Valtech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of Podation. We provide a multi-station platform for digital media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Melon?

We needed to build a self-service platform for digital media providers to upload.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The key features we wanted were the CMS and an embed player. I needed a backend content management system that also integrated into other services such as micropayment platforms. I also needed frontend development and UI/UX design. They provided all these services.

During the process, they also assisted with Q&A. That included different browsers and also mobile interfaces.

What is the team composition?

There were about five to six people that were working on this project.

How did you come to work with Melon?

They have great knowledge. My CTO really trusted them, having worked with them on three or four different projects in the past at two different companies. He had a really good experience with them. He knew them well and they knew him, and that is why we went with them. Also being offshore, they were very reasonably priced as well.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent between €50,000 and €100,000 Euros (between $60,000 and $120,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from March 2020, and the project went on until October 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was an excellent cooperation. They knew what they were talking about and were open about stuff when they didn’t know and therefore needed help and guidance.

How did Melon perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Slack as a communication tool and then Clubhouse for project management. We had a daily stand-up. They were always on time, worked very well, and did good stand-ups, telling us what they had done the day before and what the plan was for that day.

Also, there was good attention from management from both the CTO and the CEO. It felt like there was a very clear escalation part if something went wrong, and nothing went wrong.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I noticed that they had people that have stellar experience. You didn’t get a junior person; their team has people with 10 to 15 years of experience on the backend or frontend. That was really good. It is always a challenge when you work with other companies in other countries, as things can be lost in translation, but I found that their English language skills are excellent.

There was also a wide variety of services. When I said that I needed UX, they had that. When I said I needed UI design capabilities, they had that. I felt that they have a broad portfolio of skills.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have nothing in particular.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have very clear specifications and/or wireframes so that it is clear what it is that you want to do. I think that is very important in general, but if you work offshore, it is very important that you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve so that it is easier for them to get going.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CEO at CashBox which is a registered non-banking company providing fast loans to individuals and small companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Melon, and what were your goals?

We needed iOS & Android applications for providing online-only fast loans to our customers. The applications had to be built from scratch.

SOLUTION

How did you select Melon and what were the deciding factors?

We had not so good experience with our previous software providers so Melon had been recommended to us by our new CTO

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a kick-off meeting to outline the project since we already had iOS/Android Zeplin design on place. The mobile apps were built on native technologies (Swift & Kotlin) There were two separate teams (iOS and Android) who were working together to achieve uniform experience throughout both platforms. They managed to finish both apps in 4 sprints.

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

There were 6 people divided in two teams (one for each platform). Each team had a dev lead who was controlling the process, participated in the discussions and decisions and accepting (and reviewing) the pull requests from the other team members.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

All the stakeholders are very satisfied with the apps. They're now waiting to be published officially once we start the service.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We used scrum with dailies and 2-week sprints. Tasks were managed in Jira, source code was in BitBucket and communication was done over Skype.

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

They had a lot of experience with each platform so they were not only able to tackle the challenges we had but also to give (and implement) lots of best practices in those fields.

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

No

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a cloud technology company. I’m the customer engineering manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kin + Carta?

The project that we worked with Kin + Carta on was for a financial services company. We were building and optimizing their data analytics pipelines.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The customer was running an inefficient program. It wasn’t well optimized and there were a lot of reruns. We developed a pilot program that ran through the same kind of pipeline, but was more efficient. We built an optimized solution from there. 

We used cloud technologies such as Dataproc. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with several data engineers. 

How did you come to work with Kin + Carta?

We’d had prior experience with them in application development. We knew that Kin + Carta was in the process of beefing up their data analytics team, and this came about as a good opportunity to work with them again. We knew we wanted a high touch engagement, and we knew that Kin + Carta was well suited for that. 

How much have you invested with them?

I think we invested about $150,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–July 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we presented the final product to the customer, they were really excited and happy with the results. Kin + Carta worked really hard to come up with the right solution and create the most value for the customer. 

How did Kin + Carta perform from a project management standpoint?

They were really good at keeping us in the loop. There were a few starts and stops because we were waiting for the customer to get back to us. However, we never had delays because of something on Kin + Carta’s side. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their engagement model is much higher touch than other providers. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could work more diligently to make their business more scalable. Growing their team of  high-quality engineers will benefit their business in the future. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your expectations, but be open to different kinds of solutions. In addition, allow them some space to work independently.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a customer engineering manager for an internet company focusing specifically on retail, quick-service restaurant (QSR), and customer packaged goods (CPG) customers. We’re mostly focused on helping our customers successfully adopt our products. We do a lot of demos, proven concepts, and initial implementation projects. We end up working closely with both our professional services team and our partners to do more of the heavy lifting on the actual implementation side.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kin + Carta?

