TechWings

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the chief technology officer for an insurance tech startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mentalstack?

I needed additional development resources to help build out a service as a software platform on Microsoft Azure.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mentalstack worked with us from the inception of the company, facilitating most of our technology roadmap and staff augmentation. They worked within Angular JS, OCR engines, and Microsoft Azure frameworks, developing both frontend and backend designs for the platform on the cloud.

What is the team composition?

I work with Kirill (CEO and Founder, Mentalstack), Igor (COO, Mentalstack), and about 7 resources, including a project manager, someone in QA, and developers.

How did you come to work with Mentalstack?

I found them online and felt they were the best fit after interviewing a couple other vendors. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Mentalstack has guided us through several series of successful rollouts, from wireframe inception to raising capital to moving forward with commercial pilots. We're very happy internally with their work overall.

How did Mentalstack perform from a project management standpoint?

We run a tight ship and work alongside their project manager through bi-weekly sprints. They've been very thorough in each sprint and are accessible through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're hardworking, knowledgeable, and diligent. Compared to many domestic developers, they also offer a great value for the investment.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. Sometimes I worry about mitigating risk since we only work with about six developers and some are more junior than others. However, that's just part of working in a startup environment. I don't have any complaints thus far. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would encourage anyone to hire Mentalstack. It helps to have someone more technically inclined on your team involved in the process, so you can both collaborate more effectively.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the COO and CTO of a small startup which offers optimization, Google adverts, and software development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mentalstack?

We don’t have our own in-house software developers and usually, we work with external partners for development.

We needed to build a web-based dynamic backend system where several applications could be added, such as a web-based operating system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

The platform was a new concept. We started with an introductory call where we discussed what the project entailed. After that, they brought in some developers to think about the project and give us their recommendations. This helped us a lot on the concept side, as well as the development side. The developers know what they are doing.

They used Node.js, TypeScript, AngularJS and Angular 2, and Elasticsearch for deep search interface. For the database, they used MongoDB, and we were connected to some other existing libraries from the Google Cloud, IBM Bluemix, and from Amazon developer’s platforms, as well as used some of their services.

We currently have a demo application for some closed groups to show what we are doing. It is existing, but not available for everyone.

What is the team dynamic?

I have one contact person who was responsible for the whole project and the communication. If there are specific questions which go deep into development, I can also contact the head of development. There’s one head of backend development, 2 senior developers, and one frontend developer. We also have one QA engineer.

How did you come to work with Mentalstack?

I’d been looking for developers for 4 months and had tested a lot of them. I originally found their profile as well as their developers through Udemy [online learning platform]. I don’t like to work through Udemy, so I looked them up myself and I found out they had previously done some great projects. We connected via Skype. I found they have clear communication and are deep into the technology — they know what they are doing.

How much have you invested in them?

I have invested between 70,000–85,000 [currency needed].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in February of this year and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The user experience has been great. They created an icon for each function to make it clearer for the user to see where they need to click. They used colors to separate the different extensions of the system. The platform is very clean as it is based on the material design.

How did Mentalstack perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management is very good. Each project can be better — there is never 100% — but the project management from their side has been very good. We receive weekly reports from them outlining what had been done, some results, where they had allotted their time, and parts they struggled with. They also add a prediction of what would be done in the coming week, and when it will be completed.

We work on the Kanban system, set up with milestones. It is very clean and we know when work will be done. They deliver on time, and if there are ever delays in deliverables, it is from our side. Our direct communication is through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like that they take the time to speak about any problems in order to really understand what the customer wants. For example, developers normally just try to understand what you want, and then want to go ahead and try to develop. Instead, they take the time to think, ask the right questions, and start developing when they are ready. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It is nothing big, but I would recommend that they host their own Slack system and bring customers onto their platform so that everything is already installed and ready for the project management. We use Slack from our side, not because they couldn’t do it, but it wasn’t done at the time, so I created it myself.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an incubator for different startup projects. I am the CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mentalstack?

We have several start-ups going on at the same time, and although we have some in-house developers, they were busy on other projects, so we used Mentalstack to fill in the gap.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We're building a website that is a perfume personalization tool for mass market. The idea behind it is you can get online and go through a journey of finding the scents that you might like and personalize. We recommend a scent based on user's selections, and we allow to personalize the packaging. Users get the perfume bottle with custom name engraved on it. There are no other people doing anything like that on the market. We partner with one big perfume house that's making the perfume for the customers, but we are doing everything on the technology side and making recommendations. It's a website, and it works on desktop and mobile, it's a Node.js application with Angular 2 on the front-end.

How did you come to work with Mentalstack?

