SumatoSoft

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of SellBig, an e-commerce platform that allows people to post individual products for sale or create an online store where they can sell their products. Our platform is similar to Etsy, Amazon, or eBay. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SumatoSoft?

I was looking for a company that could help me build an e-commerce platform. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SumatoSoft custom designed the backend of the website using Ruby on Rails, and they used HTML5 and JavaScript to build the frontend. We knew what we wanted the website to look like, but we didn't have anything built for it. I sent SumatoSoft documents that described the look I was going for, and they were able to design and build the website based on my notes. I did a lot of research into what features I wanted on the homepage and the inside pages of the website.

I talked to the project manager—who was my main point of contact throughout the process—and she assembled a team. Once the designer finished a preview of the website, they sent it to me, I approved it, and then they began coding and building the platform. The website is the only project SumatoSoft has done for me, although I’ve hired them twice. The first time I hired them to build the website, and the second time I hired them to add more features, such as blog functionality.

How did you come to work with SumatoSoft?

I searched nationally and internationally for companies that could complete the project. SumatoSoft was able to work for me at an affordable price, which was one of the reasons I chose them.

How much have you invested with SumatoSoft?

I think I have invested $40,000–$60,000 with SumatoSoft.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with SumatoSoft for at least 6 months. We started working together in July or August 2016. The first version of the website was launched in November 2016. I then asked them to build a blog in January, and they finished that in February. We’re not working together at this time. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

The website launched on November 21, 2016. It’s new, but so far we have 46 stores on the website and over 14,000 products listed. Sales are a little low, but they’re slowly increasing. I’m working on improving the sales aspect of the website, but I would say the range of sales is between $500 and $1,000.

We haven't received any fix requests from the website’s users. Most of the requests I receive are about adding more categories so the users can add more items. We have not had any bug issues, crashes, or issues with the website since we launched it, and I’ve received a lot of compliments about the website’s design.

How did SumatoSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m not sure how many people from SumatoSoft worked on my project, but their communication was wonderful. We used Skype and email, and I mostly spoke with their project manager—a great person who worked with me throughout the process. She was always looking for ways to cut costs because I had a small budget. We had a meeting once a week, and she sent me an email almost every day to keep me up-to-date on everything that was going on with the project. Even though they were located overseas, it never felt like it. It felt like they were in the United States because of the constant communication.

What did you find most impressive about SumatoSoft?

I was impressed by SumatoSoft’s prices, especially for the project I wanted to do and in comparison to the quotes I received from a lot of other companies. Also, their communication skills were great; it never felt like a long-distance project. It felt like SumatoSoft was working next door because their project manager was always keeping me updated. Initially, I was afraid of going with an overseas company because they don't have to abide by US law, but I had a good project manager who made it seem like they weren’t an overseas company.

Are there any areas SumatoSoft could improve?

I honestly can't think of any way SumatoSoft could improve. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a start-up that is working on an advertising technology platform that allows advertisers and agencies to create banner ads in the fastest ways without any design knowledge. Right now, it’s just me and my partner, so we have a small team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SumatoSoft?

I was looking for help with the architecture of my website. We don't have those skills, so it was necessary to find outsourced help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had my requirements established when I began working with SumatoSoft, so they went straight into the development. Based on the user stories, they came up with the first MVP [minimum viable product]. Our site includes an admin model; one that allows users to create their own banner ads and an engine tool to record impressions and clicks of the banner. The SumatoSoft team was composed of 3 people: 1 project lead and 2 developers. The CEO sometimes got involved as well, but the project lead had pretty good technical skills. I was mostly in contact with just the team lead, and I liked it that way. It made the conversation easier. They are still involved with me. After the MVP, they continued doing development work, albeit with a smaller team.

How did you come to work with SumatoSoft?

I looked into SumatoSoft to help with our website. I looked at a few of their reviews on the internet and shortlisted 4–5 vendors I might want to work with. I can’t afford to hire my own people, so I needed to outsource people to help with the architecture ad so forth. From looking at reviews, pricing, and quality of deliverables, they had the best potential out of the other companies I looked into.

