SynapseIndia

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a billing services company for medical health care. In the past, it has entirely been paper driven, where we collect the routing slips, input the appropriate codes, and upload them for the recipient, primarily in the province of Ontario, Canada. We are making a shift, though, moving towards making an application with a mobile app, which simplifies the process for the physicians to enter that information, and that's what we're using SynapseIndia for.

What is your position and responsibilities?

I am the project leader for the development, so I look after all development activities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SynapseIndia?

We had the initial development done by a company in Washington, D.C. We weren't very happy with them, so we repatriated it through various references to SynapseIndia. I've been working with them now since early August of this year [2015]. We were at the early stages of the development of the system, so we had a beta version available, but there was more to be done within general function and also in the very specifics and the rules behind billing. I've been working with them to get delivery of those particular features.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We have about one and a half people working on our project, not including a project manager. They do have a project manager but, in fact, I have not really had a conversation with that person. We were interacting directly with the developers.

The core technology is the MySQL database plus the PHP front-end. We have mobile apps, which are hybrid, and we use Cordova to configure them for iPhone. It's derived originally from MIT, and Sun Java incorporated with the ones who actually commercialized it. Not many people use it, but since Sun Java is the company that did the development first, we've been using that still. It's an open source technology.

How did you come to work with SynapseIndia?

The owner of this company is a member of the Entrepreneurs Organization. The person who actually is the CEO of SynapseIndia is also a part of that organization. They tend to favor their own members first, so my owner recommended them. I've had conversations with them and talked to them, and I was pleased with what I heard. I parceled up the initial development to be in small enough packages that I could assess their abilities, and that's proven wise.

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

We tend to run about $750 per week. I think we're starting to look at maybe $6,000, so it's not a great deal.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been going through a series of milestones, and the most recent one was last week [October 2015]. We've been reaching milestones, I would say small development packages, once per week on average. It's a rapid development method we're using – very agile.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I don't actually track specific metrics on an administrative level, but I do have them from an overall point of view. I typically want to see a deliverable once every week, and I am achieving that. In terms of quality, since I'm doing the testing, I pretty well have an idea of what I want out of the assistance, so I tend to be pretty happy with what's coming out at the moment. I'm not using other metrics because the team is small enough, and our delivery is not a huge one. We've elected just to go with those simple metrics.

I have to admit, I was more than happily surprised with their work. I've worked with offshore companies before and found that they are typically affordable, but you tend to have to be very careful about how you specify, what you say, and to make sure that when you have conversations, both sides fully understand what's being said. I've had three people work with me from SynapseIndia, and I found that they speak very good English, so I have no problems with misunderstandings.

The second is, they seem to understand what I'm saying fully. They're very capable of conveying their questions and concerns, and they tend to be pretty forthright with areas where further clarification is required. A tendency could be, "Well, you only told me to do this." Whereas they are pretty engaged in terms of the fundamental process by which the application is going to be worked.

There seem to be many festivals going on in their region right now. Of the three developers that I work with, one of them will actually go off and a second will fill in. Their team structure is such that the person who fills in has been doing work on it prior to that, so they're fully informed, the handoff is well done, and there's no drop in pace whatsoever in taking on that added responsibility. I've been pretty happy with that.

How did SynapseIndia perform from a project management standpoint?

I've had offshore experiences before, so instead of giving them a lump sum of requirements, I've given them a roadmap with the specific development items that we would have in mind. Then, I specify further as we would get closer to each milestone, and give it to them. I actually have a daily call with them in order to clarify the requirements and answer questions, and that's gone extremely well.

I tend to participate and do the user-acceptance testing of what they've completed for me, so I'm pretty intimately involved with what they're doing. In that respect, they don't need a project manager, that's pretty well done by me. I haven't used any project management tools, except for tracking on a spreadsheet. It's not complicated enough to need Microsoft Project or anything like that.

What distinguishes SynapseIndia from other providers?

SynapseIndia is very good at documenting what they do. We have a method for exchanging documentation and information. They submit progress reports once a day, so I get to see what they've been working on. We have a call once a day.

Is there anything Synapse India could have improved or done differently?

