SoftFormance

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an independent consultant. Originally, I started working as a management and organization consultant, but eventually, I started working on software development projects as a logical software architecture consultant. Currently, I work for CoursPi, a remote-learning school, in this role.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

On CoursPi, we wanted to develop a platform that would serve as an interface between students, parents, teachers, and school staff, including academic and administrative people. Before developing this platform, our data entry had to be done manually, and we used to send enrollment documents via email, all of which was very time-consuming. Thus, this platform would replace our entire workflow to make it more efficient.

For this project, I was the middleman between CoursPi and SoftFormance. I gathered the requirements for CoursPi, translated them into logical interfaces, and gave them to SoftFormance to develop those for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftFormance built our platform. As this was a new platform, we created mockups together. They also showed me demo versions, and I asked for modifications when needed. The main technology used was Django Python.

The idea behind this platform was to transfer all enrollment documents, student files, and interactions between students and teachers into a single place. Now, students can take pictures of the exams, put them online, and have them corrected by the teachers through an online tool.

We’ve also added accounting processing. Additionally, students can create profiles, interact with other students, and more. We’re constantly adding features to the platform.

What is the team composition?

I started working with Vitaliy (CEO), and eventually, a project manager joined to assist Vitaliy. We’ve also worked with 5–6 developers, of which three are still working with us. The others, however, moved on to other projects. The project manager is my main point of contact, and I interact with the developers during conference calls.

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

We found them through an online platform. I went through a lot of platforms, looking for freelancers, and I got several quotes. I had calls with various companies and independent developers.

Before working with SoftFormance, we had one bad experience with an independent developer who gave us a great offer. I sent him all the mockups, and we had some calls to explain what he was supposed to do. He kept assuring me that he would get the job done for the first 3–4 months, but he completely missed the first deadline.

I realized that he’d actually done nothing. He only did a couple of empty pages as a mockup, and he put them online. Luckily, we had hired this person through a platform, so we didn’t lose any money. However, we delayed our project several months, and my time was wasted.

I don’t remember through which platform we found SoftFormance, but when we started talking to Vitaliy, I could see that he was much more serious. He knew what he was talking about. We decided to do a two-month workshop initially, where we had a minimum of two calls per week, several hours long, going into every detail.

Due to my bad experience, I was a bit cautious initially. We didn’t want to pay any down payment to people we’d never met face to face, but we established a bit of trust after that workshop. We set up a monthly payment plan after the workshop, where they’d show us the deliverables month by month. Trust got established, and we started working together on bigger parts of the project.

How much have you invested with them?

The workshop cost around $2,000–$4,000. The first phase of development lasted one year and cost $50,000–$60,000. Additionally, we had some extra requests between 2019–2020, which were all billed individually.

We’ve been on a monthly retainer with them since 2020. We’re paying around $5,000 per month for one full-time and two part-time developers. In total, we’ve spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started discussing the project in mid-2018, and we had the workshop at the end of that year. We had a few more negotiations with SoftFormance, and the actual development work started in February 2019. Our engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product is being used by several thousand students, at least 60 teachers, and a lot of internal staff, and all of them are happy with it. They find issues occasionally, but thousands of people rely on the platform, and it’s working well in general.

The success of development projects isn’t easy to quantify. It either works or doesn’t work, and either there are crashes and bugs or not. Thus, I’m not relying on any specific metrics, and our main concern is meeting the deadlines.

Of course, it is normal to face delays and find bugs, some of which take up to months to fix. However, the client is happy with SoftFormance’s work, too. Sometimes, they get impatient when we have delays, but I keep explaining that those are normal.

Our platform requires very custom software development, so we can’t copy code from other sources, and we need to find and build our own solutions whenever we face a new challenge. There are always surprises and delays, but we try to minimize them as much as possible.

How did SoftFormance perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve had some delays, but that’s normal for these kinds of projects. Even a large developer with hundreds of millions in their budget can be late for a year with a release.

