Tenex Developers

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The name of the company is Consults Exam.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tenex Developers?

I was looking to create a workflow-like site that would be cloud based and HIPAA compliant for specialized federal and state government examinations. I had originally envisioned this to use for myself, because I provide these services. I needed something that would automate the workflow and provide an electronic medical record.

There were some developers from India that I’d found on Upwork who attempted to design the site using PHP. When I had folks review what they’d made, it was the opposite of HIPAA compliant. There was no flexibility within the software, and it needed to be redone from the ground up.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tenex joined the project and redid the entire site on Ruby on Rails. The only thing that was in place was a general design, so they pretty much started from scratch. Even then, the majority of that was reworked by them. One goal for the project was making sure the site was HIPAA compliant, and the second was to have an extremely speedy site that was reliable and cloud based. We had some other goals as well, like being able to scale and add features that would allow me to have a vast amount of billable users, which required an auditing and invoicing system. Tenex met those goals, and also currently helps with site design and optimization, which doesn’t have many features since it’s simply a workflow site.

What is the team dynamic?

My primary contact was Josh. I’m not sure how many other people were on the project.

How did you come to work with Tenex Developers?

I had used some other developers that didn’t work out, and eventually found Tenex on LinkedIn. I sent a proposal to six or seven companies, gave them a brief overview of the project and had them look at the site after speaking with them. Based off of reviews on LinkedIn and my interaction with Josh, I chose Tenex. He understood the vision and gave me a clear plan of what we needed to do to get there.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2016, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have the resources to launch the business, but I use the product personally and it’s extremely effective. I created it to significantly improve the workflow for the work I do, and it’s fantastic. I can’t imagine not using it because it’s been game changing. It’s significantly decreased the amount of administrative work I do, which has freed me up to pursue other projects. It’s made it easier for my staff, and I have significantly less mistakes because of it as well.

How did Tenex Developers perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent. I communicated with Josh a few times a week during active development using emails and phone calls. They communicated well, and everything was delivered on time and on budget.

What did you find most impressive about Tenex Developers?

They were able to communicate to me what they planned to do and managed my expectations. Josh is an excellent teacher for someone like me who’s a novice with IT. He was extremely patient, and was able to explain the process fairly well to me throughout our time working together.

Are there any areas Tenex Developers could improve?

No, the experience was phenomenal.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Tenex Developers?

I would recommend they spend time thinking about their own vision and exactly what they want out of their project. When it’s time to present the project, ask questions because Tenex doesn’t waste any time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My current company is Paragon Intel. I’m the co-CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tenex Developers?

I used Tenex before for different businesses. The most significant one was a business that I started called TruPrecisely. The business model of TruPrecisely was to get public data that is generally in a horrible format and found within the government domain and then sell that to financial companies. I identified the data but I couldn’t access it easily, so I hired Tenex to find ways to get the data out of the government system and provide it to our clients easily. This was a Data-as-a-Service project; I used Tenex to get the data off of other web-based applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I am not a developer but I’ve worked with Tenex Developers for such a long time that I trust what they do. I usually give them a problem that only a full-stack architect can solve, and then they walk me through how they would solve the problem; I generally greenlight the project and they go for it. I don’t know what technology was used. They know different languages and focus on the right tools for the job. I’m working with them in weekly sprints. After a while, you get the cadence for things. Frankly, the level of trust we have with them built up to the point where the weekly check-ins were not necessary because we would be in more frequent communication aside from the formal retros and sprint set-up meetings.

The public data was saved in PDFs that were not normalized, and there were about 10,000 PDFs. Each PDF file was between 20 pages and a couple hundred pages. I needed to get the data out of every single PDF into an Excel file so I can do interesting things with it. That was a big pain point. I was able to identify one data source and show them how to jump from one PDF to the next PDF. After that, they were on their own to keep it up to date. On a quarterly basis, the structures might change, so I needed them to develop a system that was automatic enough to do that as well and to catch things that might be going wrong with the code. In addition to a new PDF file that’s uploaded or an older one which was taken down, the structure of the data itself might change so the requirement was that it needed to be adaptable for that.

