Sloboda Studio

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Veeqo, an e-commerce automation platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sloboda Studio?

We raised a lot of investment money in January, and there was a really short amount of time between the actual date when we were going to receive the funds and the date when we were scheduled to present to the investors. There was no chance that we could’ve expanded our team quick enough on our own to build the platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re responsible for the core part of the e-commerce platform. They’re using Ruby on Rails, RabbitMQ, Sidekick, and JavaScript. The product already exists and is being used, but they’re helping with continued development. We’re automating large e-commerce businesses, specifically those who trade on Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and WooCommerce. We integrate with all of those platforms.

We also integrate with shipping couriers like USPS, FedEx, and DHL. Our product automates the entire lifecycle of an e-commerce order inside a large e-commerce business. The Sloboda Studio team is responsible for that part of the functionality, which comes after the order has been placed and shipped. Sometimes orders are returned, and other times there’s an inquiry from a customer asking where their order is. All of that has to be automated as well, which is what they’re working on.

What is the team composition?

There’s a team leader, who is a very experienced developer, and two other web developers. We treat them as we would our own in-house development department. The team hasn’t changed since we started.

How did you come to work with Sloboda Studio?

We started to search for an agency that could supply us with an established team, including a team leader, that knows how to work well with each other. We chose Sloboda Studio over all of the other teams because they appeared to be the best for us.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We hired them with the intention that they would be productive from day one, and that is exactly what happened. We’ve entrusted them with the core parts of our product, and they've developed high-quality components. They communicated with our other teams as well to make sure they weren’t doing anything wrong. We’re happy with what they’re doing for the price that they charge.

How did Sloboda Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We treat them as if they were part of our own company. They’ve provided us a contact person in case we experienced any issues, but there wasn’t a single case when we had to contact that person. Everything that happens has been dealt with internally.

We provide a product owner who forms the backlog, and their team handles time estimates and functionality analysis. They measure their own productivity against those estimations. We use Jira to track estimates and the actual time spent on a ticket.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were extremely professional in how they reacted to both positive and negative feedback, and they always acted on our recommendations. I love that about them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If there was anything we didn’t like, we talked to them like we would our internal team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you rely on the leadership inside the team that you hire, everything will be okay. Sloboda Studio is known for having good leadership inside their team.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

TikkTalk is a marketplace software for interpretation services. It offers an open marketplace in which interpreters can create an account and receive assignments from anywhere in the world, allowing businesses to click a button and work with speakers of any language.

One of the main goals of our project is to help the refugee crisis. Many of the people coming here don't speak European languages, so clinics, hospitals, shops, police, and so on, can click a button on our app or website and have a direct video translation.

What is your position?

I am the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Sloboda Studio?

The business challenge was mostly economical; we couldn't afford to hire engineers in Oslo. I attempted to outsource in many different places, connecting to 29 different individuals in total in the last 4 months.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We've come to have a team of 10 employed consultants, 8 of them being from Sloboda Studio. During tight deadlines, we employed as many as 10 people from Sloboda Studio. The frontend and backend of our website has been entirely built by Sloboda Studio. They used Ruby on Rails, as well as VueJS on the backend and frontend. Sloboda Studio used many third-party APIs like Google Analytics for tracking, which was integrated quite nicely. They integrated tools for SEO, CRM, analytics, ad-tracking, UX management and WebRTC purposes as well.

We use SendGrid for emails and we are deployed on Heroku, which Sloboda Studio managed as well. They're also in charge of quality assurance, using our specs for test coverage.

We have used Sloboda Studio for many other gems and open-source projects. In total, we have implemented 74 components, which is a normal figure for any open-source project.

Sloboda Studio built our initial minimum viable product and are now in charge of full development.

How did you come to work with Sloboda Studio?

