Rubyroid Labs

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder and CTO of a B2B application, specializing in the apparel and active lifestyle segments.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rubyroid Labs?

I ran a short term project to get a full code review and security audit of our application.

What were your goals for this project?

I was after an honest review and feedback from an independent organisation.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I was introduced to Rubyroid Labs via a friend who runs a business running on the same tech stack as ours. I approached the team at Rubyroid Labs, as well as a couple of other development companies I had found online. Based on interviews/discussions I settled with Rubyroid Labs as they seemed the most professional and knowledgable of the companies I approached.

Describe the project in detail.

A deep-dive was done into the code, architecture and security of our application. Detailed reports were provided with corresponding walkthroughs and discussions.

What was the team composition?

One senior developer and a SME with knowledge of our application domain.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

You know how when you stare at something for a long time it can become a blur? Our relationship with our application had become a bit like that. To have a fresh set of (knowledgeable and experienced) eyes looking at it, was amazing. An idea here, a tip there, the odd "why did you do it that way", were all beneficial and gave us a new focus on our application. It was also comforting to know where we were doing things right!

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Awesome communication. Embarrassingly, I only speak English and their English is superb. The reports provided were accurate and detailed. Written and in-person (video conference) meetings were great.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed with their knowledge and skills and their ability to translate this into meaningful results. While (thankfully) the results of this engagement were fairly good for our application, there were a few recommendations and suggestions made which we took on board. These have made all the difference.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None. The results I received were exactly what I was after.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Plaus Technologies Inc., an insurance tech startup. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubyroid Labs?

We hired them to develop an MVP.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Rubyroid Labs set up a website with Ruby on Rails (Rails). It processes PDF documents that are used in the insurance industry to extract data points. Those data points are then used to apply some logic to develop an output.

The team also set up a database that sits in concert with the code that does the data extraction on the PDFs.

How did you come to work with Rubyroid Labs?

I reviewed a lot of companies through an RFP process and got information from Clutch and other websites. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $21,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Rubyroid Labs from April–June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Rubyroid Labs was very diligent, professional, and competent. The work they did was more than expected, and I was very happy with the services they provided. 

How did Rubyroid Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well. I sent them a technical scope of work that outlined the inputs and outputs that were required for the project, and they worked from there. The team provided a timeline to make sure that they were on track to meet all of the deliverables. 

Everything was well-managed, and their communication was very clear. We had weekly calls in which they’d give me updates on the development of the project. It was very collaborative between us.

They were always available and quick to respond. We communicated via Slack and it was a successful collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What impressed me the most was actually also the reason I decided to work with them. After I had developed the technical scope and outlined an approach that I thought would be successful, they came back and made an alternative suggestion with one of the APIs that we were going to use that was integrated into the software. 

That specific recommendation, and subsequent integration, was very successful in yielding the completed project. The team recommended that we use Google Cloud Vision API to get the software to work the right way, and it was the right move. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. They did everything I expected plus more. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

One of the reasons our engagement worked out well was because I remained engaged and provided them with direction on a weekly basis. Additionally, providing fine detail with respect to the scope of work that a client would be looking to accomplish was helpful for them.

The instructions I gave them were robust and clear, which was a good starting point for the collaboration. Having that mapped out upfront made sure that there were no surprises along the way. I would recommend potential customers to do the same.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO for Veego, a SaaS company. We provide software for large e-commerce businesses to basically automate their daily operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubyroid Labs?

We create software that integrates with a number of e-commerce platforms – like eBay, Shopify, Amazon, and others – in order to show all of a business’s orders in one place. It is very hard work to integrate our software with the huge number of e-commerce platforms that are out there, and we hired Rubyroid Labs to help with that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Rubyroids Labs completed several integrations with our product. Our product shows all orders and items in one place, even if the business is trading simultaneously across multiple e-commerce platforms. 

They’ve connected e-commerce platforms via their API to our software via API as well. It was purely backend work and server-to-server communication. They used Ruby as the programming language, as well as RabbitMQ and Sidekiq.

What is the team composition?

There was a developer, a very experienced architect who supervised the work of the developer, and a brilliant project manager who basically organized all of the work.

How did you come to work with Rubyroid Labs?

They were brilliant for us, and I am 100% sure that when we need another integration, we will call them.

