STX Next

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of US Preventive Medicine

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

U.S. Preventive Medicine, Inc. (USPM) is improving the quality of life and health of our members — combining health coaching, chronic disease management, and the latest technology to prevent illness and improve overall well-being.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire STX Next to accomplish?

• Mobile and Web application development
• Improve application performance
• Support ongoing development operations

SOLUTION

How did you find STX Next?

• Online Search
• Other

Why did you select STX Next over others?

• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from STX Next were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Designed, architected and developed our mobile and web platform on a ongoing basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

1. Meet or exceed performance metrics.
2. Keep budget stable on an ongoing basis.
3. Provide support for application operations on a as need basis.

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

With STX we have hired a project manager from their team which helps coordinate work on their team and ours, working directly with the CTO and leadership.

What was your primary form of communication with STX Next?

• Virtual Meeting

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

We're impressed by their scope of abilities and responsiveness.

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

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Data Engineering, Product Analytics of an other industries company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We offer a portfolio of B2B security tools and services ranging from cloud security, application security, managed services and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire STX Next to accomplish?

• Support our Data Engineering team during hiring
• Help us build scripts to stabilize our Analytics tooling security

SOLUTION

How did you find STX Next?

Referral

Why did you select STX Next over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from STX Next were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Building out the enterprise data lakehouse, core data systems, security processes

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Timely delivery of projects, stabilized security posture

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

Yes teams were responsive, highly skilled, great communicators and delivered projects in a timely fashion

What was your primary form of communication with STX Next?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The level of customer service and quality talent is unmatchable. The team at STX Next is willing to be flexible and work with you to meet your customized needs.

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

n/a

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Media Technology Director of an advertising & marketing company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Advertising technology, from process automation to AI innovation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire STX Next to accomplish?

• Product Design
• Product Management
• Engineering (BE & FE)

SOLUTION

How did you find STX Next?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select STX Next over others?

Customer Service
How many teammates from STX Next were assigned to this project?

19
Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The ongoing project is an enterprise-grade campaign governance platform. Key deliverables include: 

• frontend infrastructure
• product design (including UX/UI)
• backend engineering (including Google Cloud Platform infrastructure)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Successfully delivered software which led to adoption of it inside the company and subsequent project growth.

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

One of the most prized aspects of STX Next for me has always been the custom service. Any questions have been resolved immediately, team satisfaction is always ensured from their end, and I've always been given the best people, knowing that my project is understood perfectly well.

What was your primary form of communication with STX Next?

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

So far, I am immensely impressed by the AI and product design capabilities.
Are there any areas for improvement or something STX Next could have done differently?

N/A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Global Wh Manager of Boart Longyear

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

sale mining equipment and spare parts

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire STX Next to accomplish?

• Receiving app implementation
• shipping app implementation

SOLUTION

How did you find STX Next?

Referral

Why did you select STX Next over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from STX Next were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

receiving app be able to implement the use of tablets to do our receiving process connected to oracle

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

use of receiving app

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

slow process

What was your primary form of communication with STX Next?

Virtual Meeting

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

They were able to build a program based on our needs.

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

provide better lead time of the project schedule

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Owner of a software company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

App for airline employees

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire STX Next to accomplish?

• Grow the team

SOLUTION

How did you find STX Next?

Contacted us

Why did you select STX Next over others?

Pricing fit our budget

How many teammates from STX Next were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Development of our NextJS web app

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

N/a

What was your primary form of communication with STX Next?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

N/a

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

STX next pulled our developer from the team after 3 months because he was needed for another project of a bigger client and hereby, they breached the contractual notice period.

Company Responses

The vendor responded on July 17, 2024.

Thank you for sharing your concerns regarding our recent project together. I apologize for any inconvenience caused by the changes in our team composition. I would like to provide some context and address the issues raised.

We informed you with almost two months' notice, significantly more than the one month required by our contract, that the developer would need to transition to a different project. To ensure a smooth handover and maintain project continuity, we proposed that the developer remain on the project at 50% capacity for two months, while another senior developer joined full-time during this period. We estimated a two-week handover time, and you were billed for only 1 FTE for both months despite the increased resources allocated.

Regarding the contractual agreement, our legal team clarified that the contract stipulates the provision of a service rather than the involvement of any specific developer. While we understand there was a disagreement between our legal interpretations, we aimed to provide a solution that minimized disruption to your project.

We proposed the following to address your concerns:

1. Payment for the December invoice, as the work was already completed.
2. A 35% discount on the January invoice.
3. An additional discount on the first invoice upon resuming cooperation, which you indicated could happen in six months.

We regret that our efforts to resolve this issue amicably did not meet your expectations. We value your feedback and are committed to improving our service delivery. Please feel free to reach out if you would like to discuss this further or if there is anything more we can do to address your concerns.

Thank you for your understanding.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product owner of an engineering company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

radar engineering

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire STX Next to accomplish?

• web predevelopment
• development of web mvp
• development and maintenance of first year of releases

SOLUTION

How did you find STX Next?