I searched for Ruby on Rails booking system projects. I noticed that the quality of individual engineers on freelance websites was always questionable. They didn't always work alone, even though they presented themselves as individuals, instead of working for companies. As such, I didn't have a guarantee of always working with the same person. Instead of looking for freelancers, I looked for existing projects based on my stack, found the companies responsible for them and contacted each one. One of those was Sloboda Studio. I initially decided to give each one smaller tasks requiring 10-20 hours of work, mostly on the frontend, so that there was a better chance of actually using their output, instead of throwing it away. I hired an individual from Sloboda in mid-February 2016 for 2 weeks. He worked fast and well. I liked his quality, so I decided to add 2 more people for the backend, growing our team slowly to 8 people.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sloboda Studio in February 2016. We launched an internal prototype after 4 months of development, which we tested with interpreters and businesses. The public product was launched last week, after an additional 4 months of development. We plan to cater more towards improving the product in order to provide better onboarding and an improved experience after the launch. We have a continuing relationship with Sloboda Studio.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Sloboda Studio implemented tests for the work on their own, without being asked. I appreciated that this was brought up. Sloboda Studio also came up with many good ideas by themselves, having open discussions with me, weeding through the bad ideas. I missed this approach from other agencies. I like being told when something is right or wrong. I did work with another agency in Poland which simply couldn't see the big picture, coming to waste a number of hours. This hasn't been the case with Sloboda. They've been very open and have also worked overtime on weekends and during late hours, when necessary. Sloboda Studio understood that we have a deadline, so they went above and beyond my expectations.

How did Sloboda Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

I have only been working with one person from Sloboda Studio for project management. She has been very good, following up well and helping convert ideas into tasks and schedules. For any engineering project, the schedule will never be as accurate as it should. We never finished anything exactly in the number of hours predicted, but we've always been able to release on the right date, even if with extra hours. I'm a coder myself, so I've always been able to push the work ahead.

What distinguishes Sloboda Studio from other providers?

Comparing Sloboda Studio with other agencies I've worked with, I can say that they've been able to understand why we are working on this project. Sloboda Studio understands us and our customers, and have built an amazing product for us.

I had our team from Sloboda Studio come to Oslo and spend 10 days on the project, which helped me explain our idea to them. They've come to understand the purpose behind our project and have come up with good ideas, helping me with planning and projections.

Is there anything Sloboda Studio could have improved or done differently?

Some of the members from Sloboda Studio could improve their English. They are taking classes, but this is still an issue. A bit more improvement on the frontend work would also be welcomed. This is partly due to the fact that we've prioritized backend tasks and only have one person working for frontend development.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated on May 28th, 2019 by the client. New content is below. 

BACKGROUND

What have been some of the changes that the product has gone through?

We've worked with Sloboda Studio on the production and deployment of three marketplaces: TikkTalk, Home Services and Counseling Services.

The most significant change we've made has been splitting the product into separate parts for marketplace technology and the language company. Over the last three years, we've created a core engine for our three different marketplaces dedicated to language, career counseling, and home services. We built this entire package in partnership with Sloboda Studio.

Our three different companies run separately and independently. Our team developed the software for the core engine that runs a fourth company, while our subsidiary owns the marketplace engine. 

SOLUTION

Are you still one of the main contacts to collaborate with Sloboda Studio?

I'm the CEO of two of the companies. The other two businesses are my customers. They contracted the projects through me, and I am working on completing them with Sloboda Studio.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sloboda Studio is our company's largest software provider.

Has the team changed?

We've changed our product architecture and engineering processes within the last three years. Over that period, we've scaled up our team to 35 different people at its largest. 

Right now, we work with roughly 10–12 people from Sloboda Studios on documentation, QA, project management, software development, and almost every area of full stack development.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent more than $500,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

As long as the people are still at Sloboda Studio, we will continue working with them indefinitely.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sloboda Studio is one of the few teams I truly trust. They've always done right by our business. I made it clear to them that I value the people on their team.  If they change companies, I would naturally move with them. I'm focused on the talent at Sloboda Studio.

Year-over-year, our revenue has increased by a factor of eight since we've integrated the new software on top of the technology platform we developed together. Our company has grown significantly with Sloboda Studio's support.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Sloboda Studio is the best team I've found in the industry.

Are there any areas they could improve?

My only suggestion would be to grow their team size and hire additional talented developers. I've encouraged developers I know to work for Sloboda Studio so I can hire them through the company. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m the CTO at Hudson Medical Group. We’re a multi-specialty medical practice with locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Our facilities process about 50,000 patients visits per year.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sloboda Studio? 