I don't think so, the reason being is that it's not complex work. Some of the requirements are complicated, but they are such a small team, I don't think there's much that can be improved on. The only other area we're going to be delving into is, we're going to have them help set up our production cloud environment as well. The only thing I'm going to keep in mind is how coordinated are they between their development and infrastructure people. I haven't seen much in that regard yet, so there's not much to comment on.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a United Kingdom-based touring operator. We arrange very specific holiday or group trips. In the United States, you know it as a bachelor party or a bachelorette party. We organize what in the U.K. are called stage and hen weekends. We only arrange trips within the U.K., so it's U.K. customers traveling to cities in the U.K. to celebrate.

What is your position?

I am one of the partners and owners.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SynapseIndia?

We've been around for about 10 years, and in that time we redeveloped the site three or four different times. I think our last experience, we had it developed in .NET, and it wasn't responsive. We got to a point where we needed it redone again because we had it done just before the whole tablet boom – before the iPad came out. We needed it done again, but development in the U.K. is quite pricey, and not if you use overseas developers.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We gave them the job of completely redesigning the site using WordPress, so it could be edited easily and changed in the future, and introduced many more features, bits and pieces to it. The undertaking was quite large. We have to deal with people browsing through packages, individual activities, group members being able to pay for their bit of the packages as a whole, and all sorts.

The size of the team has varied from one person up to five people, depending on what's going on at any given time. During the entire period, there has been probably 10 different people working on it.

I've used WordPress for other projects myself, I know that its open source, so any of that code isn't going to be compiled. We had issues in the past with developers disappearing, and compiled code can give you some issues, so that was part of the decision to use WordPress. Secondly, a huge number of websites run on WordPress, so you have the support there, and you can edit things yourself. A competent non-technical person can make changes and tweaks on their own, and that was important to us as well because we have a number of people on staff that aren't developers.

How did you come to work with SynapseIndia?

We used Elance to find them. You post the job on Elance, you get people to bid for it, and then it's sort of finding that combination between price, expertise and good reviews – something like using TripAdvisor to pick a hotel. SynapseIndia proved to be the right choice, and they're a big company, they're not one or two developers in some small office. They have a lot of people on staff and a lot of depth to their knowledge. If the product changed in any way, I knew we wouldn't have to stop working with them because they've got experts in just about every field.

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

It's been probably about $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We still do bits and pieces now. The job started last July [2014], and we went live in December last year. Then we kept on doing tweaks and changes and adding new features in. We've been working with them for more than a year now. A milestone will be completed tomorrow [October 2015]. Before that, it has just been minor tweaks, not any major milestones.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Their work was mostly user features, for when people become customers, rather than when they first visit. The big push to the site this time around was related to being able to manage the bookings, both for us and for the customers themselves – managing their groups and inviting their friends – those sorts of things. In the sense of whether the site performs better or worse for getting new customers, it's on the par because the designs of all of our previous sites have been good, including this one.

This job is more about functional improvements, rather than attracting more people generally. Bounce rates are about the same. I've done a comparison of January 1, 2015 to September 22 of this year, and compared it to last year. Everything looks positive with slight improvements across the board. Sessions are up, users are up, page views are up, pages per session is up, average session duration is up, and all is good. The big change for us was making the site completely responsive, so that's helped. In the U.K. now, probably 50 percent or more of visitors are using not just phones, but iPhones and other devices, like Android.

Their working day fits in with different time zones. They work long days. You might not have all of your development team all the time, but there's pretty much somebody working on your site from when they start in the morning to when they finish, which overlaps with the U.K. working day. That's been very beneficial.

How did SynapseIndia perform from a project management standpoint?

SynapseIndia was able to deliver all their assigned milestones on time and within budget, without any major defects in their work. It was a moving target for a lot of the stuff, so we didn't really have major deadlines because we obviously had a working website. They've been good. When needed, they've added a resource and got the job done.

What distinguishes SynapseIndia from other providers?

I can tell you something that I like about them that distinguishes them from offshore, onshore, and all providers: you don't give them a job and then they disappear, and then come back two weeks later and go, "Here it is"' Every day, you get an update on what they've done. Because we've used Elance, we can look at their Work View to see a screenshot every hour, being able to spot a problem as it's happening.