How much have you invested in them?

It was between $10,000–$20,000. They are worth every penny spent on them.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we started working together in January 2019. After they completed the initial project, we gave them a few more. I think they worked with us until October of 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We can estimate this by the amount of work we’ve had to do since they delivered the product, which is zero hours. They did everything according to our quality standards, from the first attempt. I have spent very little time organizing the work because their project manager did it brilliantly. The software is working perfectly. They fixed any glitches that we identified very quickly.

How did Rubyroid Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They excelled at project management. My time as a manager was not spent on the phone at all; they did it all by themselves. Their project manager made sure that everything was advancing and that it worked.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Nowadays, it is quite hard to find an outsourcing company that you can trust and that will actually do the work. Rubyroid Labs not only wrote the code but actually completed the work and delivered business value.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing that I could mention currently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do not reject their offer for a project manager.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder of a company working in e-commerce. Our industry is the book publishing industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rubyroid Labs?

We needed our developments projects to be carried faster. Our lead developper needed help to carry out new development while he good focus on maintaining and improving the app.

What were your goals for this project?

The first piece of work that Rubyroid worked on was helping us launch a new product in a very huge rush. They were successful in doing so. Now we're still working together and they help carry out new developments and improve our web app constantly.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We considered many companies and Rubyroid were the most convincing for our needs. Our lead developer was for sure involved in the process given he was to collaborate with them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The main project was the launch of a kid's subscription. There were a lot of things to address: payment processing, taking into consideration all of the other parts of the app. It was not an easy thing to tackle given the app was not well documented and needed a lot of improvements.

What was the team composition?

The team was basically made of 3-4 people. They assigned us one developer, one team manager, one commercial interlocutor and from times to times there were supervisions from their lead developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new subscription was launched in time and everything worked fine which was a big challenge. We were satisfied with the results so we decided to carry out new tasks together.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was very nicely done. Rubyroid is very very reactive, the developer we worked with put a lot of effort into the project to be successful. He was there when some emergencies happened. We mostly discussed the project via Slack or over the phone.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their reactivity is one of their biggest assets. They never let us down, especially in times of rush and urgency.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing that I see. In case of a problem or misunderstanding, we always talk it over and find a way for improvement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at a large software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubyroid Labs?

We had a client who needed Ruby development, and we didn’t have the internal capacity to handle this. My company decided to outsource this development work to Rubyroid Labs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Rubyroid Labs outsources a backend developer to help our client develop their marketplace platform. The developer, an extension of our client’s team, is responsible for maintaining and upgrading the API, which talks to the web and mobile frontends. The primary technology that she uses is Ruby.

What is the team composition?

Rubyroid Labs’s developer works directly with our client; my team doesn’t interact with her often. They have a high-level account manager who deals with issues or questions.

How did you come to work with Rubyroid Labs?

I’d worked with one of Rubyroid Labs’s tech leads on another project, when he was part of another company. He came to me in search of a contractor.  

How much have you invested with them?

Costs are around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work began in April 2018, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everyone on my client’s team who has worked with the Rubyroid Labs developer, including the VP of engineering, says that she is very skilled and reliable. The feedback has been consistently good.

How did Rubyroid Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed great. Communication and management are good, and they use some kind of tracking system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Rubyroid Labs is very passionate about Ruby technology. They work independently with the client. Another plus is that they’re consistent; there hasn’t been any turnover.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of any.

Any advice for potential customers?

Let them know the kind of person you need, and don’t wait until the last minute.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of engineering at DroneBase, a drone service company based in Santa Monica.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubyroid Labs?

We were looking for a company to augment our existing engineering staff. We needed more resources to join our team and help us build things in general, rather than having a specific project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Rubyroid Labs has been fully involved in our regular product development cycle. We have one dedicated person from their side. At this point, we consider her a team member. She takes part in everything we do. The specific technology stack we usually work with is Ruby on Rails. For the frontend, we use Angular.js.

Rubyroid Labs works on new features with us, but they don’t do any product development. Their resource they assigned us focuses exclusively on engineering. She collaborates with us just like any other engineer on our team. 

What is the team composition?

Rubyroid Labs has assigned one developer to your project. We're planning on expanding, but we haven't had a chance to yet.

How did you come to work with Rubyroid Labs?