We manage our practice with a series of administrative tools, including a custom CRM, a medical record system, and a patient-facing iOS app. However, we wanted to automate a bunch of these processes, which required further backend development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We already had the basic MVP of our CRM, so Sloboda Studio was responsible for building out our system’s backend features using Ruby on Rails. 

To automate our administrative processes, the team focused on connecting our custom CRM, medical system, and iOS app together. They refined our APIs so that we could send data from our CRM to the medical system and vice versa (e.g., clinical outcome, patient appointments, emails), and they also enhanced our iOS app’s backend, which allowed it to connect to our medical system’s API.

Currently, all of the initial scope items are in production, but we’re still coming up with new features to build. They’re now working on SSL features to secure our tools.

What is the team composition?  

I work with a project manager and two engineers.

How did you come to work with Sloboda Studio? 

Sloboda Studio reached out to me on LinkedIn. Since I’m a Rails engineer myself, I was able to vet them and found them to be a great partner to work with. A couple of months later, they helped us with some of the basic integration work for our project, and we've worked with them since.

How much have you invested with them? 

We’ve spent about $15,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement? 

We started working with them in December 2018, and the engagement is ongoing. We liked their team so much that we decided to continue building more features with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I regularly review Sloboda Studio’s code in GitHub, and it’s been really great. They write clear code, develop excellent unit tests for us, and are great at looking at edge cases. If I ask them about a certain feature, they’ll go over all of the different edge cases that they’ve come across while reading the API documentation. Then, they’ll write out a well-structured email for us to discuss. 

How did Sloboda Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

The team hits our deadlines and communicates ahead of time if something will take longer than expected. We use a project tracking sheet, which gives us a lot of visibility on what’s being done at the moment, and they update their time estimates as we proceed through the sprint. As a result, we haven’t had any surprises.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Besides their excellent communication skills and transparency, I’m most impressed by how they think about problems. They’re able to conceptualize all of the edge cases before they build something rather than after. That’s been really valuable because we haven’t had to go in and discover unforeseen edge cases on our own.

Are there any areas they could improve? 

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have a clearly defined spec so that you can effectively communicate the intent of the project and the features that you want to build. That documentation helps Sloboda Studio come up with multiple solutions in case they see a potential problem.
 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of operations for StudySoup, an EdTech startup. Our marketplace enables university students to get paid for sharing their notes with classmates.

We provide a platform for naturally inclined, skilled notetakers to post and share documents with students who struggle to follow along in lectures or who might have missed a class. We pay the notetakers and resell their materials to classmates who need them. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sloboda Studio?

In recent years, our development resources have been somewhat limited. We’ve slowed down product development, and our developers have been focusing on a different project. We needed an outsourced team to take care of bug fixes and performance issues on our platform. 

Due to our marketing strategy, we acquire most student users at the beginning of the semester. Some of our channels were experiencing problems with data and loading times. The platform simply wasn’t prepared for hundreds of new users all at once. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our platform was initially built on Ruby on Rails, and Sloboda Studio has the specific development expertise to manage it. They started by resolving performance issues. 

Initially, we only requested backend development. We ended up needing frontend services as well. Sloboda Studio made frontend resources available for us right away, which was a great help.

What is the team composition? 

We mainly worked with one developer, Kostyantin (Ruby Developer, Sloboda Studio). We didn’t interface with the frontend developers. Whenever we needed another resource to support their developer, I was always amazed that they’d have one ready within 48 hours.

How did you come to work with Sloboda Studio?

A couple of agencies came highly recommended, but we also wanted to consider providers we hadn’t heard of before. We chose Sloboda Studio because they were extremely professional and offered great prices. They seemed like a team we would enjoy working with.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2018–January 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sloboda Studio alleviated all the performance issues. Hiring a domestic developer would have cost us 150% more for the same work. They accomplished the objectives we set, and their team worked hand-in-hand with ours. 

We’re really pleased we partnered with Sloboda Studio. Our budget was the only reason we couldn’t extend the contract.

The lead developer performed will in a challenging situation. We hadn’t used outsourced developers before and had high expectations for a startup.