A number of times, I've seen the screenshot and thought, "Oh, hang on, it looks like they're going slightly in the wrong direction there," and been able to get onto Skype to give them some feedback. They're always on Skype. All of the developers have always been available there. They've been brilliant.

My previous experience is, you give somebody a spec, they go away for a couple of weeks, come back with a mockup. You say, "OK," and they go away for a couple more weeks, come back with a full working site, and you're like, "No, that's not what we had in mind at all." This experience has been a case of every day you can see what's going on, and you don't have that whole, "Well that was a wasted two weeks." Or worse, it's a wasted half a day, or something like that, which is amazing. I guess transparency of development is what impressed me the most.

You can give them chunks of work, and they will still get in touch with you with any sort of query. It's almost as if the developer sits next to you, and you can give instant feedback, rather than building up a ton of work to test or review. Everything works very smoothly.

Is there anything SynapseIndia could have improved or done differently?

Not really. They work most Saturdays. There were no problems of a language barrier or anything like that – everybody's good. Offhand, I can't think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We do advanced, private intranet-type web development. We build them and host them for nonprofits and commercial businesses.

What is your position?

I'm the vice president of development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Synapse India?

We were looking for someone to use long term as a partner, in doing advanced work with Drupal. In the past, we've struggled with more demanding projects that required custom module development and integration with other systems. Because we have limited resources here on staff, we decided that we would find a partner to provide a more long-term solution to our needs. Going offshore was a priority since we wanted to take advantage of more affordable development talent. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in more detail.

So far, we've utilized them for Drupal projects, as well as Amazon Web Services. They've worked primarily on developing custom modules rather extensively, working with standard Drupal contributed modules to customize those and build them out. They fix and debug any kind of inconsistencies or problems in the configurations. I would say that it's mostly custom development and custom modules.

I connect with the developers one-on-one every night. We've asked to work with only their senior level developers. If they do bring other people in for smaller tasks, we want to know that they are supervised by the senior people.

How did you come to work with Synapse India?

We found them by doing a query on Elance. We put out what we wanted, and they were one of the respondents. We were flooded when we first posted the job, and there were around seven or eight that we figured were potential candidates. We were only interested in actual firms, not individual freelancers, as we were looking for long-term development, and we knew we were going to need a variety of skills.

Our goal was to work with one firm; it would make it easier if we could find everybody in one organization. That has turned out to be crucial to our successful relationship with Synapse India. We have to work with people who know AWS system administration, as well as Drupal, and databases, and all that stuff. We selected them, and it worked out well.

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

We're probably approaching six figures at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around December of last year [2014] or maybe January, and our relationship is ongoing. We're working with them every day for the last year, including last night.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The end-users don't know who our third-party resources are, but the customers are very happy with the products we're building. Overall, their work is very reliable, and we rarely have to send work back for bug fixes. More importantly, they have the ability to ramp up and down based on our project needs. That's really important to us because sometimes we aren't able to give them that much advanced notice, but they're very flexible.

How did Synapse India perform from a project management standpoint?

Synapse India consistently delivers their assigned work on time and within budget. We don't use any specific project management tools. We create specs, send those to them via Elance, and we connect with them daily through Skype.

When working with an offshore team, it's important to provide detailed functionality requirements and have good, transparent communication. By doing those two things, we've had a good experience with them.

What distinguishes Synapse India from other providers?

We like the people that we work with personally. We find them very personable. Their English is pretty good. I wouldn't call it perfect, but it's very easy to communicate with them. Their writing skills are good. All of that makes it easier for us. They pretty much do what they say they will do, generally on time. In development, things do happen unexpectedly that affect the schedule, but that's just because things happen. I have no complaints whatsoever.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We’ve been getting ready to go online for two years, into the area of senior furnishings, which is a business-to-business model that provides goods and services to continuing care retirement communities. With that, we’ve been using Synapse to help us with our online presence.

