatives, and mobile development and design. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

We hired them to help with our design initiatives. While creating a workflow in .NET, we wanted their input on improving our UX.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After I created wireframes for the workflow on my end, we leveraged their team to translate those wireframes into Photoshop mockups and visual design artifacts. We also work with them on mobile designs for both iOS and Android.

What is the team composition?

We worked closely with Alex (Designer & Art Director) on many projects. I also collaborate with another mid-level graphic designer.  

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

I first discovered them on Upwork. After obtaining a few referrals from others that have used them in the past, I decided to hire them. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our individual projects are typically pretty small. They typically cost about $350–$450. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started collaborating in May 2014, and I’m still working with them on an ongoing basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Alex does a wonderful job of translating our requirements into visual design artifacts. They needed little supervision, able to ideate on strong solutions. After two iterations, I often find that they go above and beyond the required scope of the project. They’re detail-oriented and able to put modern trends into practice.  

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

I use Microsoft DevOps for most of my agile projects, which allows me to assign resources and tasks to different members of the team. At the end of each sprint, their team always comes forward with a deliverable. Their work always aligns with our expectations. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their creative thinking process and willingness to engage in every part of the process was very impressive. They do a great job of involving stakeholders in the design process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they go far beyond the scope of work to achieve outcomes. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Reach out to their project manager ahead of time to discuss your deadline-oriented goals. From there, they can drive the creative parts of the process.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am one of the co-founders of Facta Behavioural Harmonics. Facta is the User Guide for your workplace relationships. We are a human resources & training company, focused on assisting organisations to create more positive and productive workplaces.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ronas IT?

We hired Ronas IT to work with us as our production design partners. Ronas IT took our basic wireframes and completed a full UX/UI design and product development on the Facta platform. www.facta.com.au

What were your goals for this project?

The goal of the project was to create a basic MVP for beta testing. It included integration with a party provider. The team at Ronas surpassed the goals of the project and we ended up with a full-function product.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed a number of vendors across India, Russia and locally and Australia. As non-technical founders, we needed a partner who would challenge our thinking and provide ideas and alternatives. From the start, we had confidence that Ronas would do this and we were not disappointed when we started working together.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We aimed to create an employee engagement platform which was based on behavioural profiling. The project included full UX/UI design and engineering. Integration with a 3rd party provided was also required. Ronas completed all QA.

What was the team composition?

Ronas IT was able to form a team (max 4 at project peak) of specialists in UX/UI, Front End, Back End, Quality etc. After the first phase was completed, we have still been able to gain access to team members for continual improvements.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At this stage, we are demonstrating the product and gaining user feedback. Universally, potential customers are commenting about the look and feel of the product. The project has allowed us to know test our theory and gain user feedback.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our project manager, Evgeniy, was fantastic. Very responsive, challenged us respectfully and was always available. We used GitHub for communication as well as email and Hangouts. No issues with language between Russia and Australia.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We valued the input from the team and the level of communication. They had a very collaborative approach to the whole process. They worked with us when the project ran slightly over time (note, as novice founders we underestimated how much IT projects overrun) and would investigate solutions to issues without a concern.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The only area for improvement was the overrun on time of the project. With that said, this was mainly due to our lack of knowledge of IT projects as novice founders.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a managing partner at an online marketplace that provides mineral owners in the United States with a place to sell the mineral rights for maximum value.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ronas IT?

We needed someone who could clean up our website and build on to what was already in place.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They mostly do maintenance. They build out a lot of new things to help us become more efficient, like automated email services and things like that that could be built into the system. They've also helped us create an auction system on the frontend.

What is the team composition?

We work with a primary developer and a server administrator who are extremely well qualified.

How did you come to work with Ronas IT?

We originally found them on UpWork.

How much have you invested with them?    

We've spent about $50,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in March 2016, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From an efficiency standpoint, I'd say that their work has led to us not needing to hire people. Our cost savings far outweigh the amount of money we've spent with them,

How did Ronas IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They've performed extremely well. We communicate via GitHub, and a ticketing system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication has been extremely fast and good. They're always on top of everything. A lot of our projects haven't been priorities, but there have been critical things like the website being down. When those things arise, they're on top of it even when it's after hours or vacation. They're very quick to make that happen.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, honestly, I don't think so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to make sure whatever technology stack you're looking to deal with matches up to what their development team has ready in terms of staffing.