SoftHouse

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am Managing Partner & CEO at Target Beauty Consulting. The company develops, produces and distributes worldwide 100% made in Italy beauty products. And we have a lot of brands including Reistill.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Softhouse was hired for e-commerce site development with a couple of goals:

• create easy navigated site with section where you can see all the ingredients and their detailed description
• clean and remarkable design inline with our current vision and mission
• include shop on the site
• B2B internal system, partnering admin system

SOLUTION

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

After research and comparison of several outsourcing companies, we selected Softhouse. They offered good rate prices and very flexible working hours.

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

We agreed on product requirements and expectations from the site. The team presented UI drafts and some technical plan to implement that was approved after a few remarks from the customer side. We highlighted the flow and deliverables, after that the process has started.The scope of the work included project steps as business analysis, market research, UI/UX development, frontend/backend development, setup of infrastructure, support after launch.

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

The team consists of 4 people:

• 2 web developers
• UX/UI specialist
• project manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got a clean converting e-commerce site with a professionally designed brand book, appealing design, above our expectations and seamless functionality. The workflow was excellent.

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

Great, smooth project management and communication overall, we were able to talk to Softhouse at any time through different communication tools such as Telegram, Google Meetings, email, calls, whatever we needed. The Softhouse team communicated frequently and handled tasks with utmost professionalism and excellent English skills.

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

The most impressive thing about Softhouse is how fast they can do their work. As well as the team itself, they were very pleasant to work with, always supportive, responsive, and friendly. It felt like a cooperation with both parties wanting to make something good.

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

Softhouse met all our requirements. Nothing to complain about.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Co-founder of TUM which provides tourist and entertainment services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Softhouse was hired to create a system of tourist places in Ukraine to give opportunities for users to buy tickets and services and earn cashback through the web/mobile application. In the system, the user can also leave reviews about the place and provide services to make rankings and, as a result, influence QA/QC.

The goal of the system is to attract people to visit cultural places through an easy, adaptive, and user-friendly service, share experiences between them, get emotions, and create unforgettable memories.

SOLUTION

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

SoftHouse was selected according to the provided references and recommendations. They have the same vision and understanding of the project. Their approach and ideas were very fresh and innovative, and they gave a lot of advice on the system from the beginning.

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

After the Contract signing, we had a kick-off meeting to discuss all the details and goals, define all the requirements, expectations, and timeline of the project. After each significant module, we had demos to go through the work done so far and discuss the workflow, next steps. The project duration was 8 sprints (with demos), and the design was completed in 2 sprints. TUM available on Web, IOS app, Android app. Project steps:

• Authorisation module with several roles (also social media login - Google, Apple, Facebook)
• Google analytics
• Dashboard for each role for managing places, services, finances, users, etc. (also reports & exports of data from the platform).
• Reviews
• Added payments & discounts & cashback (integration with the payment system - Liqpay)
• Integration with google maps with the ability to add tum places on the map
• AWS Infrastructure

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

I worked with:

• PM
• Back-end Engineer
• Front-end Engineer
• Mobile Developer
• DevOps
• UI/UX Designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I got a high-quality professional product according to my expectations and wishes. Business objectives were met and all parts of the project serve the end goal. We have not gone beyond the budget.

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

The SoftHouse’s Project Manager did his job very well and professionally. He explained everything according to the requests and offered the most suitable solutions, always treated with understanding and suggested optimization options if it was possible.

Communication was clear, polite with mutual understanding and quick response. The workflow was easy, trackable and transparent. Mostly all the communication was through the Telegram messenger and Email. Ticket management was made via Jira. The Project was completed within the deadlines, no delays occurred.

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

The most impressive thing about the SoftHouse is that they work harmoniously. The team is very proactive and collaborative. They care about their client and share the goals to develop a quality, working project. They are experts with the technologies they are working with. They paid attention to my business needs and became a fitting partner in delivering the best solution to my customers.