The initial timeline was supposed to be nine months, and it ended up taking a bit over a year. We also had change requests, so SoftFormance is not responsible for that. We use Redmine for task tracking and Gitlab for storing and deploying the software.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can’t point out any specific strength of theirs, but all in all, I’m also pretty happy with SoftFormance. We’ve had some external-caused issues, but they’ve been there for us day and night, even on weekends. This is something I value a lot; they’re reliable and trustworthy, always being there for us when we need them. Additionally, we’ve got the results we wanted.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We all want to get our work done faster, but we have to be realistic. SoftFormance is not slow or anything like that.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to find someone you can trust. On these kinds of projects, clients depend a lot on the people that develop the code. It’s very hard to start working with a team and jump to another one, and it’s also difficult to get people to work on code that’s been done by a completely different team. Thus, take your time finding a reliable developer.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner and co-founder of Guru Digital, a digital marketing and advertising agency in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We primarily work in the lead generation space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

We are a pretty small advertising firm, and we needed a company to help us build up our online automation capabilities to serve our clients better.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftFormance is building up our development stack — they’re helping us remove manual tasks and implement automation into our business. To do this, they’re building a few proprietary technologies and tools for us. 

At the beginning of a project, we set up a small team to set out the project scope and theme. They built out a workshop to dive into the development process and understand every aspect of what we need — from the development side to UX/UI to product promotion. However, we’ve mainly been developing internal products with them so there isn’t much project strategy work. 

After we do a project workshop, they research potential development roadblocks and threats that will slow down our processes. They’ll flag whenever we have to change our product strategy because of issues with third-party API. 

I have a limited background in development, so the SoftFormance team helps determine if my ideas are even possible to develop, integrate, and implement. They do full stack development. On the backend development, they set up the Django database and their frontend development team optimized our UX/UI. 

We’ve built three internal tools with them to automate our marketing and advertising. They built out a calendar app to book our clients that better suits our needs than Salesforce. They also added a proprietary Facebook advertising tool so we can utilize Facebook’s algorithm better to help our clients. 

We’re currently on a fourth project with the SoftFormance team. This project is a performance analytics mobile app where our customers can get push notifications about ad performance changes. This tool will allow us to pull data from and launch ads into over 20 advertising platforms. For this project, they’re going to have to create SDKs for many of these advertising platforms. 

What is the team composition?

We regularly work with 5–6 teammates from SoftFormance — we mostly work with Vitaliy (CEO) and Anastasiia (Project Manager). We’ve also worked with 3–4 developers, including back- and frontend developers and developers that work on project scoping. 

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

We initially found SoftFormance on Upwork, and they presented us with their pitch.

What really sold me on SoftFormance was the organization they had when they pitched to us — I’ve reached out to multiple developers before and they were never as organized as SoftFormance in regards to project tracking. That organization was central to why we hired them. 

How much have you invested with them?

My company has invested close to $70,000 with SoftFormance so far. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in April 2021 and the partnership is ongoing. I see us working with SoftFormance for the foreseeable future. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It has been incredibly easy to integrate the tools they’ve developed for us into our business. They’ve also been helping the advertising community as a whole; they’ve created SDKs for us and launched them on GitHub because the tools they've developed are cutting-edge. 

The calendar software they built has helped us automate appointment scheduling for a solar power customer we have — we were able to integrate it with Salesforce. Now our customers can see bookings in real-time and our customers’ clients can now book their appointments on their phones. 

Before, we were overbooking by 8%, and now we’re at 1%. Each appointment costs us $500–$600, so when you do the math, the calendar app has saved us tens of thousands of dollars within a month. 

The Facebook tool has helped us cut down our overall number of campaigns— we used to need more than 20 campaigns to manage one of our customers’ advertising accounts fully. Now, we can have one campaign and also have control over our advertising spread across different markets. It has reduced our CPA by over 23%. We’re able to manage our Facebook campaigns better — that has saved us a lot of money. 

The fourth project we’re doing will help us run our business better because our customers will have access to real-time performance analytics. 

How did SoftFormance perform from a project management standpoint?

I think SoftFormance’s project management is one of their best selling points.

We have virtual meetings to delve into each project and then they present their development plans in Google Docs and slide decks. They have an online portal on their website where we can monitor how the SoftFormance team is spending each hour and what they’ve been working on. 

They’re also very responsive — I mainly communicate with them over a Slack channel and they respond almost instantly, but that does change because of our on different time zones. Their team makes quick adjustments to products in sandbox when requested. 

Everything was delivered within the scope, but there were some roadblocks from my side of the project. However, even with our internal delays, they could still deliver on time and meet all of our  expectations. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been great partners, so we keep throwing them more work. The execution of each project and how they’re able to achieve what we need is excellent. 