We had an opportunity at a quick-service restaurant and one of my customers really needed help with a couple of things. They were trying to figure out a better way to engage with their customers digitally and they had been at the forefront of this initially but then had kind of been leapfrogged by a couple of their competitors. 

The company asked us what we could do to help from a digital perspective and we landed on building a voice ordering assistant using our technology. We were very focused on UX for the end customer, how they were engaging with QSR, and whether or not it would be compelling from a business standpoint in terms of repeat customers. We engaged Kin + Carta to help pretty much from end to end and we knew we were going to need additional expertise, especially on the UX side.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kin + Carta focused on the UX side of the work. They brought the brand in line with the company’s goals. The team was more focused on the product instead of just writing code or doing designs. In the beginning, they helped us look at the larger picture of actual deliverables as well as help with the overall conversation design and really got into the details of what an order looks like at a fast-food restaurant.

They also did a lot of heavy lifting on the backend as well in terms of integrations to make sure if someone wanted to order a particular item, it was available at a given store at a given time. They had to get many of us working on all of the integrations between the digital assistant that we were building out and designing and the restaurant’s menu and our system that already existed.

What is the team composition?

There were three key roles that I interfaced with the most including a project manager, a conversational architecture lead design teammate, and an employee support teammate. Behind the scenes, they had about 10 developers.

How did you come to work with Kin + Carta?

I believe I was introduced to them by one of my colleagues because we had used them before on a voice experience project, so we knew they had some experience there. We had a couple of meetings and then after our first flight, it was very apparent that they were really good at this kind of work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent a little under $2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2019–February 2020. In the first quarter of this year, they went from being subcontracted to working directly with the client.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They actually gave our company more credibility and the customer expressed their happiness after the first couple of meetings. The actual output was rock solid as well being the delivery quality and the code they wrote.

How did Kin + Carta perform from a project management standpoint?

Kin + Carta was really excellent in the phase of project management. They were really flexible in helping us divide what their teams would look like how to keep the milestones in place when making staffing work. The communication from that standpoint was excellent; there were no surprises, no last-minute fire drills, everything was talked about within a month in advance.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Kin + Carta didn’t just come in and put together some designs, hand over the Adobe files, and walk away. They really forced everyone to take a step back and think if this was going to be enough several months into the future, and if it wasn’t, they would assess what needs to be done to improve. Kin + Carta had the hard skills when it came to building an engaging ordering assistant. There aren’t many partners that I could go out and ask to help with this sort of project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

With this particular customer, I think it would have been beneficial for everyone if they had existing relationships there that they could leverage.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be really transparent with them about what the overall end goals are. The more transparent you can be with them on what your goals are and what you’re trying to accomplish, the more they’re going to be able to kind of tailor their recommendations in their approach.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief digital officer of an insurance company. We’re a corporation focused on retirement annuity and mutual custodial business. My accountability is focused on consumer-centric data and systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kin + Carta?

We engaged with them to focus on design and service-design thinking around our customer experience. Our customers include financial professionals and policyholders.

Kin + Carta came in and facilitated an open dialogue and conversation with our senior leadership team and with core groups that are focused on delivering a high-end experience. After that, we’d wanted them to develop a hypothesis and do rapid prototyping for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have a new venture that’s targeted on the direct consumer space that we were looking at. Kin + Carta came in and created jobs to be done in the service design landscape and produced a document with this information; that was one of the deliverables. We iterated over the top of that and then selected areas of impact and truth for the consumer.

Their team developed a hypothesis and then produced high-end — both high-fidelity and low-fidelity — wireframes. They performed usability tests as well as went out and actively recruited target consumers. Those consumers went through the usability test then Kin + Carta pulled the information back and provided feedback on what resonated and what didn’t.

We went through a number of different iterations for that, and they did some research and data work for us. Those all were high-level deliverables on our path, trying to understand the direct consumer line space specifically for carriers.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a team of 8–12 individuals depending on the phase of the engagement. This includes managers, directors within their space, a core strategist, UI/UX design researchers, project analysts, program analysts, and specialty resources that were focused on technical and business sides.

How did you come to work with Kin + Carta?

It was through an existing relationship. We had an existing executive who had a relationship with one of the account execs. We started an open dialogue with Kin + Carta as well as other companies within the same space. After an RFP process, we were happy with what we found with Kin + Carta's reference points and deliverables.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from July 2019–May 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of their work and deliverables were very high end. They were flexible in what we needed, whether it was executive reports or a service design document. Their team was accommodating and worked to make sure what they produced was meaningful for the individuals we were interacting with.

They were thoughtful and a lot of times openly challenged our norm. We requested that Kin + Carta come in and challenge us and our leadership team, and they did an excellent job of doing that.

