Valtech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of Buchanan Technologies. We’re a strategic managed services provider and IT consulting firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Melon?

We hired Melon to provide development support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We brought Melon in for their expertise with various technologies. We’ve worked together on numerous projects for our customers. They helped us with the scoping and delivery process. We primarily utilized their broad spectrum of SharePoint skills and expertise. 

Melon developed one of our projects on an Azure platform. They’ve provided the pure development skills we’ve needed, like .NET expertise. We’ve also had them work with us on DevOps oriented tasks like Office 365 migrations.

What is the team composition? 

Melon provided the bulk of delivery resources for our projects, who work with our internal project managers. Their team includes SharePoint architects, business analysts, and resources with development and UI/UX capabilities. We also work with the individuals who handle DevOps.

I work primarily with one of the principals. From a project delivery perspective, he keeps an eye on everything that goes on in the background.  We typically worked with team leads and engaged directly with various teammates in the SharePoint or the .NET space. 

How did you come to work with Melon?

Melon came recommended as a provider. We both have offices is in Bulgaria and had held previous business meetings with their team. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $250,000–$500,000. Their costs are very reasonable.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since May 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had excellent feedback from our customers, who find that Melon is very thorough and thoughtful. Our clients appreciate the team’s approach and the services they provide. Some members from Melon’s side of the team have received great comments.

How did Melon perform from a project management standpoint?

Melon is excellent. We have no issues with project management. We use Microsoft Project and Jira for tracking requirements along with a variety of different tools. The technology we use depends on the specific customers we’ve engaged with and what platforms they’re able to support.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t view them as a vendor or a supplier. Melon’s approach feels more like a partnership. We work together towards deploying a customer’s solution. The team has shown they can be flexible with our clients when needed, which has been critically important to us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that our customers notice is the time zone difference, given that Melon is Bulgarian-based. For the bulk of our engagements, they’ve been flexible about matching our time zones. This minor issue sometimes comes up as a question, and we try to respect it on both sides. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and honest about your intentions and what you’re trying to accomplish. You can trust that Melon is going to treat your customers like their own clients. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Cirrus Lender Services, a company that provides software for banks to facilitate the collection of loan documents through a secure portal.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

Our software was a bit old and clunky, so we needed a partner to update the UI/UX.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our project had a quick turnaround, but we had an initial meeting to discuss our plans and goals. They then conducted user research, talking to a few clients to determine how the UI/UX should be improved. We wanted the program to be more intuitive and modern for users.

What is the team composition?

We mainly communicated with two leads, and they each had a team working under them.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

We heard of them through word of mouth. They have a good reputation in our area, so our product officer engaged with and hired them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February­–March 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our clients love the new software; it’s a complete transformation over what we used to have. We’ve converted over 40 users in just the past six weeks.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a portal we used, but we mostly met in person. They’re well-led and highly responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their leadership is high quality, resulting in top-notch execution and some of the best talent in the area. Everyone on the team is professional.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they worked quickly. I’d gladly use them again.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Engage with them in the early stages of your project; they’ll provide valuable insight.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO and founder of theinfluencer.com, a marketing platform, and marketplace that connects brands with social media influencers to help them collaborate on campaigns.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Melon?

We needed to work with a team that was familiar with automating the process of a marketplace so we could connect two types of users to fully automated transactions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Acting as our outsourced I.T. and product department, Melon helped us translate our commercial needs into technical tasks for their developers. They managed everything from the initial wireframes and architecture to the complete full-stack development with an emphasis on the backend. They used angular for the frontend, and the backend is Python-based. In addition to our primary web platform, they produced two mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Our site integrates with influencers' social media accounts through APIS that are available on all the different platforms. Brands and agencies can use our system to run fully automated campaigns, measure ROI, reach out to content creators who have profiles on our platform, and send them assignments.

What is the team composition? 

A project manager, one backend and one frontend developer, and a QA engineer work on our project full time. Sometimes we pull in extra help from another either backend or frontend resource depending on the need. 