Sometimes there are communication issues with overseas vendors, but I have never had a problem with anyone from SoftFormance.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had to change one of our projects a little bit, and if they had been able to identify the potential user issues with the format it was initially launched in earlier, it would have helped us in the long run. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I work in the service industry, and I know it’s almost human nature to let things slide if there isn't pressure from the client, but SoftFormance doesn’t do that. However, it’s critical to stay on the ball and continue to push for development updates from their team throughout the project. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder & CEO of Ziscuit, a 2-sided marketplace platform that gives shoppers instant savings and provides high-value traffic to grocery retailers

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired SoftFormance to develop our Minimum Viable Product that could scale to 20-25 cities. We wanted a platform that could fully test our value proposition and give us a roadmap for the next build.

SOLUTION

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

We posted our job on Upwork. 50+ firms responded to the listing. We narrowed it down to six firms. We selected SoftFormance because of the team's approach to working with clients. Before they would start development, they insisted on completely a 2-day workshop in which we reviewed our business plan and market tactics with Softformance. After the session, we were aligned on what we needed to do to complete the project.

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

The steps were:

1. Pre-launch strategy session
2. Kick-Off Meeting
3. Weekly Update Meeting
4. Major Milestone Sessions to review deliverables.

The scope of work included:

1. Development of a front-end shopper enrollment module
2. Super Admin Dashboard for managing products, shoppers, and retailers
3. Price Comparison Engine
4. Back-end API interfaces to connect to retailers and relevant data sources.

The server-side was built with: - PostgreSQl - Framework: Python/Django - REST API: Django REST Framework - Resources storage: DigitalOcean The Front-end: - Javascript - Frameworks: React & Redux - Mobile App: Hybrid Approach - ReactNative

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

We worked with three members of the SoftFormance team, including the CEO, a project manager, and a lead developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After the completion of the three major milestones, we were able to demonstrate this to clients and get 1,500+ pre-registered users for our MVP launch scheduled for October 2021.

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

We communicated through several channels in order to keep the project on track, including Slack (where the majority of the project work was conducted), and email. SoftFormance also provides direct access to the PM task tracking platform where I could monitor progress of the work on a daily basis.

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

SoftFormance has a terrific understanding of what a startup needs from both a business and a technical perspective. As a result, SoftFormance can offer solutions that are impactful and that will save the entrepreneur money.

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

I have no recommendations on how to make their service better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and founder of Byteful. We’re new in the market with just a designer and me. We do small and mid-size websites and are moving over to doing types of web apps like IoT, fintech, or general business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

IoT was a new field for us and a new technology in our framework. I didn’t have much experience. I needed someone with more experience in certain fields. I also needed someone to review my code that I was developing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took the technical lead on the IoT web app. They’re doing the whole architecture and deciding on the technologies. I provided them with wireframes and technical mock-ups ahead of time. They also developed some of their own. They chose how to solve it. They also do maintenance. They’re involved deeply in the project.

They used Django Channels. The server pushes information to the client, and he gets updated immediately. Since it’s an IoT app, a machine drives around and sends signals. We can immediately see this in the web app. That’s one of the coolest features they did, which is one of the reasons I hired them because they were already experienced with that.

What is the team composition?

There were two people actively working on the project. One is a developer and the other person manages everything including the communication to do updates. They had a third person if needed.

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

I found them on Upwork.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2015 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

My clients are very happy, and they like that their app is on the cutting edge of current technology.

How did SoftFormance perform from a project management standpoint?

They have one person taking care of the management. They’ve done very well. We use mostly email and their own project management tool. If it’s more complicated, we have a call over Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They try to understand my business. They’re not just interested in coding but are also interested in the business side, developing a concept and consulting before we even start working together. They don’t charge me for that part. They only charge for real work. This really stands out compared to the other companies I’ve worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve how they fix bugs and small tasks. They’re already working on the only problem I noticed with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a website called SocialInsight.io. We’re a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company which provides Instagram analytics and marketing tools for small-to-medium-sized businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

We needed to expand our development team faster, and were looking for some developers who were competent and capable of helping us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftFormance was brought in after one of our secondary developers left for another project. They helped one of our primary developers build out more of the web-based app’s frontend. As time went on, we continued to use them for expanding the development team. If we needed another coder, we would contact SoftFormance and add them to the team.

Everything we have is custom-built. I will typically outline one of the features we want and provide SoftFormance with examples and mockups, after which, they will break those down into actual tasks. I will review those and then the features will be built. Everything is done using Python.

We have a RESTful API and a frontend app for which SoftFormance provided features like post-scheduling for Instagram, allowing users to schedule posts on their Instagram accounts, and have them posted automatically at the dates specified. Other apps require approval, so it’s not really an automated scheduled post. With the help of SoftFormance, we were able to figure out a way for making fully-automated scheduled posts for Instagram accounts.