How much have you invested with SumatoSoft?

I cannot give that information.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since early or mid-2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The solution is live right now, and we already have a few clients. I still need help marketing it, but it’s live and it works. It took about two months to build, and it was delivered on time and within the specified budget.

How did SumatoSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We used JIRA to collaborate during the project. We also have Google Docs and things like that.

What did you find most impressive about SumatoSoft?

They're very customer-oriented. They’ll propose new solutions or better ways of doing things, which is great.

Are there any areas SumatoSoft could improve?

Since we moved into the maintenance status, I’m paying them an hourly rate. That makes it hard to determine the scope and the cost involved.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Widgety is a content provider for the tourism, cruise, and travel sectors. It’s a new way of marketing your content in detail to have it advertised on other websites. We have companies that have attractions and cruise operators put their content on our system and then we allow other websites in search of content to tap into it. I’m the main IT coordinator with the developers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SumatoSoft?

We needed help upgrading and adding features to our existing system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SumatoSoft is our full-time IT company. We have 3 full-time developers from SumatoSoft. They maintain our website, and if any bugs come up, they can investigate and fix them. They provide any new development we want to be done in Ruby on Rails. The first project was the rebuild in Chameleon of one of our old websites, using a full integration of the API from our main platform. That’s what we used to test SumatoSoft to see if we could work with them, and it worked great, so we expanded the scope. They developed new fields and new features on the platform. We worked on a bulk uploader so people could bulk upload events and promotions, so it’s easier to use.

How did you come to work with SumatoSoft?

We tried another company that one of our partners had used but they didn’t work out. I feel that SumatoSoft does a better investigation of what we’re asking for. They tell us how they plan to do a task and ask if that works for us. We chose them because their method worked with us. We could add on new developers as we needed.

How much have you invested with SumatoSoft?

We have spent between $50,000 and $200,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in November 2015 the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I don’t have any specific metrics. We have more clients because our platform is constantly evolving, so people are more interested. We have fewer people contacting us about issues that our previous developer wasn’t willing to fix.

How did SumatoSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

At first, I was just working with one senior developer, but then as we ramped up, they started taking care of project management. We have daily Skype calls to support project flow. They use JIRA for project management and are able to send very detailed invoices. We also use Trello on our side and they’re able to move tasks to JIRA so it’s easier for them to manage.

What did you find most impressive about SumatoSoft?

We have more of a dialog than with our previous developer who was just a freelancer. SumatoSoft is willing to explain things and it helps that we’re working with them full-time. It’s like they’re an employee. They’re willing to admit when they make a mistake and then they fix it, which is rare nowadays.

Are there any areas SumatoSoft could improve?

I don’t think so.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is based in Germany and specializes in developing a software-as-a-service solution that monitors a company's competitors, specifically their social media and content marketing output.

What is your position?

I am the chief technology officer of the company. I am in charge of directing the development of the product as well as coming up with a vision and strategy for our product development team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SumatoSoft?

SumatoSoft acts as our entire engineering team, aside from me and our front-end developer.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

SumatoSoft is developing our back-end system using Ruby on Rails. Specifically, they are in charge of setting up infrastructure, coming up with proposals for implementing faster database queries and everything in between. We engage strictly in development work with SumatoSoft.

How did you come to work with SumatoSoft?

My cofounder and I called up numerous companies in Belarus, Ukraine, and Bulgaria, which offered development services, SumatoSoft being one of them. We found most of those companies through Google searches. SumatoSoft had had high reviews and their engineers seemed to be smart, respectable, and decent people. They've done a fantastic job since we hired them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The annual cost of their services is estimated to be $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

There is no end-date to our collaboration. We feel that SumatoSoft is a part of our team. They work 40 hours per week for us and are included in all of our team-wide standup meetings. We started working together in the middle of January 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

It has been a very successful move on our part. We hired SumatoSoft for a few reasons, the main one being that we knew we needed more engineering muscle, and we needed to obtain it fast. It was important to me that we didn't compromise the company culture. Whomever we hired needed to be cooperative with other departments and generally pleasant to be around and to speak with as well as to have a concern for the team. SumatoSoft ticked all of our boxes, and I'm very happy that we chose them.