How did you come to work with Melon?

We considered providers from Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, and India. After reviewing a few agencies found through an online search, we selected Melon. They seemed to have an experienced team, and they offered the best balance between quality of code versus cost.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent a total of $250,000 on Melon's development services. We started on a time and materials billing structure and then moved to a dedicated team with hours each month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started development in January 2016 and finished within a year and a half. Melon delivered the MVP in July 2017, but we had additional requirements. The platform is now fully live.  We’re still making enhancements to fill in missing steps in the process and improve the loading time. We were in beta until January 2018 when we officially launched. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve established a long-term relationship, and Melon is guaranteed to deliver on our projects. We're not aggressively onboarding yet. The few customers we're working with have shown us a few things we should change. 

As of today, we have 2,100 content creators on our site who have connected their social media and signed up. We’ve identified a much more extensive database of 30,000 influencers, but they haven't joined yet. We’re still focused on achieving significant traction.

How did Melon perform from a project management standpoint?

We spent the first 2-3 months getting acquainted. They missed a few deadlines because we'd underestimated the scope. Once we understood each other better, we found an effective system of communicating and gained momentum. Everything became much smoother month by month, and they started delivering. 

We use Trello to define tasks from the commercial side. Their project manager skillfully translated our business needs from plain English to technical tickets on Jira for the developers. Our communication was seamless. The entire team is very well-spoken and understands our needs. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I most appreciate Melon's human element. We have a healthy business relationship. In the cases I've asked them to go the extra mile with me, they always have. Whether it's an extended credit period or billing negotiations about bugs, we always have transparent and frank conversations. Our open dialogue helped develop credibility on both sides. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Allocating resources properly would help them improve. Not all the team members have stayed constant, which I would have preferred. Melon eased my concerns about staff turnover by bringing in credible people. They adjusted the billing to account for new teammates' 2-3 week learning curve during onboarding. 

Their web development team is excellent, but their mobile app team caused a two-month delay. We either underestimated the scope or the resource managing the project wasn’t senior enough. Once they noticed this problem, they jumped in, fixed it, and delivered in the end. They even footed the bill for the delay.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Transparency is key. Have well-defined tasks prepared to assign Melon.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a project manager for a beverage brand that covers 28 markets in Eastern and Central Europe as well as Switzerland, Ireland, Nigeria, and the entire territory of Russia. As a member of the central IT department, my role assists with the company’s business solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Melon?

Our company uses a primary technology stack. We needed design support for one of our frontend BI solutions

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We were facing an upgrade of our solution to an ACP-based custom cloud architecture that would bring a new look and feel to reports. Melon created a design to match the context and logo of our brand accordingly. Their lead designer managed the creative work and came up with several proposals for app screens. After brainstorming five themes ranging from traditional to avant-garde, we shortlisted three options and selected the best one.  

One of their developers implemented the design following our strict instructions. He chose a CSS that will be compatible with future releases of the ACP application. Since it’s a proprietary application, he came onsite to work in our office to get a better understanding of the requirements. Remote work wouldn’t have been appropriate in this particular case. He demonstrated a keen understanding of our project and collaborated effectively with our in-house and integrator teams. Accurate communication between all three parties was critical to successful completion. 

What is the team composition? 

Melon assigned an account manager, a senior and associate developer, and a designer to our project. 

How did you come to work with Melon?

We have completed previous projects with Melon, so they’re on our vendor list.  Most were related to Windows-based solutions.  When I was looking for a company that could provide both creative design and development, I knew they would be one of the proposed vendors. I chose them based on their immediate availability. Quick completion was key. Cost-wise, their offer was acceptable for our budget.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent between $10,000–$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on this project together last year from October through November.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Melon adjusted the look and feel of our frontend reporting solution. The upgrade we’re implementing is not yet live. We’ve already used the CSS they created, and it appears in every new report. The overall solution isn’t entirely complete yet.

