SoftTeco

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work with different startups.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I serve in technology leadership and management roles for many companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with SoftTeco?

It's mainly to scope and determine certain sets of features. In some cases, full applications and then execute on the implementation side of that. Using them to augment my teams to just get more done faster.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

It was for mobile development and some desktop Web, but all implementation.

What was your process for selecting SoftTeco?

I interviewed a number of offshore teams in different time zones. With each group, I interviewed at least four individuals at each one. I was a co-founder of a startup in Boston at the time. We were going after a market that involved large enterprise companies that are very used to dealing professional services. We had a number of giant Fortune 500 companies that we were dealing with. We were a small company of 25 people.

I took a rigorous approach to qualifying the development shops. I was happy with how SoftTeco performed in the interview process and went with them and developed a relationship with them during a year on 20 projects or so.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative?

The projects this year are smaller. Most of them were $15,000 to $20,000.

When was the work completed?

They've continued to maintain relationships with the companies I've worked with. It's been ongoing work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics on the project?

I did not see this presentation myself, but I did hear from our senior sales VP that there was a big Fortune 500 company that we worked with last year and SoftTeco did all the development implementation for this iOS iPad app. I heard a crazy number that they saved $6 million on that project.

It was a crazy scope for building a generic Salesforce app. They had all these rules. Salesforce didn't do a good job of providing the customized ability and provide for the offline use case that salespeople needed. We built a custom solution on top of Salesforce. I worked with two of SoftTeco iOS developers. Then, it scaled out to eight SoftTeco people. We got it done in an insane amount of time. We did in about four months. Most companies in the U.S. would take one to two years.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

Yes. I wouldn't be doing so much business with SoftTeco if I wasn't. The part that struck me was I was able to connect with their management team and talk about my needs and talk about how those needs would fit in the strategic thrust of the companies that I was working with. They did very well at supporting that need.

My biggest concern was I didn't want to have people coming on and off the projects on a monthly basis. I wanted to build a communication rapport with one or two good development leads and then build a core team around those folks.

We were able to do that. SoftTeco was up against some stiff competition because the CEO of the company – service is his bread and butter from before and he had all sorts of offshore team contacts. I couldn't justify moving to another team because SoftTeco was performing so well and deserved our business.

Is there anything unique or special about SoftTeco that really makes them stand out?

What I liked was that they were highly technical. They put out good work and communicate well.

What advice would you give to future clients of theirs?

This is the same advice I would give to anybody working with offshore teams. You've got to nail down your communication model. How are you going to interact with them on a daily basis so that you can ensure that progress is being made? Just being as transparent as you can about what the goals of the whole engagement is.

Think about why it's this important to you and your company and how can they help the most effectively. Just communicating those goals helps to align the teams. It allows you to be the most efficient. Don't lose sight of the end business goal. Communication is key to offshore engagements.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

They seem to be very focused on front-end development. When I go to them for back-end needs, I often need to go somewhere else. So just having more capacity to deal with those back-end problems would help clients greatly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We partner with a limousine company down in Florida. One of focus markets is weddings. We had a lady make an app and website for a wedding planner where businesses would go on the website, register their businesses, and then people would download the app and see which services they want to have for their wedding. Eventually, we started doing market research.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the co-founder and had the idea for the startup business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with SoftTeco?

The goal was to build a mobile app. We want to launch in Florida and then go national. It's going to be a free app, but the companies that submit their profiles on the website will have to pay a one-time fee.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They're doing maintenance right now. We're still in beta testing. They added a lot in terms of functionality. We're adding a cost calculator in the app. SoftTeco did a lot research. They developed the website back-end also. They did a payment system.

What was your process for selecting SoftTeco?

At first, we wanted to do the development here in Florida, but then we realized it would cut into our budget too much. Then, we decided to do the design in the U.S. and outsource the development. They offered to send us a design, and we decided to go with that. We started using their design scheme.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative?

It was $10,000 to $50,000 for the website and app.