I was introduced to Alex (CMO, Rubyroid Labs) through someone I met in Santa Monica. We interviewed a handful of Ruby on Rails engineers that were remote from both RubyRoid Labs and ones from other companies. We ended up selecting the developer we've been working with for over a year now.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent between $100,000–$200,000 so far. On average, we pay the engineer about $7,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2018 and have an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Qualitatively, Rubyroid Labs is very timely. The work they deliver is always high quality. I use Velocity, a tool from Cold Climate that sits on top of GitHub, to manage all my engineers and their respective performance. 
They communicate very well and are flexible about the work hours. We've had been a great relationship with Rubyroid Labs so far.

How did Rubyroid Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

We primarily interact with the developer from Rubyroid Labs through Slack, which we use to communicate and track the work.

Our company holds a daily stand up that our employees can attend in person or through video conferencing. Since Rubyroid Labs is remote from us, their developer joins via Google Hangout, but that's never been a problem.

Due to the time zone difference, we have an overlap of about five hours a day in the morning. The developer even responds outside of the window of working hours. She goes beyond our set expectations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive factor about the developer from Rubyroid Labs has been how excited she is to work with us. She even visited us for two weeks. Her enthusiasm has been much appreciated as Rubyroid Labs has helped us build a company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don't really think so. We've only worked with one engineer from the team so far, but it's hard to find anything that hasn't been very positive.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be to treat the engineer Rubyroid Labs assigns you the same way you would consider an in-house employee. Interview them similarly and work with them as a regular staff member. 

We work with and assign projects to their engineer just like we do internally. This method works for us because our company is set up well for remote work. If you use a lot of online tools for management and collaboration, it should feel natural.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of Telos LLC. We collect and sell postage stamps and provide education about philately.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rubyroid Labs?

We needed to develop a mobile app featuring an online catalog with postage stamps from different countries and time periods.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create a complete mobile catalog of all postage stamps since 1953 that was accessible to both philately professionals and lay users.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

My business partner worked with them on a previous project. When I looked for a reliable development vendor, he advised me to reach out to Rubyroid Labs.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Initially, a business analyst from Rubyroid Labs developed vision and scope documentation, followed by software requirements and specifications. Then, they delivered interactive wireframes and mockups of the mobile app and admin panel. Full development of a backend system and iOS and Android mobile apps followed. After QA testing, the apps were published in the App and Play stores.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a business analyst/project manager, a backend developer, a mobile developer, and a designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our brand has become more recognizable since publishing the app, and we’ve received positive feedback from our customers all over the world. We’re planning to launch a marketing campaign at the end of May, but even now we’re seeing growing interest from our audience.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We met in person a few times per week and communicated using Slack, Skype, and email. The task tracking tool OpenProject allowed us to see their progress clearly. Their system was very effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their communication and transparency were outstanding, as was their eagerness to solve issues. Even after we completed the work, they still make themselves available to answer my questions and provide maintenance and support for the app.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing stands out in particular. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO at Mint Media LTD, an independent publishing house.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubyroid Labs?

We were having difficulties with our website. The traffic to our site had grown to a million views, but the whole system began to fail, even falling down twice a week. Our extra developer didn’t know what to do, so I was looking for a professional team who could work on Ruby on Rails.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their developers fixed the configuration of the picture distribution as it was written with an error. They moved our site to a new server, which only took one night, and even helped our hosting company to save us a few days of work coordination. The work involved several different elements, including work with Elasticsearch and SSL Certificate.

We also needed help with another issue, as users couldn’t correspond to the legislation of our country. The users had to enter their identification code with a phone number. It took Rubyroid Labs a month to address that problem.

What is the team composition?

I communicated with the chief developer, who delegated the work to different developers.

How did you come to work with Rubyroid Labs?

When we started to have difficulties with the site, I asked our host company to recommend a team and they advised me to reach out to Rubyroid Labs.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together in November–December 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After 200 total hours of work from them, the site works correctly. Their chief developer suggested using HTTP protocol and now it’s hard to imagine how we lived without it when we used just HTTP. Our traffic has grown by over 30%. We'd had a developer help us in the past, but no one ever suggested this simple, effective measure. We want to continue working with them to improve some more things on the site.