Melon finished the job and conducted the entire process properly. Our customers are pleased with the reports we’ve started to use. The whole process went smoothly, and we achieved our overarching objective.

How did Melon perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated with the remote part of the team over Skype. When Melon’s developer came to work onsite, I was pleasantly surprised by how well and quickly he adapted to our environment. I expected glitches in the beginning, but he has everything properly installed from day one. He engaged the ideal people to help him complete the job.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciated Melon’s flexibility. They stepped in, were easy to work with, and did the job exactly right. This was an especially useful quality for this project. Their developer seamlessly joined our corporate environment. He worked effectively with a team he met for the first time on a computer we supplied.  Working rapidly, they completed our project within two weeks. Everything was done on time

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a company that provides a web platform that is focused on connecting the everyday person to the outdoors. We do that through technology that provides educational material and information that's necessary to help people plan and engage in outdoor experiences, such as hiking, camping, hunting, or fishing. We're leveraging technology and data analytics to help people get outside more often and leverage America's public land resources.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

We had initially developed an MVP of our site, but once we gained more financial traction, we wanted to make the investment in building out our UI/UX because of its importance to the overall platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our internal team manages the backend development. We rely on Spire Digital for the UI/UX design and other frontend design tasks to best present our rather large dataset.

What is the team composition?

Their team is led by Mikaela, our project manager who also acts as a tech lead and manages the agile board space, ticket creation, and workflow. In addition to Mikaela, our Spire team consists of a frontend developer, a designer, and ancillary support from QA engineers.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

We prioritized local firms so that we could meet in person. We interviewed several different companies and discussed our design, our prototype, and our goals. We tried to get a feel for the processes in each office. At Spire, we were able to observe a traditional sprint planning session and view their bullpen area to see how the developers worked together. It was clear that Spire had a mature environment. That experience, coupled with their examples of previous work, convinced us they would be valuable partners.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in February 2018 and is ongoing. We maintain a relationship with them for a small amount of frontend design work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are extremely pleased with the outcome. The feedback we have received internally and from external users of the platform has been overwhelmingly positive. We achieved the intuitive feel and nature of the platform that we hoped for.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

We reached our scheduled milestones under cost, which is a huge achievement for us as a startup. Spire Digital doesn’t produce throwaway work—everything they build has a place in the long-term roadmap. We originally intended for our relationship to last about six months, but it was gone so well that we’ve extended it.

Mikaela has been fantastic at keeping the team operating efficiently. We have great communication with her and with the team, in general. We’re very involved in the processes. We talk every day, and we meet at their office once a week so they can demonstrate the updates to the technology. They’re very transparent, and they make good use of their resources.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciate how well their team works with ours. It feels like they are an extension of our in-house group. They are excited about what they’re building with us. They’re just as passionate about being successful at this as we are. To have their team be that dedicated to us, that’s the biggest differentiator I could ask for.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I can’t name an instance when we have been unhappy. They have been responsive to all issues.

Any advice for potential customers?

The fact that we're so actively involved with them and we communicate so much with them and work so closely with them, I firmly believe that's one of the reasons why it's working so well. For any new client, I would recommend being the same way. Be involved and get to know everybody that's working on the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a military social network. Our app provides military bases an arena to rate and review local business so that recently re-located active, reserve, guard members, or military spouses can find reputable services in that area. People move around so often in the military that it’s hard to move to a new area and know say, which plumber to hire. The military community is a small, tight-knit family, so this would provide a trusted source of recommendations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

They were three key functionalities we wanted Spire to develop for this first version. First, we needed to standardize our base directory system. Second, we needed to the app to be able to look up any phone number on the base to ensure that only active duty, guard, reserve members or military spouses could sign up. Third, we had to integrate local business profiles so that people could rate and review them.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We talked through what we currently had, to see if there was any code that we could salvage from some pre-development we’d done, and then discussed our vision and the possibility of an MVP. They provided all the frontend and backend work. They handled the entire development stack. They built a feedback feature into the app—which is for both iOS and Android—that allows users an easy to way to register their opinions.