How did Sloboda Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

One of the company’s principals attended our initial planning meeting. Alex (Project Lead, Sloboda Studio) wanted to make sure that the engagement met our expectations. Daily kickoff meetings included the lead developer from Sloboda Studio, myself, our company’s co-founder and CTO, and another external project manager. Even though this was a lot of people to manage, they did so very effectively.

We used the time zone difference between us to our advantage. When I’d start my day three hours before business hours began, I’d check Slack for questions from the developer. At that point, he’d have been online for six hours. We conducted code reviews and testing throughout the day. I sent instructions in Google Docs and videos that indicated where to focus. We held check-in meetings toward the end of his day, leaving him about an hour to resolve any issues before logging off. 

Rather than us having to adopt their communication practices, they were happy to use ours. We included them in our Slack teams. There wasn’t an excessive language barrier, and we talked through any misunderstandings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is highly organized, accessible, and responsive. They answered all our questions. Sloboda Studio genuinely cared about completing our project at the price they quoted us. There were never hidden charges. I was quite impressed. If I needed to reach the COO, he’d respond on Slack within 20 minutes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We required outside project management. I don’t recall if they offer those services, but they should consider doing so if they don’t already. They could provide a project manager and increase the rate by 25%.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If clients are based in the U.S. or Latin America, they should be empathetic about the time zone difference.  Having different schedules and locations poses challenges. Be understanding if a provider can’t work the exact same hours as you,

This type of engagement goes hand-in-hand with asynchronous collaboration, which can honestly be more productive. Constant communication can pose distractions. I suggest dedicating 30-60 minutes to answer questions, and putting a process in place for daily check-in meetings.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the head of software development at MyDailyLifestyle. We help our customers achieve happiness and productivity through healthier lifestyle choices. I oversee software design and development for our company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Sloboda Studio?

We hired Sloboda Studio to build a tool that could generate fitness advice and exercise templates.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed an efficient platform that could quickly deliver content to our users.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We’d previously worked with Sloboda Studio on a successful project, and they’d performed better than other firms. We gave them a pilot task, which they executed well. Soon after, we decided to officially begin development.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We wrote a clear specification brief that we delivered to their team. Our requirements included a complex matrix for editing schemes, which they implemented using Ruby on Rails.

What was the team composition?

The project team included a manager and three developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our coaches are now able to generate exercise advice for our clients much more rapidly, and in a uniform manner. This saves us time and has improved our brand image.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

There was one project lead who was the main point of contact. She was responsive and effective, and reached out to the developers when we encountered issues that were too technical.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Sloboda Studio is well-organized and collaborative. The quality of their code is excellent, and they delivered every one of our complex requirements.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is some room for improvement in terms of communication skills, but overall, their work was excellent.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a founder of a commercial product company that manufactures and sells equipment for paintball, laser tag, airsoft, and reball.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Sloboda Studio?

We hired Sloboda Studio to implement an administrative system that could store business statistics from a variety of devices in one server.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to consolidate source data from a variety of locations so all of the information could be accessed and analyzed together.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Based on past experience, we felt comfortable working with their specialists. We knew the team effectively manages projects according to practical goals.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Sloboda Studio implemented an open source software framework to test the API before synchronizing our systems. The team then developed an administrative system to gather statistics from various devices and store the data on one server.

What was the team composition?

The project team consisted of a backend developer and a project manager in charge of QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sloboda Studio’s work has facilitated more educated business decisions by providing access to source data from different locations. Our analysis of that data has yielded helpful insights about client behavior.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Once we explained our business needs, the project manager effectively outlined a timeline and worked quickly to accomplish our goals.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Specialists made informed decisions and used fitting technologies throughout the project. Collaboration with the team was highly productive, and the development process only took 100 hours. It appeared easy for them to reach our objectives.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don’t have any notes. The team’s responsive communication supported solutions to any questions that arose during the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a catering concierge service. We help corporate customers organize and execute catering from different great local restaurants by providing them with estimates, menu options, and then ultimately finding the right menu for whatever needs they have all the way through to the delivery of the food to their event.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sloboda Studio?