When was the work completed?

It's ongoing. The functionality is completed, and we started enrolling all the companies that we work with. The app is not available to consumers yet. We hope to have it ready in September or October [of 2015].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics on the project?

I have the project requirements here on my computer. They met our functional requirements that we laid out prior to engaging 100 percent.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

Definitely. They're a great company.

Is there anything unique or special about SoftTeco that really makes them stand out?

They were very keen on starting a conversation about our project. They wanted to understand the business aspects of the app. SoftTeco offered their ideas. We appreciated that. They're great guys. It's a pleasure to work with them. They're very flexible in terms of communication and delivery timeline.

What advice would you give to future clients of theirs?

Get the guys at SoftTeco on board with the business idea. We were surprised they had a lot to offer even though they don't have any background in our business. They immersed themselves in the whole business idea. I would recommend not to shy away from sharing your business objectives with them.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

They didn't understand how important the testing was and how much time it's going to take. We originally thought when the work is done it's done, and we'd have launched quickly on the iTunes Store. We realized there's a lot of work to be done before Apple will accept an app.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

It is a search-based company. We provide a search framework to build an application centered around search information access, data pipes, big data navigation, and so on.

What is your role and responsibilities?

The project is discontinued, but my role was founder and CTO of this company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with SoftTeco?

SoftTeco took was part of our development workforce. We had up to four developers working with us, including Sergey and Alexey, who are two good developers from SoftTeco. 

Please describe the scope of their work.

They were the back-end developers, using Java technology and Spring to deliver our product. They did a bit of design on the front end, but not much. This was five years ago, and we had more back-end strategies required and, back in the day, they were more focused on the Java back-end.

From what I understand, and what Sergey told me, they do more of the front end on mobile apps. I've seen the results, and they are amazing, but I cannot vouch for the front-end results. I can tell that they work very well as far as the back-end [inaudible]. They are good hackers. They get to technology inside out, and they really get down to it.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting SoftTeco?

I don't remember how I originally connect with SoftTeco.

When was the project completed?

The project lasted two years. We had a small ramp up. We started with a single employee from SoftTeco and went up to four, and then we slid back down to two. Then, we sold the company, so we ended our collaboration with them about two years ago, in 2013.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative?

It was in the range of $200,000 on a yearly basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project?

We were very satisfied with their performance.

Do you have any statistics or metrics on the project?

I don't have metrics and statistics because when we were acquired, they acquired the intellectual property and everything that was around with it, so I don't have access to these things anymore. I can tell you, the general feeling is that they are really good.

The only downside is very much in the Belarusian mindset – their boss, or whoever manages them, needs to be on top of their game. They don't like to be managed by anyone else, which I think is a positive thing. For me, it was a very positive thing. They're sharp and, if you're not on top of your game, they will know quickly, and they'll be less interested in the project.

Is there anything unique or special about SoftTeco that really makes them stand out?

First of all, they're Belarusian and they have very strong social skills. They love to talk, they love to visit, and to have them visit you and vice versa. So, they're very social, unlike outsourcing in China or India, which is more paper pushing. That's the first thing.

The second thing, again I'm stressing the fact that they're very sharp. If you get them to do a Web page in HTML, and you are just a business manager, and you've never heard about IT [information technology], they will plunder over you. You'll have no idea what's going on. Absolutely no idea.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

The level of English can be sometimes a bit challenging. That's to be expected as I don't speak Russian at all, and they speak at least two or four different languages. So, nothing to point fingers at, but sometimes it can be a bit challenging. Last, but not least, I would strongly recommend them. Working with them is a challenging pleasure.

The two main protagonists that we worked with – Sergey and Alexey – you can find the recommendation online, which I wrote. I cannot find it right now, but they're good. They're really down to the point of how I worked with these guys.

What advice would you give a future client of theirs?

Work with a good project manager and stay on top of the technology that is used. They can acquire technology fast like they did with Java and Spring. As a project manager, you should know what's going on at least as fast as they do.