What is the team composition?

We started off with just a project manager, and then they added a lead developer, a designer, and an administration team that would test software builds for bugs before we pushed them out. I had to scale down our hours to do more fundraising, so we went down to just the developer and myself, and we’d occasionally bring on the designer.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

We reached out to multiple software development companies and Spire responded to our email in just a few minutes. While other companies had us fill out an automated form and had us go through an entire process to sign up for a call, Spire personally reached out to us. They understood our concept right away, and they actually have people on their team with military connections. Having a little bit of understanding of the government and military was very helpful, but it was really their personal, human touch that won us over.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2017 until July 2018. We’re currently in a paused period to gather feedback on the MVP, but we have about 50 more things to do.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Originally, they were able to put out an MVP in one month, which made us continue to work with them for the full Version 1.0 build out. Their quality is very high. I have family members in the software development space and they thought the app was top-notch. As soon as users downloaded it, their first reaction was that it looked good.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

We’d have at least one meeting a week—on Fridays—to talk through any challenges and the sprints we were on. We’d also communicate on a Slack channel throughout the week. They were good about communicating billing and financials and working around my budget. They even through in a bug fix for free, which I thought was highly professional. I didn’t even have to ask for it; they just did the right thing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I got to know them as people and they’d even invite me to events. I flew out there because they invited me to an investor party and I felt like part of their family. I felt really welcome, like I could walk in any time. Whether it’s the CEO, the president, the owner, or whoever, I can call them whenever and don’t have to go through a chain of command. One of their software developers been with them for 15 years. That’s unheard of. They’ve built a solid team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’ve never done a project this big so I didn’t know to prepare for this, but I wish they’d talked me down from starting off with such a big contract. I wasn’t aware of how much funding I’d need to accomplish what I wanted, so I had to bring down our hours while I did more fundraising. I don’t know if they’ve had to deal with that before, but it would have been helpful to have my expectations gauged in terms of how big a chunk I could accomplish with the funds I originally had. I have to take responsibility for that though, because I was in charge. They handled it really well.

Any advice for potential customers?

Spire is a capable company and they’re well-connected in the software industry. They can make it happen, so my best advice is to go with them. If you have the budget, they’re reasonable with their prices, compared to other companies. Know what you want—I wanted an MVP in a month—when you come to them, and then give them a little test to see if they’re right for you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an online enterprise. We provide an operations management platform for customers within a specific industry. The platform automates historically manual processes to save customers time and labor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

I had an idea for a tech-enabled business, but personally lacked the knowledge or experience necessary. We initially approached them to help us build a system along the lines of our vision. However, we eventually decided to hire an in-house development team to create the platform. We then engaged Spire Digital to polish the frontend design and deliver the product’s final UI/UX.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our tech team collaborated with their designers to ensure the proposed wireframes would work with the system’s backend. Once both teams agreed on a general design approach, Spire Digital delivered a beautiful and efficient UI/UX.

What is the team composition?

We primarily worked with one designer. Other people from their team got involved when other skills were needed.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

Our attorneys recommended Spire Digital as a possible source to help us build the software. We reached out and the relationship grew from there.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2015 and the core deliverables were complete in 2017. We maintain a relationship with them and ask for their input on an ad hoc basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The primary metric we look at is customer feedback and that’s been very positive so far. Users feel like its modern software that’s easy to use. To be fair, there isn’t a high bar in our industry at this point, but no one’s complained about the interface so far. One of our objectives for the UI was for it be relatively unnoticeable like other modern software platforms. Spire Digital accomplished that.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

