Streaver

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Propelicy, and we have a broker management software application that’s used by over 2,000 brokers that sell Medicare insurance.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Streaver?

We were looking for developers to augment our team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Fabián (CEO) augments our software team, and he manages our front- and backend tickets. Our application is built Ruby on Rails, which is a specialty of theirs.

We provided him with all the documentation he needed, and we even prepared a tutorial video explaining the documentation we gave him. We then had an onboarding period for a couple of weeks where we answered Fabián's questions and allowed him to get familiar with our application.

What is the team composition?

We’re only working with Fabián, but we’re likely to add more in the future.

How did you come to work with Streaver?

I found Streaver through Clutch, and I had been introduced to them back in February. They went through an interview process, and we saw their sincerity and willingness to go above and beyond to ensure we’d have a great experience. Moreover, I saw a bunch of open-source documentation they created and translated to Spanish. That was also the time I found that they were passionate about working in Vue.js and Heroku.

I used to run a web development agency years ago so I knew that they were really good. Additionally, they participated in international sales conferences, so they would always be up-to-date regarding the leading best practices for major frameworks for web applications.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve committed to spending around $70,000 up until March 2022.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in August 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been great about bringing forth other services that we could tie into our application. On top of that, their in-depth knowledge base which they’ve been exposed to through other clients has helped them support us better in this project.

In fact, Fabián is the most talented developer I’ve worked with. When he joined us, our working speed has dramatically increased — he has successfully replaced a former teammate, and we consider him to be an all-star power hitter.

How did Streaver perform from a project management standpoint?

They handle the project management side of things extremely well. We use Asana and Slack to communicate, and we use GitHub to handle all of our version control with our codebase.

Since I handle a lot of different parts of the company such as project management, product management, and fundraising, I appreciate that Fabián doesn’t need a lot of handholding. We give him work, and he usually accomplishes it within two days. More importantly, his work has been QA’d when he turns it over to us, making his code pristine.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been extremely impressed with Fabián’s expertise and Streaver’s skills. It’s also the reason why I told Fabián that I’d be happy to talk to Clutch knowing it would help his agency. Above all, they strive to make their customers happy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think they have any areas to improve. I don’t want to throw something out there — I simply can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be familiar with agile concepts such as Kanban or Scrum. You should also be organized in order to document things. On top of that, have a project management system because once you provide them with the tools they need, they’ll just do their thing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an online education company. We do a lot of online classes for kids.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Streaver?

Since Zoom is for the corporate, adult world, it’s not an ideal tool for kids to learn online. Therefore, we decided to build our own online video platform that caters to kids and learning.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Streaver is building our online video platform. It provides a creative canvas with avatars and complete flexibility to embed other content — anything from YouTube videos and Google Docs to interactive elements can be incorporated into the video canvas. Therefore, the content and avatars are all together on the screen, which allows for a rich and immersive experience.

In addition, the online lesson can be divided into chapters so each one has different content on it. The platform also allows the educator to add a script so they can have some hints and pointers for their lesson.

What is the team composition?

I work with the two founders, and then a new engineer joined.

How did you come to work with Streaver?

I was working with another company based in Uruguay, and they were short on engineers. They recommended Streaver to me, and that’s how I found them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our partnership in September 2020. Since then, we’ve worked together on a daily basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, Streaver has done a great job at building the whole platform within record time. They’re not only great engineers to work with, but they also know the technical challenges really well, so we’ve been super pleased. Our work with them has been smooth and efficient. Now, we’re focusing on making it bug-free and working on QA to ensure that the learning experience is seamless for kids and educators.

How did Streaver perform from a project management standpoint?

The project and roadmap are managed internally. We have an internal product manager and designer, and they’re the engineers that help us execute our strategy and scheduling. However, it’s almost as if Streaver’s team is part of our company. They’re very collaborative and communicative. Even though they’re in Uruguay, it feels like they’re working in the room next to us, and they’re always open to feedback.

We work with an agile process, so we have weekly sprints. On Mondays, we have a meeting to define the backlog for the sprint. On Wednesdays, we get together to groom the backlog for next week, and then on Friday, we have a demo. Additionally, we have a retro every two weeks, and the process has worked well. We use Height, which is a new project management app.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I couldn’t be happier with them. They’re technically savvy and great to work with. In my opinion, those two things are what make a great engineer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If we could get their services for less, that’d be great. However, I don’t want to devalue their skills, so I don’t have anything to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should have a clear product vision and strategy to drive the product and process, and Streaver can come in as an engineering team. If you have that, you can be very successful with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Supreme Golf connects golf courses to golfers worldwide, giving golf courses access to data, tools, and technology that maximize revenue and golfers the most extensive inventory of tee times from which to book and play golf.

In association with CBS Sports Digital, Supreme Golf offers the world's most extensive golf tee times inventory, allowing golfers to search and book over 16 million tee times at more than 12,000 golf courses in 41 countries. Supreme Golf's booking sites include Supreme Golf, Golf Book, Barstool Golf Time, Golf Digest, and CBS Sports.

I am the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Streaver?

Supreme Golf was looking for a senior development team to take a lead role for our Ruby on Rails and React development. Leadership, expertise, and dependability were critical.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Streaver provided core members of our Ruby on Rails and React development teams for our consumer marketplace technology. 

What is the team composition?

Streaver was a part of Supreme Golf’s development team based in the U.S., South America, and India. Developers report direct to our senior staff and ultimately our CIO in the U.S. 

How did you come to work with Streaver?

Supreme Golf previously worked with a leading firm in Uruguay, and the founders of Streaver came out of that firm. 

How much have you invested with them?

Over $600,000 USD.

What is the status of this engagement?