Originally, we were looking for freelancers, but we came across a few agencies. We evaluated their prior work and spoke to them on Skype several times. It ticked all the right boxes from technical and managerial points of view. We decided to get an agency rather than individual freelancers because we feel it works better from the responsibility point of view, tracking and for assurance. Sometimes, freelancers just disappear or you have little visibility and control on what's going on. The price was right, so it was a great choice all round.

How much have you invested with Mentalstack?

The project cost around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It's in the final stages. It's not completed yet. It's completed to a certain degree, but we're doing some final changes. It's a live product now. We received feedback from customers, so we're making changes. It may carry along for some time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is delivered, the site is live. We’re always tracking all project activities. We’ve also done some external QA to validate the quality.

How did Mentalstack perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management was excellent. One of the things we've enjoyed most was working with our project manager. He was quite involved, and he was there all the time when we needed him to be. He gave us timely project updates, and the estimates were quite precise, so we had great visibility. 

What did you find most impressive about Mentalstack?

Compared to freelancers, it's a different category. It's a full stack agency – people with a variety of knowledge sets and skills. The team also made a great effort to deliver the project on time and flexible with working long hours and weekends. 

Are there any areas Mentalstack could improve?

Would be good if Mentalstack had more engineers and broader expertise. So if we need to get more developers on the project or use a different technology stack, they could allocate us resources easily. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Thenvoi

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

AI for customer support

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• UX design of a mobile app
• UI design of a mobile app

SOLUTION

How did you find TechWings?

UpWork

Why did you select TechWings over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from TechWings were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• UI/UX design of a mobile app that uses AI LLMs
  Deliverables:
  
  
  • UI Kit
  • UX design
  • Prototype
  • Demo flows
  • Flow chart of all app states
  • Slides for the investor deck

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Great collaboration
• Asked excellent questions
• On time deliverables
• Going above and beyond of the work scope defined

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

Delivered on time

Super quick response. We had daily calls.

What was your primary form of communication with TechWings?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I have evaluated multiple other companies and this one was the best in terms of egagement level, attention to details, transparency, and creativity.

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

Nope. They are great!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Neural Voice

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Voice AI Assitants for businesses 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Brand redesign
• Brand guidelines

SOLUTION

How did you find TechWings?

Online Search

Why did you select TechWings over others?

• High ratings
• Portfolio

How many teammates from TechWings were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Rebrand of our logo and brand guidelines for our growing business. Was asked to create something modern, minimal and fun.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Lots of communication and updates of progress with visability of designs and checking in with us to see how we thought it was going and getting our feedback on the designs

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

Yes, very quick turn around time! We didn't specify a timeframe, as it was not an urgent job for us, but they were incredibly quick nonetheless.

What was your primary form of communication with TechWings?

Virtual Meeting

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

I was sent a lot of portfolios from both businesses and freelancers and theirs stood out to me the most as the type of style I like.

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

Nothing really.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Founder of an App Dev Company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are building a consumer app to help people connect through recommendations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Build the MVP of the app

SOLUTION

How did you find TechWings?

Online Search

Why did you select TechWings over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from TechWings were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Techwings helped deliver the iOS and Android mobile MVPs for the app we were building. They helped build the backend to be able to support this MVP too.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As it was an MVP, the product wasn't out to users. However, through constant TestFlight updates we could get user feedback. We set timelines for the deliverables to make sure we could test and collect feedback before the official release.

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

Even though there were a few delays (for example with the Android app or backend migration), the project was built in an acceptable timeframe. The project manager was always responsive and helpful when it came to organizing the team and needs.

What was your primary form of communication with TechWings?

Email or Messaging App

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

The team was very proactive and resolved all the issues we encountered.

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

There was quite a lot of turnover, so focusing on retention would help them not miss deadlines in the future.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO at Racing-Unleashed. We’re a Swiss company that produces racing simulators with several axis movements. We own several lounges and work in the business of esports within Europe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with TechWings?

We needed to expand the IT team with nearshore team members to create our software. We had an internal IT team, but they were mostly in leadership positions like senior architects and developers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

TechWings provides quality personnel to fill individual contributors' positions, such as junior and mid-level engineers. We have multiple projects involving software development, databases, and interfaces. We have a fully-fledged development cycle, and TechWings assists us by plugging the holes with specialists that are too expensive for us to have in-house.

We mainly develop in C#. We also have some frontend development in JavaScript, PHP, and React. For UX design, we use Figma, and the database is Ruby on Rails and MySQL.