Spire Digital is an easy company to work with and everyone did a really a good job. My only issue was a specific instance of poor communication. The employee that was supposed to help us implement the new designs left the company before the project was complete. This wasn’t communicated to us and we ended up wasting a lot of time waiting for that implementation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very competent at interface design and we really like the aesthetic they delivered.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should have told us the bad news regarding the implementation resource as soon as they knew it. I don’t know what happened to them internally, but that miscommunication set us back several weeks in our development cycle.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any specific recommendations. Overall, Spire Digital is really good at collaborating with the companies that hire them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at Land Title Guarantee Company, a title insurance company based in Colorado.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

Our old site didn’t have mobile functionality and we needed something new and fresh to make our site competitive against other companies in our industry.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They met with our team and started a discovery phase. Their team presented a plan of action, tested our old website, and reached out to our clients/users. They analyzed our client’s feedback on our site and showed us the major functions our users wanted.

They designed mockup designs and conducted weekly meetings to show their progress and changes. Once we finalized the designs, they programmed a completely customized backend on WordPress.

Spire Digital also designed the customer frontend side. They designated the portfolios of our residential, lender, commercial, and builder professionals and enhanced the UX/UI of the site.

What is the team composition?

We initially worked with a large team of designers, programmers, and project managers. As the project progressed, the team was narrowed down to a couple of designers. One programmer was assigned to help near the end of the project.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

A friend and owner of a marketing company recommended Spire Digital. We considered other vendors, but we were very impressed with Adam (President, Spire Digital) and David’s (Vice President of Strategy, Spire Digital) background and their local client’s reviews. We decided on them because of their design and marketing perspective, and their extensive app development and programming experience.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2017 through April 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We received very positive internal and external feedback. People really liked that the site was clean and easy to use and we've only run into minor errors. Our team was excited about the updates and when the site went live, we had a few users call our office to tell us they enjoy using the site.

They met our expectations and figured out what we needed, which was probably hard because title insurance isn’t a common industry to design websites for. We had a lot of disorganized content and they cleaned it up and made it look great. They met our goals and made it mobile friendly and functionally smooth. They used what we had and put a new fresh twist on it.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a great job and were always on top of things. They provided new ideas for us in our weekly meetings and worked well with our team. Spire Digital was incredibly responsive and created very good solutions to our requests. Their team communicated through email and scheduled RingCentral meetings to share screens. They were easy to work with and now that the website is live, they’ve been very good about being available if something comes up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was interested and impressed to see the way they did their initial research how they found out what we really needed.  They didn’t hesitate and started talking to our top clients to get live feedback. They took that to create designs that would be optimal for our clients. Their design process was impressive.

They brought an incredible number of resources to bear on our project from the first day we got together. They were very thorough on the frontend reaching out to clients, doing some market research and customer interviews. They provided some very creative ideas and directions. They developed ideas we probably wouldn’t have thought of on our own. They were very flexible and accommodating almost to a fault as we started to throw out different design ideas and functionalities. They moved quickly to deploy development and were responsive as we ran into bugs and needed help.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They worked well with us. At times, there was a little delay between designers and programmers to hear something back. Typically, our designer, Trey (UX Consultant, Spire Digital) would figure it out and give us an answer as quick as possible.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open with them and let them know what you’re looking for. Give them detailed feedback on the designs that they give you each week. Be open to tell them about the new items you want to see and the changes that you want. They are very receptive and will do a good job understanding what you need.

If they talk about different design elements or functionality, clients should ask them if the requests are is going to extend beyond the estimated programming and development hours. We ran into some issues where we continued to have design and functionality conversations without knowing that we were expanding the scope and taking up development hours.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a former CTO of Beanstalk. It’s a nonprofit foundation that supports local nonprofit leaders in their philanthropy efforts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

I was responsible for developing a crowdfunding website where people could give donations to the select charities that Beanstalk supports. We were able to set up the fundamental aspects of the platform but needed help with advanced programming to facilitate each foundation’s compatibility. As a result, we reached out to Spire Digital to augment our development team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I approached them with my specific business challenge and had a conversation with their technical lead. Once we talked through the project’s scope, they assigned one senior developer to create the platform’s custom Drupal modules. The engagement included frontend work and some backend structuring.