What is the team dynamic?

Their team is managed by our CTO. We are running two separate projects with them. For Social Insight, we have one dedicated developer and two more for another project.

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

We put out a job on Upwork and Vitaliy [CEO, SoftFormance] applied for it. We interviewed him, hired the team for a job, and expanded from there. Vitaliy is our main point of contact.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of their services has been $60,000 to $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SoftFormance around February or March in 2016. The relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On SocialInsight.io, we have over 6,000 users. They think that the app looks clean and good. As with any new software, there will be bugs, but we’re good at addressing them. We can get back to SoftFormance’s developers with issues, and correct them.

How did SoftFormance perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a very good project management system. SoftFormance is organized—it’s easy to see what they’re working on and how it’s being prioritized. They have a project management tool where I can make notes and add specific features through it. Outside of that, for general communication and questions, we use Slack. SoftFormance provides high-quality work, and they’re fairly consistent with schedules.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the things they do well is to hire good programmers. Vitaliy is a good programmer, and because of that, he is able to source other talented people since he knows what that looks like. This ends up translating into a good experience for us and the end-user.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This isn’t something they can really change, but the large time difference between us and SoftFormance has been the hardest challenge. Their communication is good, but it would be nice to be in closer time zones.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the IT administrator of GRYPS Offertenportal AG. I am in charge of IT in general, as well as website projects. Our service consists of connecting clients with suppliers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

They have been helping us develop new projects for our website. We had a supplier directory for which we wanted a better user experience and more functions, allowing clients to search for suppliers based on their region, and have better matching.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftFormance reworked our old directory, and everything related to it on the backend, including the supplier forms, the filters, and the algorithm. Clients can now be matched with suppliers in their city. We are using a Django CMS [content management system], on which this directory was implemented.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked with 2-3 people from SoftFormance’s side.

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

We searched for developers on Upwork, had an interview, and initially gave SoftFormance a small project. We then started bigger ones, like the directory.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of the project was between $100,000 and $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SoftFormance in July 2016. The project had some delays on our side, because of server issues. It was completed in September of that year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They understood the project quickly, and asked questions when it was needed. SoftFormance also made improvements over some of our processes, and generally managed the process well. There were no delays on their side, only on ours.

In addition, our page views have increased significantly after the deployment in April. In the last year, the amount of traffic has more than doubled, and we went from receiving no leads to 15 leads. 

How did SoftFormance perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication was done using email and their ticketing system. I had access to the full task list.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been very helpful whenever we had any problems outside of the project. The communication is quick and simple, and their knowledge is solid.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were some small parts which I initially thought would look different, but I never specified them, so SoftFormance built them their way, basically. The final result was okay, so I have no criticisms.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

iHoppers.com is an online booking platform for holiday/leisure activities. It's pretty much like GetYourGuide, but of course, we are smaller in terms of scale and number of staff. It was a small business we started about six years ago, part-time, and now we are doing it full-time. I am a co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

I found SoftFormance on LinkedIn two or three years back, and they have helped me with some fixes on my old website. This year, we contracted SoftFormance again for the redesigning of our website. It's a Python website. We used to have some local IT person to help us with the website, but we were not very happy with them; they were really slow. Since it was built using Python, I decided to look on LinkedIn to see who else can help us with the website. I was quite lucky that I found them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I think that when we had our old website, it was done very badly. Vitaliy [Podoba], who is the CEO of SoftFormance, stepped in and helped us fix a lot of the bugs that affected the speed and searchability of our website. As a result, we have more visitors, and the website works better with fewer bugs. Of course, there are always going to be some bugs, but he fixed a lot of the stuff. That's why we contacted him again earlier this year to help us with the redesign of our website. We want a different look and structure for our business. We were very worried about the SEO [search engine optimization] and if a drastic change was going to affect it, but everything seems good at the moment. We're still getting the same number of visitors, if not more. We're very happy with his work and his team.

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

I found SoftFormance on LinkedIn. We are based in Spain, and they are based in Ukraine. We haven't really met, but I requested a Skype call. That's how we get the face-to-face chats. We told them our problems, and they seem to be very fluent with responses. Vitaliy didn't take things as they were. Rather, he really thought about our problem, analyzed it, and gave us a better solution than we asked for.

How much have you invested with SoftFormance?