I needed to find a company to take on a development role and work with what our previous vendor had started.  We needed a web platform developed that allowed us to not only operationally improve our processes and automation, but also to give our customers a unique experience that allows them a better way of ordering catering.

The challenge for us was that because we had already had been operating for seven years and had already used the third-party applications, our customers were already used to a certain process and experience. It wasn’t like we could start small with an MVP and build from there. We had to at least provide the customers with the same experience that they’ve been having or better.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our web platform on Ruby on Rails. They also handled some of the frontend work and the UX/UI of the platform.

What is the team composition?

At first, I worked with Alex (Head of Growth, Sloboda Studio) and Olga (Cofounder, Sloboda Studio) who evaluated our existing platform. We went over the items that we needed to get developed or fix or modify in order for us to launch. Then they assigned it to a project manager, a frontend developer, a backend developer, and someone who does a little of both.

How did you come to work with Sloboda Studio?

We evaluated Ruby on Rails developer based on their Clutch reviews. I was concerned about the communication differences of doing something overseas. When I reached out to Sloboda Studio, they were willing to chat with me on the weekend. It’s such a little thing, but just for that alone, I fell in love with them because I don’t have time during the week. We had a good conversation with Alex. Their team analyzed our existing software and gave us good advice in how to move forward. They recognized there were some faults, but they didn’t badmouth our previous developer. They weren’t so much focused on solving the problem, but building a relationship with me, which is what I wanted. I wanted someone I could partner with.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2018 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sloboda Studio did in four or five months what took our previous vendor over a year. Not only did they do it, but they did it very effectively, efficiently, and with great skill. There’s a lot of transparency in the way that we developed. They’re creating efficiency on operations and they’ve substantially improved the UX. They’re saving me time and money on operations. What used to take somebody an hour to do is done in five minutes. That high-level person can now turn their focus toward other business areas.

How did Sloboda Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is great. The projects have been group projects. One project will consist of four or five different tasks that need to be developed. Once that’s completed, we create a new project that also contains four or five different tasks. We may have switched some of the developers, but the project manager has been consistent for everything. Olga has been a part of that as well. There’s always been someone consistently overseeing what it is we’re doing.

Every person that has come in to work on our platform has picked up from where the other person left off without any issues. I haven’t had to retrain anyone. It’s a completely seamless process. They’re always available to help.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the things that was really admirable is their humility. They didn’t criticize our previous vendor. They just said they would help us out. There was no ego. They just wanted to deliver for us. They weren’t interested in just fixing our platform but wanted to build a partnership with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We didn’t get into wireframes because of the cost associated with it. They were trying to help me with my budget and we skipped that. Not that it caused a problem, but it certainly created extra work that didn’t need to be done. Having a better picture of what you’re doing and what the end result will be is something they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to interview as many as possible so they can gauge the difference. This is one of the areas where Sloboda Studio really stood out. You need to articulate what you’re looking to do as best as possible. Be familiar with what you have. You need to know why certain languages are better for other things. You need to have a basic foundation.

What might be easy for the client, in reality, is not easy for development. Simply changing a color or a font could take hours of development. You need to understand some of those things before you start talking to developers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a managing partner at a Middle Eastern employment services provider. We offer recruiting services to finance and banking firms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sloboda Studio?

We were looking to build a platform that would help our users find suitable candidates. We also wanted to upgrade our system through automating our database.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a product that processes our data and gives users access to candidate profiles and data analysis. They’re currently building a website to house the platform, and they’re adding security measures to protect our data.

What is the team composition?

I work with a team of seven people, which includes their COO, an account manager, and several developers.

How did you come to work with Sloboda Studio?

I conducted initial research on Clutch and shortlisted about six or seven companies. I held phone meetings with each of these firms, and most of them were unable to grasp my requirements. I eventually spoke with Yaroslav (COO, Sloboda Studio), and he understood our project immediately. I chose them because they knew exactly what we wanted, and they could identify the technologies they would use to meet our needs.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $20,000–$25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in January 2019, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product has performed spectacularly in testing, and we’re very much looking forward to launching it in the near future.