So essentially once the site goes live, we’ll be the only site in the United States that is open to the public, servicing 60,000 businesses. I’m trying to capture that market share and then going global three months later. My background is an architecture in that industry, for close to ten years, so it was just realizing a market gap and trying to take that to market. That’s pretty much the thrust of the business model that we’re working on at the moment.

What is your position?

I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Synapse India?

The involvement was taking the idea to an actual operational interface. I purposely had targeted that Southeast Asia region, having previous experience in Bangalore, working with other Indians, I knew I wanted to be in that area. Once I found a few companies, I was looking at their project tracking, project reporting, and how they actually manage their projects. I needed to be able to trust them because they had never worked with the visualization software that we had used, and they had to write new code for that.

They appeared to have those type of skills, but they had no way to prove it. After multiple discussions, giving them a chance to move forward, each time they took that step, they did the step properly. Very quickly, within a matter of a few weeks, the whole project was offloaded onto them.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in more detail.

The process was quite straightforward. I had the business model all figured out on how the e-commerce site works. I did not want to rely on Synapse for the design of our graphical interface. The problem is, we’re doing a Western-built website, and Eastern people can’t understand how Western people relate to brands and content. They know what to do for the average person, but this is a highly specialized approach.

As a result, I had actually created all the .psd cut sheets for them. I had some preliminary ones that I gave to them prior to hiring, to see if they could grasp what I was trying to do. Once they had the complete .psd cut sheets, they took off with that. We were able to implement what we needed to implement and then figure out the code issues that we needed. Basically, our project is like La-Z-Boy.com; you can look at your sofa and put a piece of fabric on it. On our site, customizable furniture is just one aspect of it.

With over 1,800 different selections, you’re able to do a customization and see that price change in real time, and then have all the technical data available to you at your fingertips, that the architect or interior designer would need in health care design. Users have all this wealth of information, they have the ability to customize, and since we cut out all the middlemen, they're basically dealing factory-direct.

There’s a trend in the factories to do this now, so we’ve got agreements with multiple factories. The ability to bring that visualization software into an e-commerce environment is what Synapse had to get their hands around, and they were able to do that successfully.

How did you come to work with Synapse India?

I discovered them through Elance. I had other contacts outside of that, but Synapse just seemed to be able to address all the points as requested, as opposed to trying to steer me in another direction. It seems most outsourcing people, especially in India, are very channeled in one direction. There’s great production, but no creativity. I was vetting pretty close to 50 companies before I chose Synapse. Out of the 50, there were eight serious contenders. Out of those eight, I sat down and pushed to the next level to try to get more in-depth, and Synapse was one of the four.

I actually look at the most basic feedback, and that is response based on time, and whether they answer questions or not. You have two types of people. One that is overly assertive, that wants your business, and one that just does... Being in architecture and project management in multimillion-dollar developments, I see this all the time. You can tell when somebody knows what they’re doing in their job and responds appropriately. Others are trying to get you so they can get up the ladder.

Synapse was able to offer the appropriate responses, in the appropriate fashion, in an expedient manner; that shined out. All four companies were fairly equal. One was much higher priced, which stood out as a negative, and when it came down to making that final decision, that’s why I decided to go with them. It was their response time. That was the only thing that really stood out when you compared them, from what I could see on my end. Because Elance doesn’t provide a whole lot of information for you to dig into.

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

Hard dollars to Synapse, I believe it was close to $20,000. Supporting dollars to get to Synapse is about another $80,000. So total investment around Synapse is close to $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’re still maintaining an ongoing relationship with them. I told them they’re stuck with me now. They’re very happy about that, but it’s like, ‘You guys aren’t going anywhere.’ Actually, I owe them a couple of recliners and I have to fly over to India and pick them up for them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The only way to measure the quality of work is to perform some internal evaluations, drawing from what I know and what my associates and investors know, but as far as their quality of work, I give them an A+ for delivery. Synapse is a production firm, not an artistic firm. I don’t want to pigeonhole them and say that they can’t do artistic work, but I need to be honest. If you’re going to do anything creative with Synapse, as far as not related to programming, not figuring out how to do programming, if you say, ‘Make me a pretty thunderstorm with red clouds,’ they’ll do it the Indian way, not the American way.