How did you come to work with Tenex Developers?

I knew the CEO of Tenex for a while before I started doing business with them. I encouraged him to start his own company, and when he did, I was happy to use his services.

How much have you invested with Tenex Developers?

I would say that I invested a good amount and I think it’s worth the value, but I don’t feel comfortable telling people how much I gave them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in June 2016, and the project was completed in November 2016. We would hash out certain ideas and I might go and try to build some stuff myself and go to them when I had a deeper problem. While they may not have been contracted for the whole entire time, they were certainly well aware of what was going on. There’s more than one sprint that they were getting processed for.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All the revenue I have generated from TruPrecisely would have been very difficult for me to achieve without Tenex Developers, and it’s a decent amount of revenue. I had a problem that was well scoped out. I gave it to them and I didn’t have to worry about it getting done. They were able to accomplish it. I don’t have exact metrics on that but it was a task that they completed very professionally. I’ve worked with them on other projects because of the success of this first project.

How did Tenex Developers perform from a project management standpoint?

Tenex is unique in comparison to some of the other consulting firms I’ve worked with. If they can find an efficient solution for a client’s pain point, even if it makes them less money, they make the recommendation. They’re interested in the client’s success as well as their own. There are other companies that are much bigger and much more well-known, that are much more expensive. I feel like Tenex had more of my interests in mind. Anyone can spend $100,000 or $500,000 dollars on an application, but Tenex is really focused on asking questions and making sure you know what you want. They gave suggestions to make things easier and faster. I trusted them to provide me that feedback and also to be aggressive with me and tell me when I was when I was not getting them what they needed.

They have a detailed process. I would email them about a problem and they would schedule a call with me. We may have to do that two more times to make sure everyone is understanding the problem and what the solution is going to be. They come back with a proposal that I sign off on and then execute the solution usually within the next week. After that, I checked in regularly to see the progress.

What did you find most impressive about Tenex Developers?

Working with both guys at Tenex, it’s pretty easy to not worry that much. If you have a well-defined problem, you get a well-defined solution for that problem. You really don’t have to worry about whether it can be executed. I’ve done a lot of work with them in the past, not just in our fields but with this weird quasi-intelligence community stuff too. If it’s possible to do, they can do it, and they can do it very professionally and usually at a decent price.

Are there any areas Tenex Developers could improve?

I think they’re busy. As a friend, I have encouraged them to turn away more business to focus on the higher level businesses and not the small little things.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Tenex Developers?

You stay in touch with them even when you’re not working because there’s a lot of dividends to be paid even outside of the professional contract. I’m found the relationship very professional.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the CMO of a utility comparison company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tenex Developers?

We had multiple data synchronization challenges and needed to build data repositories and business intelligence systems to answer important business questions that we couldn’t yet because we had too many different systems. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was designed to answer questions about user behavior for advertising and user-experience optimization purposes. We had exact target integrations that needed to be done. There was definitely segmentation involved. Tenex Developers worked on several data pipelines that brought disparate data streams together. So, first of all, they were learning data. Then, they were figuring out how to extract the data and bring disparate sources together so that data were synchronized across systems. Finally, they were building processes so the data could be synchronized reliably. On top of that, they were working on the business intelligence and reporting pieces.

We were using several different database technologies that were all SQL-based like Domo, Redshift, SalesForce, and Localytics for data warehouse and business intelligence services.

How did you come to work with Tenex Developers?

There wasn’t an RFP. We had internal developers, but we needed help in scaling our development efforts and using resources that couldn’t do this elsewhere. We found them through a friend, a super great engineer who I was working with at the time. He knew Tenex Developers and said we should work with them because they have extra capacity. They were working on some operational app-level stuff with us, too, and I had a need. We got introduced to Tenex Developers and hit it off right away.