Currently, TechWings is working on our key project, which is the base software that serves the customers and collects all information about the simulators and the customers’ rides in the simulators. It’s a massive project that involves all specialties. Since it’s our core product, it goes hand-in-hand with hardware. We have the simulator’s moving parts and the software that interacts with the cloud services and local servers in our lounges. All of that needs to have an interface and connect through APIs.

What is the team composition?

We currently have 7–8 people from TechWings to fill our roles, including four frontend engineers, a UX designer, a DevOps engineer, and a backend developer.

How did you come to work with TechWings?

I don’t know how we established contact with TechWings. I took over when we already had a couple of running contracts. Then, we expanded a few contracts and added more resources to our team because we were satisfied with their performance.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $500,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in January 2020, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve spent a lot of time on our side doing our homework regarding the candidates TechWings has proposed. We do our due diligence as an organization, so we actually cherry-pick the candidates they offer.

TechWings’ interviews are rigorous, so we’re satisfied. The candidates are more than adequate. We’ll definitely continue working with them; we’ve recently added three extra people.

How did TechWings perform from a project management standpoint?

We do our project management; they don’t lead any of our projects like other organizations do. TechWings provides the resources, and they’re integrated into our system. So far, all the people are managing and delivering on time.

We all use Jira and the Atlassian suite for project management and the alignment of the software lifecycle. For communication, we use emails, phone calls, and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their fast response is outstanding. TechWings is actually able to assist. For example, we recently had a situation where our organization had only one DevOps engineer, and he decided to depart. It was very short notice, so TechWings acted quickly to substitute the person and find a suitable replacement. 

Within a few hours, we received a new candidate’s information and scheduled an interview with him. In the next couple of days, he was already onboarding with us and taking over all the responsibilities of the person about to depart. Overall, we felt grateful because we weren’t left in the dark without a specialist. Since DevOps is critical in our case, it was a good action from their side.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any specific feedback or comments regarding improvements. We can’t expect them to do technical reviews because they don’t know our projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend coming prepared and introducing yourself properly because TechWings and their candidates need to know what projects you’re working on. As an organization, you need to do some homework and approach these interviews with resources to check for technical exercises, team play, ability to cope with stress, meet deadlines, and other regular things.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Chief Architect of Plug & Play Digital

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Deliver digital solutions to the event industry based on our in-house developed platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Revisit the design of our website and create something the can be reused for branding

SOLUTION

How did you find TechWings?

We've work together before

Why did you select TechWings over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Past experience

How many teammates from TechWings were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Redesign the website, take the existing logo as input, and make things less abstract and more human.

Key deliverables: 

• mood board
• visual design
• UX design
• branding.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

An approved visual and UX design that including all the necessary files and extra information to easy the work for implementing developers.

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

This has alway been a collaboration and in agreement timelines and expected outcome were set and matched and in some cases outperformed.

What was your primary form of communication with TechWings?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

How well their work is organised and how well requirements are understood and delivered accordingly. They are up and running in no time and whenever there was a delay on our side, they managed to adjust quickly and sfill meet their deliverables.

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

My expectations were exceeded, and I look forward to continuing our collaboration. No areas for improvement for now.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Project Manager of the company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We create branding and website design for small business

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Work with UX Experts

SOLUTION

How did you find TechWings?

Online Search

Why did you select TechWings over others?

Other

What was your primary form of communication with TechWings?

Virtual Meeting

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

We hired techwings to collaborate on the entire UI and UX for a complex project: an app that connects brands and influencers. Techwings was in charge of the design after the wireframe. They delivered a complet Figma with all the materials needed for our team of developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Transparent process of collaboration via Figma and efficient assistance of the project manager that led into an interactive prototype and project source files ready for inplementation

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

The project management of techwings is incomparable with what I experienced before. They are trully transparent on what is possible and when they can deliver items. They are always on time with a real quality of work! They took the time to understand and evaluate the project, so they did a great job to answer our needs.

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

The quality of work. Techwings team knows what they are doing. Working with experts made our project a real success !

Are there any areas for improvement or something {provider_name} could have done differently?

no

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I run a small software dev agency, we do work for various clients and also build our own in house software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TechWings?

We hired TechWings to do the web and mobile design for the interface for a digital signage platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Really liked the look of previous work they had done.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Techwings discussed with me and understood the project. They built Wireframes of the interface and discussed any questions or queries they had with me. They then applied the aesthetic look and feel to the wireframes to produce the final design.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2, a designer and project manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I'm very happy with the final design they provided, it looks great.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was good, the asked frequent questions to ensure they understood the project and often provided useful suggestions on better ways to approach the interface.

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

Their process was very professional and efficient.

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

No all good.