How did SumatoSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

The level of quality for our product has skyrocketed since SumatoSoft has come onboard. They brought a lot of experience and expertise, at the same time finding creative solutions for us. We encountered the need of having quickly accessible numerical data. I had my own ideas about this, but I asked SumatoSoft for their opinion, which proved to be the best route. I've been very happy with their output. The feeling of quality and polish in our product is beyond quantifiable metrics.

What distinguishes SumatoSoft from other providers?

I never discussed this with the head of SumatoSoft, but I've had the impression that he makes an effort to select good, pleasant resources for us. In the software development world, it's easy to find cowboys and generally arrogant people, but SumatoSoft has a very humble team, and they've been very compatible with our company.

I'm very impressed with SumatoSoft's ability to recruit talent. From what I've determined, they don't have a giant pool of engineers. They're very selective in terms of who they bring onboard, which reflects in the quality of their work and how they collaborate with each other. They want to do a great job and working with SumatoSoft has been an absolutely positive experience.

Is there anything SumatoSoft could have improved or done differently?

I can't think of anything. My relationship with SumatoSoft is maintained through the three resources we have there. They've all been great, along with the head of their company.

BACKGROUND

We have a crowdfunding startup that connects entrepreneurs and allows them to help each other get funding. We want to improve the world of small business. Crowdfunding is becoming more popular and regulations and developments in the community are fluid.

The two founders of the company are trying to build the company with a technology team's help. The core of the company is the web platform that must be monitored 24/7. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

We needed an expert agile web development team from any geographic location to support us and build out the platform. We needed something that was robust, reliable, and would scale. We needed to interview teams and make sure we were confident in their abilities. I also need to mention that we need tons of functionality to do financial transactions and connect people socially.

SOLUTION

We had a rigorous process to interview firms around the globe. We used Clutch because it had fantastic independent reviews that we could trust. I want to mention that we used the Clutch review process, and it was spot on to pick SumatoSoft out of a list of five short-listed companies.

We loved the SumatoSoft leadership team and trust their honesty and good values completely. They are a great technical team that handles agile development and many languages in fantastic fashion. We trust them fully and want them to build out our platform for years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Sumatosoft is great in every regard including costs, professionalism, transparency, and willingness to guide. I think they were great advisors early on when we weren't ready with a fully fleshed idea that could go to market. They know the business and startup scene as well globally.

They did a great job hitting cost estimates and are a bargain for quality. They also helped our business concept greatly. We are confident in our plan and future in the hands of SumatoSoft.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a professional social network for online marketers. We're similar to LinkedIn, but are a more exclusive community, aimed at specific professionals.

What is your position?

I am the co-founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SumatoSoft?

We needed development work for our site, which we could not do alone because we don’t have the technical skills. We wanted to find a cost-effective solution so we decided to find an offshore provider.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

SumatoSoft developed custom software for us using Ruby on Rails, working on both design and coding. They based their work on our specific requirements and the beta version of the site, which had been developed by a different firm.

We've worked together on a single project. It is a complex task with many functions.

How did you come to work with SumatoSoft?

I searched for development companies and made comparisons between different options in the US, Great Britain and so on. SumatoSoft was far less expensive than most other alternatives and they seemed to offer great value for the price.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total cost of the project so far has been $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first stage of development has been completed. The site is online, and we're continuing to add features.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The website is working well at this moment. Since launching the new version of the site, the traffic has doubled. Our users haven't experienced any technical issues and are generally satisfied with the website.

How did SumatoSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Delivering on time is important to me, and SumatoSoft has been great in this respect.

What distinguishes SumatoSoft from other providers?