It’s a cultural difference, not an efficiency issue. Some people don’t realize that, and when you look at Elance and you see people that slam people from Pakistan or India because they can’t do what they want... One thing I learned while working in Bangalore is that if you want something implemented with a firm, you need to be extremely clear and concise on what your end goal is and how you’re going to get to that end goal. If you leave that to the firm, it will usually go sideways.

How did Synapse India perform from a project management standpoint?

Regarding project management tools, I was just relying on Synapse. I think people do best when they’re left to their own devices, and not trying to force them into your system. So I adapted to what they were providing me, and their follow-through with the reports and updates never faltered. I think once in two years I reminded them twice, and it was ‘Don’t forget to dot the I and cross the T,’ that’s how complicated it was, but there were no serious errors on their side. If anything, there were a couple of times where I didn’t deliver quick enough, because they are very fast in what they implement.

There was nothing throughout the whole project where I had any serious issues with anybody. I had a total of 6-8 people working on the site at any one time. We always dealt with one project manager, which I really like, because that just gives accountability to one person; there was no shuffling around internally, ‘Well, you need to talk to Joe, that’s his side.’ So if I had an issue with something that I thought could be dialed up or changed, I only had one point of contact.

What distinguishes Synapse India from other providers?

If I had future proposals needed or anything like that, I dealt with Shankar because he’s the project captain for just getting the work, and then the project manager implements the work. It was very nice and fluid in that sense. When I’m communicating, I don’t have to worry about who else I’m talking to, so they handled it in a very professionally structured manner. I think it’s rare to find such adept project managers from Indian providers, so I really appreciated their approach.

Is there anything Synapse India could have improved or done differently?

Not that comes off the top of my head, because we just have such a good system down, where requests are made, and requests are fulfilled. I did not really have any trip-ups with them. If I had not had previous experience in India, I’d probably have a different perception of it. However, having previous experience in India based on other Indian firms, I put them at the top of their game.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a business-to-business site. It's a network site that has to do with trading products in the automotive industry.

What is your position?

I am the project manager. I was in charge of the whole project with Synapse India.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SynapseIndia?

We looked at 35 different companies. The reason why we ended up using them is because they truly understood our work and what we needed to accomplish. I had built this particular application in the past with two other teams. One was an outside consulting team, and the other one was a team that was hired in-house at the company that I was working at. This is the third time I built it, so I knew exactly what was needed. The reason why we moved forward with them was that they really took the time to try to get an understanding on what we were trying to accomplish.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in more detail.

A hundred percent of the project was given to them. The main technology used was PHP with a MySQL database, jQuery. The graphics team was made up of two people. The whole team was about six or seven people, and we were assigned a project manager.

How did you come to work with SynapseIndia?

We used a third-party site that connected us, and then from there we went through the bidding process. Eventually, we spoke with them through video conferencing and ended up selecting them. Geographically, they were undesirable. I would have preferred them in my city. Cost was the main concern, along with their understanding of what we needed in regard to the development background and tying everything together. Delivery time was important to us, too. They hit three out of the four key criteria.

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

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

What is the status of this engagement?

The most recent milestone was completed three weeks ago [August 2015]. We still have an ongoing project. We actually did three stages with them, along with two upgrades – three websites along with two upgrades. We have another milestone coming up right now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or user feedback from this engagement?

They hit every single benchmark. They were really good. They have a 30-day debugging period. Some companies only offer two weeks of testing. In 30 days, we found some issues that we had missed during the original testing, and they resolved them – no problem. It was nice that they did that. They work every other Saturday, which was nice, too.

How did SynapseIndia perform from a project management standpoint?

It was a project that was four months on stage one continuous. We had interactions daily via Skype. They were available every day to address issues and accept feedback. We tested daily, and we gave new or revised instructions daily. We were very impressed with their level of availability and responsiveness.

What distinguishes SynapseIndia from other providers?

The speed of how fast they can do things. I've had situations wherein I've hired consulting teams and if we needed to make a small change that takes 10 minutes to code, but it would take an hour just to do the paperwork. SynapseIndia was very fast and responsive at addressing things that we needed. In addition, when details were left out in the scope of work, they just resolved it because it was part of the business.