What is the team composition?

We worked with the senior developer and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

They’re a well-known firm in Beanstalk’s area because they’ve been around so long. However, I’ve personally known their founder for many years. He even approached me as a potential partner when he was starting Spire Digital. We’ve done some work together throughout the years, but I’ve never been his employee.

What is the status of this engagement?

This engagement took place in 2012 and lasted two months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Drupal is a strange beast where it’s easy to get 90% of what you want, but extremely difficult to manage the last 10% without a lot of experience. A junior developer and I agonized for months over how to build out the modules we needed. Spire Digital’s developer came in and rapidly worked through those issues. He had the major functionalities fully developed within a few weeks.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re extremely professional. The senior developer did the work and directly communicated with us. The project manager kept track of development and often checked in to make sure we were satisfied with everything. This was the smoothest part of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate their relaxed but professional approach. They conduct themselves appropriately and achieve project goals while also being friendly and calm. They make it look easy. Working with them feels like a more human experience when compared to other vendors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could’ve used the success of this project to springboard into another engagement with us. Asking about our other needs and providing a course of action could’ve enabled them to extract more business from us. However, they did we asked them too and made sure we were happy. Then, they left graciously.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you're approaching Spire Digital purely to execute and deal with technical issues, then you’ll get the results you want. However, there’s more value in approaching them as a partner and trying to formulate a strategy.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a private bank based out of Denver, Colorado.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

We’re growing fast and trying to leverage technology to become a top-tier bank. We were using a product that we had cobbled together from Excel spreadsheets. It wasn’t sustainable or scalable so we needed a new solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Spire Digital worked with us to understand our existing tool, how we built it, what it did, and what wasn’t working. They were able to take that feedback, replicate certain elements, and offer value-add solutions for improvement.

We ended up using a PostgreSQL database and Bootstrap as the frontend template for the application. They provided us with a number of recommendations for possible options, with pros and cons for each.

What is the team composition?

We had a primary developer who would reach out to two or three other people as needed.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

We had a referral from an internal resource and one of our clients. We reached out to Spire to discuss our challenges and they thought they could solve them. We talked to three or four other agencies. Spire Digital was clearly the best in terms of our research and due diligence. They seemed like the right kind of partner for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2017. We’re currently 90%–95% complete and in the final stages of quality assurance testing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The solution that they’ve built us is more or less the same as the tool we already had—except that the new version has the ability to scale. Everyone’s happy with their work. We haven’t scaled yet because it’s not in production but we know there’s value there even if it hasn’t been realized yet. We’re currently mirroring our production system so, in theory, our teams are using the tool the way they would in the future. So far, it’s working well.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

I appreciate that they took a light-touch approach to project management which meant, for example, that they didn’t demand several project meetings or force a project manager on us. They gave us two options—a more expensive, high touch full-service option with a project manager and with quality reviews and testing by them, and another option of just developers that we would pay by the hour and manage the project ourselves. They gave us the pros and cons of both options so that we knew exactly what we were getting. We chose the latter option because we knew we could manage it internally. A project manager and additional resources were available if we needed however that was not necessary as everything went smoothly.

They were great people to work with. The primary developer that we worked with was great—very intelligent, responsive, and collaborative. He would dig deep to really understand what we were looking for based on the specific business outcomes we needed. He provided a range of ideas and suggestions. My team really enjoyed working with him.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were easy to do business with. While the product itself may be great, many vendors make it hard to do business with them because they over complicate things. They were very flexible right from the start during the contract negotiations. They weren’t bureaucratic and there wasn’t any red tape.

They were also very flexible and collaborative in their approach to the solution. They didn’t come in as experts who wanted to tell us what we needed. They worked with what we had and helped us improve it. They gave us suggestions and we decided between them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, I don't think so. Everything was exactly as expected. We got what we asked for. I can’t think of anything that they could have done better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Let their developer really understand your business needs because they may come up with a more creative solution than you've thought of.