Our previous development collaboration was a disaster, but working with SumatoSoft has been completely opposite. They really know what they're doing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is an e-commerce content marketing platform.

What is your position?

I'm the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SumatoSoft?

We hired SumatoSoft to perform specific feature upgrades to our site.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Our e-commerce site is built with Ruby on Rails. We had to look at existing code, retest, recheck, and do a whole bunch of QA [quality assurance] for it. We first had to improve the reliability of the existing features. Once we felt comfortable with them doing that, we requested that they add some features that we needed, and that has turned out reasonably well so far.

How did you come to work with SumatoSoft?

We have been working with a bunch of U.S. developers, but we found that they are way too expensive and not that good. I interviewed companies in Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and India. SumatoSoft was part of that mix, and we decided to give them a try. The other company wanted two months of code review, which didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We're in the range of $10,000 to $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The most recent milestone completed was last night [August 2015], and we're still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I don't have any real statistics to share with you. The system is much more stable now that we are working with SumatoSoft. We've added a bunch of new features that we really needed, and we're now in a much better position to generate revenue.

How did SumatoSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

For the most part, the work has been reasonably good. I am doing a lot of the QA right now, just because it's the only way to see how good they are. We've had a few hiccups but, for the most part, it's been reasonably OK. When we did have an emergency, they responded within an hour. The system is something that has to be up and running 24/7 because it's running ads, and I'm hoping that they can provide emergency support going forward. We haven't talked about that with them yet.

What distinguishes SumatoSoft from other providers?

SumatoSoft was the only company that listened to me and didn't think it was necessary to do a code review. They put a reasonably good engineer on our project, whose English is very good.

Is there anything SumatoSoft could have improved or done differently?

The only issue I'm having right now is I'm up 24/7 because they start working at 1 o'clock a.m. my time. I also wished they did a little more QA. They're reasonably good at QA, but who doesn't want their code to be perfect?

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is an advertising company in Russia that specializes in digital marketing. We provide online advertising services for our business clients. We are primarily using Google AdWords and Yandex Direct search engine marketing. We have about 100 employees.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the head of the optimization department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with SumatoSoft?

We want to create Web-based software that can connect API [application programming interface] to Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and Yandex Direct. The software should accumulate all information from these three systems into one interface. The goal was to create software to manage all ads in one interface.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They do software development for us. The project team included three people from SumatoSoft and two people from our company.

What was your process for selecting SumatoSoft with which to work?

We asked many companies to do a presentation. There were two well-known Moscow companies who bid, but didn't beat out SumatoSoft. We chose SumatoSoft because they wanted to understand our goals more than the others. They created a proposal with very good details, and we could tell that they really cared about the project and were excited to create something new for us. We started to work with two other companies at an earlier stage but SumatoSoft is the best vendor we found.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

It was around $100,000

When was the work completed?

The work is finished and the system is in production. We continue developing the software. It was developed during a seven-month period.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Are you satisfied with their performance?

Yes. We are absolutely satisfied.

Is there anything unique or special about SumatoSoft that really makes them stand out compared to other online marketing companies?

They are unique because they help the client reach their long-term goals with great advice. They have a proactive development team that offers regular suggestions. They gave us advice on how to do things better. They also helped our developers learn new methods. It was very good for our team. We understand better now how to develop software.

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

Not really. It was my first big project. I would have done things differently on our side as far as prototyping and testing.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We do workforce development and collect data from external data sources, or we provide surveys for applicants and employees to fill out. Based on that data, we provide insights or suggestions on what people can do based on responses when you take a survey.

We suggest that clients hire or don't hire a particular individual, or potentially collect data to hypothesize whether they want to make the individual a manager or to determine if there’s a chance that this individual will quit sooner or later.

It's a very popular tool. A lot of companies are trying to do this type of analytics for HR [human resources] purposes. We're in Silicon Valley.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am a senior engineer. I operate in two areas. One is selection, the other is insight, and I'm responsible for the selection piece.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with SumatoSoft?