I've been working in this space for quite a few years, and I was surprised at the things I had left out of the scope of work. Synapse was able to help me fill in the gaps, so that the timeline wasn't slowed down too much. I also really appreciated that.

Is there anything SynapseIndia could have improved or done differently?

I would have liked to video Skype with them. Basically, we're text Skyping our team. It would have been nice to have video Skype, but I understand why they wouldn't. That probably would have been the only thing I would have wanted, the video-Skyping. I figured it was because their written English was superior to their verbal skills, so it was for the sake of efficiency and understanding.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're an online support and education resource and network for patients who are going through knee replacement surgery. I'm an orthopedic surgeon, and I designed a website and an iPhone app, heavy into social media, to manage those resources.

What is your position?

I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SynapseIndia?

I used another organization to build the initial iPhone app and website. I would say that I had a poor to fair experience with this previous provider, in the delivery, the timelines, and the quality of their work. That was done under a contract where we had a set price for the entire project. After we finished the entire project, ultimately we were delivered a product that was fairly close to what we were looking for, but on a timeline that was extremely delayed, and I didn't feel comfortable staying with that organization for long-term maintenance and future projects to be done. That's when I sought out other options, and I got in touch with SynapseIndia.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in more detail.

Initially, their scope was very limited, because I didn't know them, and I didn't have specific referrals other than feedback that I got from Elance. I decided to assign them a couple of small projects that I knew I could have control over, and they didn't need a huge amount of access to my core resources, in order to see how they worked. I wanted to get a better experience with an IT [information technology] group than what I had last time. They pretty much delivered exactly as expected, and I continued to grow my level of comfort to the point where they are exclusively managing all of my IT needs for the company.

As I saw their work, it didn't really stop, because it turned out there were a lot of things I needed to get done. There were a lot of things that I needed to have fixed in the infrastructure side of the website. I haven't really had them do any work on the iPhone app, but on the website. As I continued to have them do more infrastructure work, it somewhat snowballed into more work that I wanted to get done.

It started out as maintenance work that I really needed, and there were some core things that I needed to have fixed, that the original development team just didn't code correctly, and it created persistent issues. They were doing a lot of bug fixes. One of the major projects that I did with them, after they had worked a lot on the website, was to redesign the website specifically to become fully responsive. They didn't do necessarily very much change in the design, but they took the entire website, which is kind of complicated and made the entire thing responsive.

How did you come to work with SynapseIndia?

It was through online research. I found them through Elance. I tried finding some local people that potentially could do the kind of work that I needed, but the work that I needed was too complex and sophisticated with too many different systems that needed to be managed. There were no IT people who were local, from people that I knew and could get in touch with. I got a referral, just to go to Elance, from an IT person that I know well. 

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

I would say probably an initial investment may have been about $2,000 or so for the first few projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

I'm continuing to work with them almost every day. It's been just about daily since I started working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback from this engagement?

They have been able to deliver on all the things that I've requested from them. They've been successful in everything they've done. Working with IT people, I learned that it's never 100 percent exactly perfect, it's just the reality of it, especially when you embark on a large project. There's always a little bit of stumbling along the way. What I've found is, the best way to measure a company's worth is how they manage those occasional mishaps. Not necessarily whether they hit them or not, but how they manage them. The people I'm working with have been able to manage those very effectively.

How did SynapseIndia perform from a project management standpoint?

I used Elance to oversee their progress. There's a third-party website that allows you to see snapshots of their computer screens every half hour or something like that. You can actually look to see if they're spending time on your project or if there's a screen that may be unrelated. For a very long time, I was reviewing these very diligently. I think I've only denied one screenshot of the thousands that I've looked at. Honestly, I don't look at them very much anymore because I see that they're working on my project.

I can see that the time they're putting in is relatively accurate for what I think it should take to do individual projects. I give them very specific projects, and I can see that the time that they're taking makes sense. I've had probably three or four experiences where I've asked them to give me an estimate, to have a set of what the cost is per hour, and they've been very accurate on those times.

What distinguishes SynapseIndia from other providers?