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

I don't have any comments and/or complaints. I highly recommend SoftHouse, everything has been great so far.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of RSI London Group

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

UKWorks is a job search portal with extended functionality, which includes a customisable CRM system for recruitment and personal features for candidates to facilitate the search, helping compare propositions and ongoing experiences. The most complicated part was within the database management, where we wanted to make it possible to use not only the platform users but personal databases for each recruitment client we will involve.

SOLUTION

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

I selected SoftHouse because they came highly recommended from a trusted source. They had solid credentials to undertake the project.

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

We had a few calls initially to meet and discuss the scope. After the calculations were completed, I decided to move forward with SoftHouse's proposal. From the first stage, we had requirements defined - verbally and in writing with the suggestions for the technical design, which was great and made the process much easier for me as a client. It was helpful to have a well structured technical definition as a free bonus after initial touches and before the actual contract is signed.

We started the flow from design fresh-up, since I came with some materials from the previous vendor and system architecture that was migrated from the papers to code and actual development. I’d like to stress a clear and well-built delivery flow where the company representative was engaging with refined time management.

Their team would always arrange calls to discuss and propose improvements. We had a demo every 2 weeks (they communicated very well the new scope and delivery, as agreed). I would like to compliment the way SoftHouse delivers services - in the real meaning of 'full-scope', which relieved me from hiring any third party-suppliers for every small task.

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

I worked with a company representative and a tech lead. When it was required, other team members were joining the call.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered a great service, and I was pleased to work with the SoftHouse company. They are definitely my go-to supplier for the future. The most measurable praise I can give is this - the project was delivered even better than I had hoped and on time. It is magic in the tech world ;)

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

The project management was really smooth and engaging. Demos were not the problem for our team, all my colleagues speak good English, as well as the SoftHouse tech team. We had no issues with getting and analysing information from each other. I like that SoftHouse invoices monthly, without any prepayments, and the management team is helpful and understanding re various circumstances and can adjust their monthly invoicing to suit your monthly budgets.

I could always clearly see the payment vs work done development. All the communication was in Telegram and via e-mails which were convenient communication tools for me.

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

They did not just write the code, they helped me to structure, optimize and prioritize things for the product delivery. I had a lot of support on 3rd party systems I needed to configure and validate before the start (like PayPal validation, etc.).

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

I am very pleased with the services SoftHouse delivered for me.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Product of BPS.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Softhouse to check on our CRM system, fix code and bugs, and add functionality. During the audit phase, it was decided to develop a second version of the CRM system that extends previous functionality and has more features, like integration with the corporate site.

SOLUTION

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

We have reviewed different companies for this role and decided to proceed with Softhouse due to their flexibility, professionalism, client-oriented approach and price.

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

The scope of the work consisted of a detailed analysis and audit of the company’s processes to be automated, system architecture, UI/UX designs, backend and frontend development, data migration, infrastructure setup and maintenance, system monitoring setup. The SoftHouse is also providing support and new features implementation after the release, the tech lead is super responsive and open to the question and help. The main deliverable was to make an understandable user friendly responsive CRM system that will be fully meets our requirements.

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

The Softhouse team allocated for this project development lead and engineers with specific skill sets, and UX/UI designer. Specifically, we work with 3 engineers, an architect and 1 UI/UX designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Softhouse deliver the high quality custom CRM system which improve our internal workflow and automate a lot of processes. They have offered amazing support that encompasses the entire project.

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

Customer and project management style at Softhouse has been outstanding. They took the time to understand photo industry business needs and technical needs. They are also professional in overall administrative processes for time tracking, billing, account management. There were no delays, sometimes the team completed tasks ahead of schedule. We were communicating with Softhouse through messengers as Telegram, email and in person.

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

Softhouse strength is their highly talented team with a variety of different skill sets, their flexibility and custom oriented approach. Clear communication and quick response are also their strong sides.

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

No, I think Softhouse performed great on the project. I enjoyed working with them and I will come back again.