We needed to develop a project that allows us to collect certain public data. In this particular case, we don’t use it because we need to go through the legal hurdles. We have to provide it to some of our science specialists that specialize in industrial psychology. We needed a wall that protects the company from not acquiring data that people don’t want you to acquire.

We need the same workflow that a real person would go through when collecting data. However, we need it in a more automated way, where someone who works in a psychology department can say that they want to collect the data from certain individuals. I want them all to say yes, that it's OK to collect that data. They get a link to go to the project that SumatoSoft developed for us, which says that we are about to collect someone's Facebook data from you if you do two things.

The first is providing me with the information I can use, so we have that information stored. Two, you have to log into your Facebook or give me a link to your public page. This way, we can collect the data from Facebook and we can present it to the scientist psychologist in a much more constructive way than just a Facebook page. The images in the background don't mean anything to me, but they mean something to a person with a Ph.D. in industrial psychology. Therefore, we need to collect that information and provide it in a more visible, easy-to-manage way.

That was the project. They collected the data for us, and they put the workflow in place. The reason we did not develop it with our internal resources is because we were a startup and didn’t have all the resources. Also, this project came in from a different budget, so it wasn’t an engineering resource.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

SumatoSoft developed the system for us. It was a pure development project. As an engineering lead, I didn’t have time to be caught between the industrial psychologist and the developers. SumatoSoft took care of that completely and acted as a product manager. They got the complete specs, developed it, and it's in use now.

What was your process for selecting SumatoSoft with which to work?

I had worked with SumatoSoft and was aware of them already. A friend whom I work with, and whom I regard highly, suggested that they would be fast. This was the preferred way to go because it was quick with the development, and we could quickly go with the launch. That is why we outsourced the project.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

It took about two months of work. We invested less than $10,000.

When was the project completed?

The project was completed in summer of 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Are you satisfied with the results?

Yes. I am very satisfied with the results and the way it went. I would definitely work with SumatoSoft again. We are a complete Java shop, and SumatoSoft specializes in Ruby on Rails.

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

I don’t know since I’m not the end user for the project. SumatoSoft built it for a science team. I was more of a coordinator of the project and made sure everybody understood it. The project works very well, and we're very happy with their work.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other developers?

They are very sharp and have a high-quality team. I expect quality from people, and they have the kind of team I can work with. They were upfront about everything that needed to be done.

I appreciated that the cost of the project turned out to be smaller than what we expected because they made some very good suggestions. They are very pleasant to work with.

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

No. They were good.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We’re an online shop for documents which are automatically assembled. We serve the legal industry.

What is your role and responsibilities, please?

My role is the founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with SumatoSoft?

We needed to create an engine, which would look more or less like a word processor. Users should see the text on screen and they could edit in a few places and answer a few simple questions. In the end, they would get a PDF document. We were looking for people who could develop this engine, and not many firms were ready to do that. The guys from SumatoSoft wanted to do it and it seems to have worked well.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

It was all development work during the project with SumatoSoft. We already had the design and user experience work beforehand.

What was your process for selecting SumatoSoft with which to work?

We sent a project description to around twenty companies, and we received proposals from many of them. We had eight meetings in Minsk with these companies, and we decided to try them.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

In general, we spent around $15,000 for this project.

When was the project completed?

This project was completed in March or April of 2014. We’re testing things here right now, so maybe we’ll get back to work with them on additional initiatives. We haven’t decided yet. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Are you satisfied with SumatoSoft’s work?

We are satisfied. They try to be part of a team, and I think they coped pretty well with that. What I personally liked is that they really took the initiative without going over budget. There were some things that were a bit unexpected for them in terms of their budget, but they never increased it for us, which was good for our partner relationship. They were quite flexible in terms of pricing. We were very comfortable in negotiating with them.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

To be honest, we didn’t have a chance to work with somebody else, so it’s hard to compare. I am happy and imagine they are stronger than most development teams.

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?

I don’t really know right now. Perhaps something will come up during the current testing phase. Currently, I have no criticisms or suggestions.