They'll communicate with me through Skype when they want to talk more directly about certain issues. The thing that I like very much is that every day, through Elance, SynapseIndia gives you an update. They give you a report about what they did all day. They give you screenshots, links, or whatever to show you what they did, and you can give immediate feedback to them.

Every time you send them a response, like, "Hey, this is the thing that I see that you did, and we have to make this change or that change" the very first thing in their morning, they will send you a response telling you that they got it. Then, by the end of their day, they'll send you another message outlining each individual point in your specific response that they've gone over, they've fixed, or they're still pending a fix on. To me, that is very helpful.

Then, like I said, sometimes they'll Skype with me if they want to talk a little bit more. We've done some other things like screen sharing, but that's not very common. We haven't found that we needed it a lot.

I have two project managers: one on the infrastructure side and one on the design side. The actually work is then divvied up to various people, but the work product that comes out is pretty consistent. Having one person as a point of contact, and running the whole show really works for me. I think it's the best way to do it.

Is there anything SynapseIndia could have improved or done differently?

There's always room for improvement. The only thing I can say is I'd love it to be a 100 percent perfect each time, but it's not. That's just the reality of life. If they could improve anything, it would just be always getting it done correctly the first time, but that's not a very significant criticism because they don't have a lot of issues with the coding. Sometimes, they don't get exactly what I'm looking for but, compared to my experience with the last developer, it's much better. It's not a harsh criticism.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Project Manager of a software development company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Software development

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Develop code solutions to our specs

SOLUTION

How did you find SynapseIndia?

Upwork

Why did you select SynapseIndia over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from SynapseIndia were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Develop code, config, and solutions to implement our core VMS solution.

Advise on modules and other techniques to best utilize the Drupal platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Working and evolving websites that include new features and hardening the existing code base.

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

Synapse did a  good job of communicating and delivered most items on time.  They were very responsive and helpful when we were in a crunch.

What was your primary form of communication with SynapseIndia?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They're dedicated to ensuring their customers' success and work diligently to address requirements or issues.

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

They could be more consultative in their recommendations for how to solve or approach more complex issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Owner & Founder of Malakye.com

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Professional networking platform. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• AI integration
• Ongoing Maintenance
• Platform Improvement and Innovation

SOLUTION

How did you find SynapseIndia?

Online Search

Why did you select SynapseIndia over others?

Worked with them already.

How many teammates from SynapseIndia were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

I've been in business 23 years.  Worked with many 3rd party Dev firms.  Lots of false promises and undelivered work.  Synapse is one of the worst ever.  They promised everything and delivered nothing and are guilty of wasting time and consuming my mental resources.  I'd never hire them again.  They are atrocious and gaslight and manipulate. Consider yourself warned. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They did nothing but waste my time and blamed it all on me. Horrible.  I'd never hire any of them again. 

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

They pretended to be accountable, demonstrated a complete void of comprehension, and straight up lied and took no accountability for their lack of competence. 

What was your primary form of communication with SynapseIndia?

Virtual Meeting

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

Their astounding ability to bait me and waste my time. 

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

You cannot change a liar. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Executive of Roberts Hot Tubs

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Make, sell and install hot tubs

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

New website

SOLUTION

How did you find SynapseIndia?

upwork

Why did you select SynapseIndia over others?

High ratings

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

• Built a brand new website with custom product pages
• Made 3D renders of our products
• Provide search engine optimization for the website

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website was made and launched for a reasonable price in a good timeline. All changes that where asked to be made where easily fulfilled.

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

They are extremely responsive and timely.

What was your primary form of communication with SynapseIndia?

Email or Messaging App

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

Everything was done on time, in budget and with good communication.

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

They are not native english speakers so this is not 100% unexpected, but someone who can translate with fluent english would have made this process a bit easier.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Principal of a software company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Web development services

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Software Development

SOLUTION

How did you find SynapseIndia?

Online Search

Why did you select SynapseIndia over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from SynapseIndia were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Custom development of e-commerce platform

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Too many to count.

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

Almost always delivered on time. Response to our needs was always immediate

What was your primary form of communication with SynapseIndia?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We were impressed with the customer service and pride in their work.

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

No