We have invested $25,000 to $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in January [2016] and are currently still working on maintenance of the site.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Because the redesign just finished in May 2016, which was a few months ago, I wouldn't be able to provide very quantified measures of success. Part of our work here is SEO-like, so whether or not we are going to get penalized by Google for changing so many things on the website, I would say things have been good. At the beginning, it dropped a little bit, but Vitaliy has helped us look at whatever SEO errors we have, and we fixed that. The site is running very well and faster than before. Obviously, we have improved the look of the website, as well. Before we had high bounce rates because our website looked dated.

What did you find most impressive about SoftFormance?

Their attention to detail is impressive. Vitaliy is very analytical. If I said, “Please do XYZ”, he'd think about it, come back to us, and say, “Why would you like to do XYZ? Maybe you can try ABC.” He does give his point of view and experience from other clients. He gave quite constructive suggestions. He doesn't just follow what we say, and that's what I like about him. He does challenge certain things that we wanted to do, and many times he has a point.

Are there any areas SoftFormance could improve?

I think SoftFormance has accumulated more clients throughout the year, so I would personally hope that Vitaliy is the one who's doing all the coding. I think he started to delegate some of the work to his staff, which is not as perfect as him. He does step in and supervise everything to make sure everything's okay. I think that's one of the things; I'd like him to do everything for me, but obviously they have to grow.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a marketing company for photographers. We identify the right photographers for both private individuals and businesses. For example, if you are looking to sell your house and you’re looking to find the right architecture photographer, you can find them on our site. I’m the founder and managing director of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

SoftFormance built the entire IT infrastructure for this project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I gave them a briefing of what I wanted, and then we built the basic platform to see if the model would digest the amount of images and number of users that I was planning to have. Then from there, we built it up and added all kinds of features to make it look very nice and perform well. In a nutshell, they built the entire IT architecture for us based on our specifications. It was important that obviously, the front-end is also suitable for mobile devices, but we haven’t yet created a mobile app. It’s just a website for the moment, but it also works on iPad and of course on iPhone. It’s not a content management system; it’s a custom-made application based on Django and Python.

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

I found them through their website, really. Also, SoftFormance has a presence on Facebook. I was looking for Django programmers, and that’s how I found them. The funny thing was I had never worked with a Ukrainian firm before, so I wasn’t quite sure what we were getting into. We did a video conference with Vitaliy [Podoba], the Head of SoftFormance, and my impression was that he was just as professional as the US firms that I had worked with in the past. His appearance made a very good impression because he understood what we wanted and he was asking the right questions. I must say we hit it off fairly quickly because I was very surprised. Maybe he even has some English-speaking background in the programming area because it very much reminded of all the other programmers that I worked with an Angular background. They’re very professional; that’s what I liked the most.

It was very American; they promised something and then they kept to it. I have worked with Russian programmers in the past, but they weren’t as reliable regarding timing, I must say. Vitaliy and his team were much better.

How much have you invested with SoftFormance?

It has been in the range of $30,000 to $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Since April or May 2016 and its ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did SoftFormance perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t know how many employees they have, but I had contact with five of them. It always seemed to me that any of them was up to date with what the project was about and what the current issues were, so their internal communication works very well. If I had a problem, even if somebody was out of the office or not available, I could just talk to somebody else, and he knew exactly what I wanted. I found that extremely helpful.

We had a Redmine task management system, and that’s basically the backbone of how we’ve been managing the project. I would enter tasks and issues into Redmine, and they would estimate the amount of work that was needed for that task. Then I would approve that task, and they would get going on it. That has worked very well, I must say. Obviously, I was able to assign priorities to it.

What did you find most impressive about SoftFormance?

Their IT solutions were remarkable. There were several times when I’d set up a task which I thought would take more than a few hours, but they were able to solve it quite quickly and do it with little effort. That I found quite impressive, and I do understand quite a bit about IT, so I was surprised about their solutions. They really know Django.

Are there any areas SoftFormance could improve?

Vitaliy asked me the same question. No, I wouldn’t know anything. He told me before that they are not design people, although I must say that the solutions they have come up were fully in line with what I would’ve expected from a design point of view, so that was perfectly fine with me. No, I’m very happy with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization provides information online for people with addiction problems and their loved ones. We also give access to treatment, including access to rehab clinics or individual coaches and counselors. I am the founder of the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormace?

Initially, I was looking for a developer who could work with Python and PHP. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftFormace has been providing Python programming as well as some server admin for our CMS, which is Python-based. We have milestones and that's been the case for years.

They have 1 to 3 developers on our projects. Usually, one developer is permanently assigned to our project. An HTML/CSS guy would come in when needed, plus another database guy when needed, and so on.