Terminated.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

Over three-plus years, a strong, dependable, and communicative team with a mix of senior and junior developers evolved into a group of junior and part-time developers, who were eventually moved to other Streaver projects without an agreed transition plan or sufficient notice. 

How did Streaver address the challenges that arose?

Streaver actively thought about our business early in the relationship and provided valuable thoughts and solutions to improve the relationship and development performance. Over time communication, proactive thinking, and team expertise dropped off significantly. 

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

Initially, involvement, support, strategy, development, and communication were strong. Streaver was an important part of our overall technology team and performed well. If there were concerns or input Streaver felt could improve performance, they communicated with me directly, the CEO, as there was always an open line of communication. 

Gradually, Streaver reallocated our senior development team to other clients, negatively affecting performance. Once senior developers were in place on other projects, after a three-plus-year engagement, we were provided a 30-day notice that all remaining developers working with Supreme Golf would move to other clients. Though not an acceptable notice period for an orderly transition, there was no flexibility in the deadline.

How was project management handled?
Supreme Golf handled project management with input from Streaver.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?
 
Their senior developers are competent and were valuable when a part of our team.  

In what specific areas can they improve?

U.S. firms that use the services of offshore developers require high-level knowledge and expertise. Still, it is equally important to trust that our selected partners are honest and open in their communication and always have their client's best interests at heart. At times, developers lose sight of this, and partners become numbers. 

Developers will undoubtedly need to move to other projects or leave the consultancy over a long-term relationship. In these instances, communication is vital, and ample notice must be provided to bring new developers of “equal” expertise on board. Hence, there is minimal loss in performance and disruption to the client. Filling senior roles with junior and part-time developers alters the team's dynamic and performance.  

At times a consultancy or company may decide to move on to pursue other projects, interests, or expertise. This is acceptable if the proposed changes are communicated honestly to the company well in advance, and a transition plan is approved by both parties to minimize disruption.

Though an integral part of our development team for over three years, Streaver provided a 30-day notice that all developers would be moved to other clients. Such actions show little regard for their client’s business and can be damaging. Streaver must address these deficiencies. 

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Stipulate in your contracts the level of expertise required from developers involved in your projects and a minimum transition period from which developers and the development consultancy can exit your project. Reach out to references and discuss their experience.
 

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on March 30, 2020.

Scott Wallace

CTO, Supreme Golf

IT Services

51-200 Employees

Dallas, Texas

$1,000,000 - $9,999,999

Jul 2018 - Ongoing

Project summary:

Streaver provides ongoing full-stack development services to a tee-time aggregation and booking website, working in Ruby on Rails behind the scenes and helping with a frontend redesign in ReactJS as well.

Feedback summary:

The development work provided by Streaver was incredibly high quality, exceeding all client expectations with regard to both aesthetics and functionality. Their team is flexible and open to tackling various development challenges and works hard to deliver all project milestones on time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are Supreme Golf, which is the largest tee-time aggregator in the world. We bring together multiple sources of tee-times and allow the consumer to pick and book those in real-time. I am the CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Streaver?

Our platform is based in Ruby on Rails, which is one of their areas of expertise, so they have helped us with a lot of the development of our core product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The current project we’re working on is rewriting the whole frontend in React, and they have been at the forefront of helping us determine the project’s scope, timeline, and implementation. They primarily work in Ruby for us, but as soon as I brought their team onto this part of the project, they have been able to drive the direction of where this is going as well.

Beyond just the plan for the frontend itself, they have also helped us to engage in the security positions that we deal with on all fronts, identifying any areas where we are lacking, as well as answering all of the questions that we have

What is the team composition?

There are a handful of people working on our account from their team, but we primarily deal with the owners of the company directly.

How did you come to work with Streaver?

When we first started looking for partners in Uruguay, we gave them online testing to make sure that they had the skills to deliver on the work that we needed. Their team tested the highest out of anybody we worked with, so we didn’t hesitate to partner with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first started working with them on the Supreme Golf project in 2018, and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Honestly, the biggest result of their work is that I get to sleep at night. I don’t have specific metrics to show the result of their work, but they have contributed significantly to all of our most core products and processes, so it’s unlikely we would be where we are without them. We have been totally pleased with their service and the quality of work that they deliver every single time.

How did Streaver perform from a project management standpoint?

They really go above and beyond in communicating. These guys are not afraid to push back or just tell us how it is, including if there are any issues that we need to deal with right away. A lot of places will pull punches in order to try to keep your business, but these guys tell you the truth and then help you fix the problem, which is a much better approach.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I trust them completely, and they are part of our team. I have no issues bringing these guys on board to deal with anything because I know they can handle anything I throw at them.

It’s really tough to find quality development people who are just as engaged in the work as you are, but Streaver is right there with us, whether it’s at midnight or six in the morning. They prove that they have both excellent skills and a work ethic that surpasses most dev shops in the United States.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’ve been nothing but happy with the quality of their services.

RATINGS

Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Operations of a non-profit company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We offer education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach programs to support the architecture profession and enhance its public perception.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Streaver to accomplish?

• Ensure smooth development and maintenance of our operational products
• Technical advisory for most of our operational products

SOLUTION

How did you find Streaver?

Referral

Why did you select Streaver over others?

Good value for cost

How many teammates from Streaver were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Streaver has been taking care of all our product maintenance which include development, maintenance, infrastructure upgrades etc.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Making sure all our product are operating 24/7 without any hindrance.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Streaver has been a very reliable team. They have always performed above and beyond on their deliverables. The team members are cross trained and very skillful. They are always open for new task and assignments. Their problem-solving skills have been incredible.

What was your primary form of communication with Streaver?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They not only solve the problem but also provide in depth solutioning on the issues.

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

It's been great working with Streaver.