Risk Assessment Software for Solar Projects
- Custom Software Development
- $10,000 to $49,999
- May 2016 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 5.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"[S]uccessive has been more reliable than my in-house staff."
- Energy & natural resources
- Santa Barbara, California
- 1-10 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
Successive provides assistant coders for an ongoing platform project and for an engineer's consultancy firm. The LAMP stack platform generates risk reports using financial data and energy system modeling.
Their architecture insight increased software usability and maintenance ease. Their resources get up-to-speed in a day, fix bugs overnight, and go out of their way to communicate and connect. They display refreshing ownership of each project, and their skills inspire confidence and recommendation.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I run my own consultancy firm, but I was also a director of a fintech company in the solar industry.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with Successive Software?
With the fintech company, we were building a platform from scratch, replacing legacy software that was somewhat outdated. I was the technical lead of that project.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
I started the work and brought in their team a month into it. They did the work more or less from scratch. We built the platform on the LAMP Stack (which consists of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP), and used Laravel PHP as the framework of choice.
The finance application performs risk assessment for solar commercial projects. For example, if a $5 million solar project needs bank funding, that bank needs assurance that there will be a high chance of success. Our platform looks at the company’s financials and models the solar power system. It then calculates how much output the system will have, how much the total cost will be, how long it will take to build, and so on.
It then generates a report the bank can rely on to determine whether it will fund the project or not. It’s a matter of measuring the potential success of a solar project before beginning construction. It helps identify potential problems that would keep the bank from funding it.
They also do projects for my consultancy firm.
What is the team dynamic?
I've worked with 2–3 different developers from their team over the course of a year. They weren’t finally in charge of architecture. I was the main engineer of the project, while their team acted as assistant coders.
How did you come to work with Successive Software?
I posted a job ad on Upwork, and they applied, along with 10 other companies. I sat down and interviewed 5–6 of them, and Successive stood out from that group.
I have a lot of experience interviewing people, and they were on-point—I got a solid answer for each question I asked. The pricing was reasonable, the service level was high, and they took a lot of responsibility. They proved knowledgeable in the Laravel framework. They even came up with solutions I hadn’t thought of, in cases where they had more experience than me.
How much have you invested with them?
Totaling all the work they’ve done on the fintech project, I’ve paid them around $30,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in May or June 2016. The platform is an ongoing project, and it will never actually be wrapped up. I plan to hire them again in 1–2 weeks.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
They added a number of useful functionalities. Their architectural decisions made it much easier to maintain the software and significantly increased its usability. I had a solution to implement, but they pushed back with a different strategy that ended up working much better. Their solution enabled me to track the workflow of the software in a completely different fashion and solve many of the problems inherent in my architecture.
I’ve worked with outsourced software services for at least 10–15 years, before sites like Upwork were available. I’ve never come across someone this reliable, especially in India. I genuinely believe that they’re very good—always on-point and very skillful. And that’s not simply to give them a good review. I’m an engineer myself, so it’s easy for me to measure their code quality and work ethic.
I’ve connected them with friends and other companies I know. They’ve used Successive’s services and have also been very happy.
How did Successive Software perform from a project management standpoint?
They are responsive. Even after the project was done and we hadn’t talked for a month, one of their employees let me know that he would be unavailable 10 days in advance. He didn’t need to report to me, but he wanted to make sure I knew in case something came up. That’s a level of care I don’t normally see even from full-time staff, let alone from an external provider who was done with the job. It demonstrated a certain responsibility for their projects, which I appreciate.
We have 2 daily check-ins—one in the morning and one at night. At the end of each workday, they push the code to a domain repository, where I see how much they’ve completed. We communicate equally through Skype and project management software (JIRA in this particular case).
I don’t want to hold the time difference against them, but it’s not always pleasant to wait until 10 p.m. my time to have a conversation. It’s usually easier to interface with people locally than across the globe. At the same time, Successive has been more reliable than my in-house staff.
What did you find most impressive about them?
I’ve found them to be dependable—I paid for what I needed implemented. If 2 weeks passed and I found a bug or an issue I wasn’t happy with, they fixed it free of charge. Bugs happen to everyone, but their response times make the difference. Two or three times in the year I’ve worked with them, I’ve found a bug outside of office hours, and they’ve worked overnight to repair it by the next morning. That’s another example of the responsibility they take for their projects.
Their resources also got up to speed surprisingly quickly. I’m used to people needing a couple of days to become familiar with a project before they start coding. Every time a new resource joined the project, he’d start coding right away, and I’d begin to see implementations within the first day.
As a last example of their dedication, one of their engineers had a meeting in San Francisco. He actually flew to Los Angeles to meet with me just to sit down and have a cup of coffee. We’d been working together for a couple of months at this point, and he wanted to meet in person. This was a nice gesture, especially since it involved a cost on his end.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I can’t think of anything they could be doing better. In fact, working with them has actually given me more confidence to take on projects personally. I recently took on a pharmaceutical app with a scope that’s a bit bigger than I alone could deliver in the given timeframe. Without even checking with Successive, I knew I could use their resources and get the project done in sufficient time. I know that they can deliver and that I can work with them to achieve what needs to be done.
Do you have any advice for future customers?
Be aware of the time difference when engaging in a partnership of this kind.
RATINGS
-
Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
-
Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
"They’re always on time, even if it means working overtime. They never missed a deadline."
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Cost
5.0Value / within estimates
"They’re not the cheapest, but we get what we pay for. I’d rather pay them $20 per hour than pay someone else $12."
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
"I have recommended them to friends and colleagues.