How did you come to work with SoftFormace?

I found Vitaly [Podoba, Founder] back in 2009 on Freelancer.com. I had a piece of PHP code that I put out there as a test for some people and asked them to convert it into Python. This test would basically give me a developer in both languages. Vitaly did it without me having to pay for it. His turnaround was instant.

How much have you invested with SoftFormace?

In total, we’ve paid $50,000 to $200,000 for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2009 before they became SoftFormace. We started with Vitaly and then he brought some more people into the team. They brought together their clients as well, and that's how it has developed. Our work is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We've always accomplished what we set out to do, which I guess is all you want. I don't know if that was a wise thing to do, but what we chose to do was sometimes up to me. It was up to me what should have been programmed in the first place. That said, I’ve never really had an experience with them where they couldn't deliver.

How did SoftFormace perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management deserves an A+.  It's very well managed, otherwise I wouldn't have been working with them for 7 years. It's really almost as if I have to keep up with them in terms of their updates as opposed to the other way around. I don't have to wait for them. It's always the other way around; they have to wait for me to proceed. They provide estimates on all projects before they set out to do them.

I've always led project management from my side. We're mainly using Redmine to communicate. GitHub is another option but we're not using that at the moment. The communication always goes, “if we add this to it, or if we have to solve that issue, then it will push us over our estimate, are you cool with that or not?”

What did you find most impressive about SoftFormace?

They have a certain sense of ethics that I really like. They have optimized the code space. They are very good in what they do, which is Python and Javascript mainly. They run tests for all code and address bugs without markup, so I don't have to pay for bugs. When I say something is urgent, they will get to it within 24 hours usually.

What also definitely adds to the value that they bring is they know all our source code, our code base inside and out. Whenever there was a new developer coming on board, they made sure this developer is brought up to speed so I never have to worry about that. That is another reason why I stuck with them.

Are there any areas SoftFormace could improve?

It’s just that there is not much that they don't charge for, unless there were bugs; sometimes that was necessary. I wish I wouldn't have to pay for certain activities that are not directly coding-related. There was an issue at some point that I had to pay for team meetings that they were having, and there was just no way to attribute those costs to any specific codes. We've changed that now, though. They just add in some buffer.

Sometimes, I wish I would have more of an outsourced CTO experience with them, which is not necessarily the case. I still need to have a CTO to take on that role of leading the project forward. It's not that it's totally outsourced. I'm sure they outsource solutions and sometimes they would approach a project task creatively.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I help customers build applications, put them together, and get them working on the web. We are an ISP [internet service provider], and we have a bunch of different customers, from mom-and-pop to large organizations. We maintain their applications out on the internet, from the bare minimum up to cloud infrastructure, it doesn't matter, whatever it is. I am the Lead Technical Architect.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftFormance?

In this case, we needed some improvements done for a particular customer. We no longer had the in-house skills, and we looked outward to hiring a third-party to help us out. It revolved around a local framework. It's a Python-based framework. It's an older set-up but, they were able to tackle it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

A customer needed some improvements on the old framework, and they did dedicate a particular resource in the process. We worked with both the owner and one of his resources directly over the contract. They were able to fix all the problems and also maintain a bit of support after they were deployed.

How did you come to work with SoftFormance?

Originally, we put a job out on Elance before it was bought. They did a bid. They weren't the cheapest, but based on how they presented themselves and answered the questions; I felt like they had the skills to do the job. We did a few more Elance jobs together and then, from that point on, we've been working with them directly.

How much have you invested with SoftFormance?

It has been between $10,000 and $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We're in contact. There is a bid for another job, but our customer takes a long time to execute. It started in 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

When driving the scope, they were able to deliver exactly what we needed. SoftFormance was very well-organized and handled through the whole process; deliverables, the knowledge, they knew exactly what was going on. It was never a pause in the request or on what was taking place.

How did SoftFormance perform from a project management standpoint?

They provided a job-tracking tool. We didn't have set rules all the time. I let them do what they needed to do. When they were done, we would validate it and then run the results and send it back, not very much interaction was needed. We didn't have weekly SCRUM meetings or anything.

What did you find most impressive about SoftFormance?

A lot of the Elancers we've worked with in the past were third-party outsourcing work. SoftFormance is very professional. They would scope out the task ahead and present it to you. There were no questions about what was going to be done. It wasn't vague. I think being straightforward was a very good thing.

Are there any areas SoftFormance could improve?

No, nothing yet.