The founder calls himself a “no bulls**t software developer,” and basically he is. He’s really good at understanding what your requirements are, listening first, and then giving you good-quality solutions. He gives you options, lets you know how long it’ll take, and puts his money where his mouth is. That’s the most important thing: he can tell you how long it’s going to take to get done. He can tell if you’re going down a good path or a bad path. He won’t let you go down a bad path unless you insist (then, it’s on you at that point). I think they’re good partners as well as hardcore developers.

How much have you invested with Tenex Developers?

I believe it was between $50,000 and $100,000. When I invested in them, I invested again when the time was up. I was happy enough with what they did to give them additional work.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with them on and off between January and August of 2016. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s hard to say that all the work that we did on the data warehouse could be attributed to Tenex Developers. But, before we did this project and before they started on this work, we didn’t have any truth for our data. This project allowed us to have a system of record that we could go to for user behavior and flow through the app. That allowed us to identify several problems like bottlenecks with the app that we were able to streamline to reinvent those processes. That’s what we wanted, and that’s what we got. We were doing some things we hadn’t tried before, and they were able to pick up the ball and run with it. At the end of the day, they were pretty solid with documentation and building processes so that people could take over. You don’t always get that.

How did Tenex Developers perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re stellar. They’re phenomenal on project management. They listen and provide you not only with team resources but also smart people with ideas. That’s pretty awesome. If things go in a manner that is unexpected, they bring it to the table quickly and let you know this isn’t exactly what we talked about due to a data issue. Usually, it’s a data issue that they didn’t know about because we didn’t know about it. They’ll give you several options to fix it and let you know how that affects the scope. Largely, they were pretty good about doing things on time and within budget. If they weren’t going to be able to do it on time and within budget, they bring you back to the table in time to allow you to make decisions.

What did you find most impressive about Tenex Developers?

If you’re like, “Good, fast, cheap—pick two,” they can often give you all three, which is strange. You don’t really expect somebody to be good, fast, and cost-effective; they do all three. Their skill is top-notch. Many times, when you talk to developers or designers, they promise a lot. Tenex Developers promise and deliver a lot. If they promise they can do it, they’ll do it. That’s pretty awesome.

Are there any areas Tenex could improve?

I have lunch with their founder often, and he asks me for that sort of stuff, so I always give it. For them, it’s growing responsibly and getting more people who are as good about culture and can be a part of essentially a technical SWAT team for the business. They’re special. It was really good to have something like that fall on our plate when needed because I didn’t expect it.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Tenex Developers?

Don’t use them for stupid stuff. Use them for things that require technical horsepower where you need a problem to be solved elegantly. Pay them what they’re worth. They are top-notch pros. In this market, where it’s really hard to get good engineers, you could augment your good engineers with more good engineers who will do things the way that you want.

If you have a process that you work in or want to make sure that code gets documented, they do that. Often, when you get additional help, it’s not always the same caliber that you’re used to. These guys don’t cut corners. Let them know how you want things. If they have ideas for how you could do things better, listen to those ideas because they’re smart. They’re good dudes. 

BACKGROUND

I’m the CEO and founder of a business that creates hardware and firmware for use by military, intelligence, and law-enforcement agencies. We offer a highly specialized tool that deals with digital forensics.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

After being introduced to Tenex through a colleague, we hired them to re-implement a problematic firmware component in a hardware device. This task was both urgent and challenging, so we needed assistance to finish it quickly and correctly.

Within a week, the component was finished. In addition to resolving many bugs in the old version, Tenex also eliminated a large software dependency. 

SOLUTION

Since I was impressed by Tenex’s initial deliverables, we gave them additional requirements and sample data. In less than 3 weeks, they provided a working solution. The project spanned several skill sets, from reverse engineering of a proprietary binary file format to optimizing resource usage for embedded devices. We were able to work with a single engineer at Tenex, who handled all of these aspects. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Tenex delivered a great solution quickly, and the code quality was excellent. They required minimal direction, were responsive, and had no issues with changing the code as our requirements evolved. We easily integrated the solution into our product, which made deployment simple.

Throughout the project, Tenex stood out to me because of their sense of urgency and unusual depth and breadth of skills.