Salsita Software

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of Techloop.io, a hiring marketplace for IT specialists focused primarily in central Europe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Salsita Software?

We had a junior internal IT development team that was tasked with delivering parts of the project that were very crucial to us. Unfortunately, after several attempts, we realized they didn’t have the ability or the experience.

As a startup, we were in a tight situation to make a decision on whether to rebuild an internal team or go for the expertise of a team that had specific experience with JavaScript and React.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our goal was to rewrite a core company application. The final product had to support a fully enabled SaaS product platform. We needed to have the ability for a full search of the candidates, to have billing integrated, and to have social logins added into it.

It was done on a very tight deadline, but the end result was a fully capable SaaS product with integrated billing, exactly as we had requested. They continue to make themselves available on-call for any questions or requests that we have.

What is the team composition?

There were roughly four people. At least three people were on a full-time basis and one person worked on UX design as needed. We had two full-stack developers working with us for front- and backend needs, one project/product manager assisting in the communications and setting up sprints for our internal team and their team as well.

How did you come to work with Salsita Software?

They came to us through a personal recommendation. We decided to go with them due to the speed and expertise they were able to provide.

How much have you invested with them?

In the end, we spent €120,000 (approximately $132,900).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2018–June 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch a completely new SaaS platform. The deadline was for April and they built the whole functional platform with the billing on time. Since then, we’ve been running on their technology stack, and we’re continually tweaking that internally.

How did Salsita Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was very good. They had a difficult situation to balance, between applying their expertise to our development needs and helping to manage and train our junior team.

They didn’t do it on a standard basis but they were willing to take over the ownership and manage our team for six months to get them up to speed. They worked in weekly sprints. We had in-person meetings once a week to catch up on the results.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are professional in how they deal with the customer. The number one priority we had from the very beginning was a specific deadline that we needed to achieve to launch the new product.

Because of that, they were always planning out the scenarios that we had in front of us. If they had the ability to do something quicker, we were given upfront what the risks were that we’d be facing or that could cause potential future risks.

The communication was very good from their side. The platform is stable, and the process behind it and the deployment they set up was solid. Not only that, but they were able to implement it without any downtime or issues.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that comes to my mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Understand your budget and the results that you will get from working with them. They may be a little bit higher priced than their competition, but that is reflected in the delivery of the services that they provide. The premium price for the current market is easily justified by the professional services that they provide.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO and founder of Petshare, a web application for free pet caring solutions for pet lovers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Salsita Software?

We needed to finally create our application after a year of failed development with a separate company. They made a mess of our software so we wanted to start fresh with Salsita Software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Salsita Software built out the MVP for our progressive web application from the ground up. We already had a designer who had done the design portion, so they were responsible purely for the product development, which they completed in Node.js React. Currently, it's mobile responsive, but we're looking to get a full desktop version completed soon.

What is the team composition?

We had two full-stack developers, a project manager, two UX and frontend developers, 1–2 DevOps specialists, and two QA testers.

How did you come to work with Salsita Software?

We looked at various companies that we found on Google and whittled our pool down to a proper list of three contenders. We chose them because we found them to be experienced developers and the CEO was very hands-on. It felt right for us to work with a company that was hands-on and that values their customers from top to bottom.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in February 2019 and wrapped up that August.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They went above and beyond of what we expected of them. Even though we did have to make a few changes here and there, our technical staff was very skilled. We felt very fortunate to have them on board.

How did Salsita Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always very quick with replying. Our tech lead, specifically, was very quick at responding to us and completing any changes that needed to be done. The team as a whole met all of our deadlines. We had weekly meetings to start off with and shifted to a bi-weekly model after realizing we were spending too much money on the meetings and not enough time on the actual work. We definitely made sure we had them on the right track in the beginning. We used Slack mainly for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their skillset and communication were very good. Nothing ever got lost in translation, which gave us a sense of comfort.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The UX and UI for us were a bit challenging because there was a bit of a communication problem between us and a developer that was new to their company. If we had to do it all over again, we probably would've asked for a different UX developer that could communicate at the same level as the others. Despite that, we were very happy with what they accomplished.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be open and transparent with what you want so that both sides will know what the expectations are.