Online Search

Why did you select STX Next over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from STX Next were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

provinding a concept for a web based configurator. developing this concept as an MVP. After MVP proof of concept a proper user application was developed and released. after release maintenance and more development was delivered.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• delivering concept. 
• makeing MVP. 
• delivering first release and improving the release

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

when project manament was with stx next they deliverd usually on time and if we requested short notice changes they tried everything to still deliver the requests on time

What was your primary form of communication with STX Next?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

No matter when and who you asked for help, they stopped what they were doing until the issue was resolved.

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

I can not name a single thing I would have wanted to get more off.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO and Founder

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire STX Next?

We were starting a software company and required some assistance of putting together some user flow and UI interfaces

What were your goals for this project?

A helpful presentation and UI design project for our team.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Reviewed a number of vendors and clutch.co reviews as well. Ultimately, my friend gave me the recommendation to this team.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

UI details and project design for our software.

What was the team composition?

The team on their side comprise of 1 head of UI and 1 consultant. Other members we interacted included two software engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We ended with a very good working document that lend itself to our internal customer and investor presentations. It also gave us some ideas around the backend development.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was primarily managed through weekly calls and emails. No software GitHub or Asana needed. Our calls were through Google Hangouts.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They're a very good design team with a strong understanding of the startup world. They also spoke perfect English which made the conversation very clear and effective.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The costs seem a bit high for some of their services relative to peers. That being said, great service and great end product.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Lifestyle

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire STX Next?

Outsourced developers

What were your goals for this project?

Transformation roadmap

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Used before

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Roadmap delivery

What was the team composition?

Python + angular

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have implemented key areas thanks to them.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We do the project mgmt and we have an account manager. works well

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are a responsive team.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None - we work collaboratively

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

A data analytics based company, providing data analytics and insights in both a B2B and B2C manner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire STX Next?

Technical debt work and devops

What were your goals for this project?

We hired STX Next to help without technical debt moving us to latest Python and Django versions and ultimately get our backend up to date for a migration to a react.js front end.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We selected this vendor based on their reviews here on Clutch, so we thought we best give back to the community and provide our feedback.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Migrate from python 2.7- python 3. Migrate to latest version of Django. Reduce technical debt of all backend to enable us to focus on a react migration.

What was the team composition?

1 Backend developer, 2 Devops and a Project Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Unfortunately, I am here to report that the project was not a resounding success. Costs ran away from us and we are still cleaning up a lot of issues after we ended their engagement with us.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was ad hoc at best. Multiple times I was asking their PM for updates with nothing back. Also, we were sold on a final terraforming project, which was not fit for our purpose.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their backend developer was very good, he worked tirelessly to fix the backend of the system. He was very accountable and responsive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Communication, and properly qualifying project requirements before going down that route. As businesses, we do not want "yes men" we want to be challenged if a particular path is not correct or not fit for purpose.

The terraform project has had to be completely rewritten to be compatible with our react branch. We are still trying to eliminate daily downtime caused by STX next.

UPDATED REVIEW

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of an analytics firm.

This review was updated by the client on August 31, 2020. The original star ratings were: Overall – 2, Quality – 2, Schedule – 2, Cost – 2, NPS - 2 New content is below:

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We engaged STX Next to improve our Django backend, updating it, and removing all of the technical debt. We also engaged them in a data analytics project.

SOLUTION 

What was the scope of their involvement?

For the first project, the goal was to remove technical debt and upgrade our platform to the newest extension of Platnum Django. After that project, their team came to the table again and engaged in a data analytics project for us. They helped to build essentially a machine learning algorithm.

What is the team composition?

I worked with three people from STX Next. It was a tight-knit team, which I preferred because it was a technical project. I worked with a delivery manager, a developer, and a data analytics teammate.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

I originally found them on Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

At this point, we’re probably knocking on $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our collaboration on the data analytics project in March 2020, and it’ll come to a close soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

STX Next came back to the table to rectify the relationship, and they’ve done a good job with the data analytics project. We’ve definitely seen improvements. Their team tried to grasp our technical problems and solve it in the best way possible. While it’s too early to provide quantitative metrics, their work’s promising. They set up a framework for our data analytics to improve and evolve going forward.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

There was clear communication about their progress and availability. They sent routine emails, and we had meetings. As we worked across different time zones, they often recorded video presentations of their progress during which their team explained their decisions. Those videos were probably half an hour long and definitely a value add.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their machine learning developer most impressed us. His grasp of the problem as well as his ability to effectively communicate his solutions to us was impressive. While it’s difficult, he managed to communicate highly technical ideas in completely understandable terms.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could schedule more calls. We probably needed slightly more meetings to keep the project moving forward at the right pace.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication’s key to any engagement. Written emails may not be as effective as meetings, especially if you’re working across time zones. If you meet, it’s more efficient than 50 emails back and forth. It would be helpful to hold STX Next to a meeting schedule where you review their work.