How did Sloboda Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate primarily via WhatsApp and email. They’ve also sent us YouTube video presentations with relevant information. Their project manager is in touch with me every day, and their team is very responsive.

They’ve also been very transparent in terms of their time management. Every month, they send a detailed report of hours spent on each task. They set clear deadlines and always deliver on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve remained under budget, and they’ve stuck to the outline they initially gave us. They fully understand our requirements, and when I ask them for suggestions, they give concise and meaningful answers. I’ve also very much appreciated the YouTube videos they produced.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This is minor, but they could improve their web design capabilities. This would help with marketing the product. Other than that, there isn’t much that I can provide in terms of constructive criticism. They’ve been excellent.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want, and they will be honest with you about their abilities. Also, I’m not sure that they’ll be able to develop an app without a preexisting database, so keep that in mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of Expert Access, a marketplace where people can book time to speak with experts in the sports and entertainment industry. We’re currently building our MVP and are looking to launch early next year.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Sloboda Studio?

They were hired to assist us in building the frontend, backend, and admin panel for our MVP.

What were your goals for this project?

Our objective was to have our MVP help us gain customer insights and have something to demo as we raise funds.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We researched different teams overseas on multiple marketplaces. Sloboda Studio’s experience was enough to draw us in for an initial conversation, after which we knew that they were the right team for the project. Since I come from an agency background, I knew that their project managers were listening and offering valuable insight into our conversations.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Sloboda Studio helped us assess the technology to build our platform on, proposing the most advanced and cost-effective languages. We anticipate working with them on all of our future phases.

What was the team composition?

They assigned two project managers and two developers to our project. Our internal team handled all of the UI/UX and worked with their team to get our vision onto the screen.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've managed to get our admin, frontend, and backend up and running. We’re still working towards getting our entire MVP complete, but Sloboda Studio’s work so far has been very helpful for showing our investors that we already have a team in place that knows how to execute.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was great. One of the project managers seemed to be more experienced and helped the lower level manager when needed. They did an excellent job of managing our expectations and driving the project forward by asking questions and not just taking direction. This was very helpful because they had very good insight and valid points regarding the used technologies and how certain features work.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

It’s critical to have technical insight as well as great communication, which they do. Furthermore, their skilled developers were willing to work with us at any capacity.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

They should work on verifying the functionality of a feature before building it. We only had one small issue where we missed the exact functionality that we needed to create.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the co-founders of a content creation company. We’re developing a tool to make it easier for content creators in the media and entertainment industries to collaborate.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sloboda Studio?

We approached Sloboda Studio to develop a basic MVP of our web-based app to show to investors. It needed to be a semi-functional prototype that demonstrated what we were trying to do.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided Sloboda Studio with UI/UX mockups as well as an initial prototype to start. Their team implemented the UI design into the prototype using React. Afterward, they developed the backend functionality as needed using Ruby on Rails.

What is the team composition?

The team consisted of a frontend developer, a backend developer, and a product manager.

How did you come to work with Sloboda Studio?

We found them on Upwork and interviewed them. Because our other co-founder had a lot of technical experience, he interviewed the developers to gauge their Rails expertise and knowledge.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work lasted from February–June 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sloboda Studio’s efforts allowed us to move the product forward, getting to a point where our internal team could proceed with future product development. We were also able to clear up some of our initial design decisions once we started building the prototype. Their team supported us throughout, helping us bring an actual MVP to some of our customers.

How did Sloboda Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Their product manager was responsible for coordinating efforts on the development side and updating us on the project status. The team had excellent English skills, so we had no problems communicating back and forth. They kept extensive notes and Excel spreadsheets to keep track of hours, telling us clearly how much time they spent on certain tasks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their development team and leadership were remarkable. The frontend developers knew what they were doing, and the management was also strong. I even had the chance to meet their founder, who is excellent; he's driving the company forward.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would’ve been beneficial to have a more consistent team. This is partly due to our own budget limitations, but when a developer completes their task, the management can replace them with a different developer to keep everyone staffed. However, it’s challenging to work on a project with a rotating team. Having a dedicated developer stay on throughout the project would've been more conducive.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key. During the development phase, document everything and communicate your point multiple times. It’s better to over-communicate than under-communicate.