How did Rubyroid Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re responsible and work quickly to solve our problems. I always knew the percentage of the work done, which was convenient.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a high speed of work and are very professional.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re perfect.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO of chatchamp, a messenger marketing solution for e-commerce businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rubyroid Labs?

We needed a vendor to do frontend and backend development for various tasks.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a working partnership with a remote agency to develop our product together.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

One of our founders had previously worked with them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Rubyroid Labs does full-stack development on an ongoing basis.

What was the team composition?

The team includes one junior developer and one senior developer. The latter provides technical support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The remote partnership is effective, productive, and enjoyable.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Rubyroid Labs’ developers have integrated themselves into our normal development process. We use screen sharing and video calls for daily and general planning meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They have skilled employees and a great culture. Their team spirit makes Rubyroid Labs a pleasure to work with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is very little to improve. The invoices could be numbered by default, but that is a very German requirement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a mobile development company with several directions: we make mobile products for our own needs and do mobile outsourced development as well.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rubyroid Labs?

We were in need of a backend development company for our own products and we were looking to choose between different technologies, like Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. The team from Rubyroid described all the advantages of the Ruby on Rails technology, so we chose it for our product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The scope of work was to build a backend for our mobile app, which is a business solution for moving companies. We’re not skilled enough to build a good-quality backend at our site, given that we’re a mobile development company first of all, so we asked the team from Rubyroid. They estimated the job, we gave them the scope of work, and they gave us back an estimation—around 2,000 hours.

They built only the backend and API for our mobile apps as well as an administration panel for orders from the app and other information. We gave them specifications covering only the mobile development. They put together a special document describing everything related to this. We gave them a description of our mobile apps, and they wrote down their specification for backend development. We approved it, then moved forward.

They used the Ruby on Rails framework, which gave us a nice speed of development; it’s also reliable and easy to scale. We’re not scaling it right now, but we believe that there won’t be any technical issues when it comes to it.

What is the team composition?

Rubyroid Labs assigned three developers. There was a project manager on their side, but our developers communicated directly with theirs. The manager kept everything tracked, he ensured that everything was okay and that we were happy as a customer.

How did you come to work with Rubyroid Labs?

We looked for backend development companies on Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

$80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2018. We’ve finished the first iteration in August, and we have another one, which will start in January 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re happy with the MVP we’ve received and we’re planning to launch it. We consider the job done at the moment. We’re not in the market yet, so we’ve only shown the app to our staff.

I can’t comment on the quality of code, because I’m not a backend developer, but I know that our CTO reviewed the code every two weeks, and there were no serious issues there. He was also okay with all the numbers regarding the productivity on the server side.

Moreover, Rubyroid used test-driven development and we appreciated this a lot. We didn’t have any serious bugs during development or at the final stage. There were some minor things, but that's always the case.

How did Rubyroid Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

The quality of communication was okay and they’re reliable as business partners. We’re very happy to work with Rubyroid Labs. Our own project manager was in charge of the work, so I can’t describe the project management itself. As a customer at the presales and negotiation stage, I’m okay with them. They seem to be professional. I negotiated with their chief of marketing, who described everything.

The only issue we had during the project was that they only managed to give us two developers at the start. The third one was only added after three weeks of development. They notified us about it and explained the situation. We understand that it can be hard to provide the exact number of developers at the exact date, so I’m not mentioning it as a serious problem.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was excited about our three developers; they were great. They were product-oriented and had great communication skills with our own developers. It’s usually a headache to connect mobile developers with backend ones; they can be fighting with each other and having misunderstandings.

I also like Rubyroid’s approach to documentation. Before we started the project, they built several documents describing all the technical things about the API, the backend structure, and so on. It was really helpful, and one of the great advantages of this company.

I’d worked with another backend development company previously, and they were not as good during the early stage of development—to describe all the APIs and provide all the information about how the backend is structured. It was a nice advantage.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As far as I can see, all the business processes on their side are okay. As a customer, I don’t have any advice to Rubyroid about what they should improve. I think they’re great.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It would be useful for their customers to not rush them. Going to a development group and asking them to start a project the next day won’t give them enough time to staff the team and provide the best developers possible. My advice is to give them some time before they have to start the work.

We were in a hurry, so we had a lack of time for picking developers, so we pushed them to start as soon as possible. It was maybe not so good for the project itself, or for our business cooperation.