How did Kin + Carta perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was good. Kin + Carta did a good job of keeping us informed. There were a couple of scenarios that were driven more by us than them. We pivot a lot and change our minds. Sometimes that can be complex but they did as good of a job as they could've. I wouldn’t say it was stellar, but it was average and adequate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Kin + Carta does an effective job of challenging norms. They worked with other financial professionals but also brought in individuals who had different vertical experience. I felt that exposure was great.

Their team was always open about providing us with other opportunities we didn’t look at ourselves but would’ve benefitted us. They understood our business and were great at identifying key problem statements and providing solutions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had scenarios where a couple of individuals were ramped up as a resource, and then they left the company or were deployed to other projects. We lost some focus in that particular case. Overall, having dealt with many partners in this space, I wouldn’t critique them on that. However, keeping individuals focused on specific programs or projects would be a value add for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have continuous calls with the leadership team. Focus on what your overall objectives and outcomes are, and make sure Kin + Carta is aligned with them. Their leadership team did a good job of understanding our problem statements and focused on what we needed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior IT director of Million Dollar Round Table. We’re a professional association for life insurance agents and financial professionals. We have about 66,000 members and 90% of them are outside of the US. The basic tenet for the organization is sharing sales ideas between agents.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kin + Carta?

Most of our membership is in Asia. We provide a lot of content like training materials, podcasts, videos, and articles. Our membership growth outside the US has been very explosive in the last several years. We recognized the need to customize more of what we do to our members in other cultures and also look at ways to provide that information to our members in those other areas.

A lot of our content is in English but we’re also translating a lot of it. Our members in Asian countries have issues accessing materials. We’re running into issues with managing that volume of information as well.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged Kin + Carta to look at our overall technology environment. Our CEO’s vision is to be a digital-technology-driven organization. We know that’s how most of our members want to access our content and other services we provide.

We had Kin + Carta look at our current technology environment and vision. They interviewed nearly 800 members in the Asia region to see what they wanted from us. In turn, we looked at what technology we needed to put in place to address those needs.

They looked at our business model and the services we provide centered on four products: members, events, content, and building community among the organization. Their team looked at how we’re structured both from an organization standpoint and from a staffing standpoint analyzing whether that aligns with our goals of being a digitally enabled organization. They also looked at the market and collected insights on what people in other cultures expect from an online service that provides content.

What is the team composition?

Initially, it was one of the managing principals, a project manager, and a couple of individuals who were involved heavily. Once we got into the meat of the analysis, there were approximately 20 people on the Zoom calls.

How did you come to work with Kin + Carta?

We were looking for organizations that looked at digital technologies. We starting talking with Kin + Carta, and they presented us with a different perspective. Our marketing director was very excited about that viewpoint so we started talking with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement ran from January–August 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very impressed with the depth of research they did before coming to the meeting. Internal feedback touched on how well Kin + Carta understood our organization in such a short period of time. Everyone was surprised at how quickly they picked up on some of the nuances. The Kin + Carta team was great, they put together a good proposal and story behind why.

How did Kin + Carta perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management went very well. We had weekly meetings, sometimes more, where we went through task status. They stayed on top of everything and highlighted the things that were critical. They kept on track and came in on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In comparison to other companies we considered, they were much more focused on the IT aspects. They came in and looked at our systems and told us what to replace and what to put in; they looked at the whole organization strategy. Kin + Carta looked well beyond IT consulting and did more business consulting.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind because I’ve been happy with the results and the entire process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear mission and vision established before starting the engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing venture capital fund. We invest in food and agriculture companies that are looking to make the food system healthier and more environmentally friendly.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kin + Carta?

We needed help with branding.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with a creative exploration and had some virtual workshops. Then, they translated all of our inputs into a few mood board directions. They worked with us to narrow them down. Next, they did some competitive analysis to look at the landscape of venture capital and find a white space in our visual identity that was unique.

They helped us go through a brand refreshment process. It was a very creative-led project. The team redid our whole brand visual identity, from a new logo to modernizing the whole look and feel for our site’s UX. They did everything from image asset selection to actual content development. We owned the writing, but they took care of the visual assets.

They also delivered a new brand book, including colors, imagery direction, revised company overview slide decks with new PowerPoint templates. Finally, they gave us an asset library with photography and things we use across all of our channels.

What is the team composition?

We had a UX designer, a creative director, a developer, and an engagement director.

How did you come to work with Kin + Carta?

We found them through our network. We went through an RFP process and they were one of the leading candidates from that pool. They came on top because I had confidence in really knowing their relatable experience, their culture fit with our team, and they really worked with our budget as well.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2020, and we wrapped up in August 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been extremely pleased with the end result. The brand that they built for us is on point for our culture and heritage. It’s also really modern and fresh. We’re thrilled.

How did Kin + Carta perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been great at meeting deadlines and managing the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We came in with a certain ask and they performed super well. They really stood out on the creative side. I would certainly recommend them to any company that needs a brand refresh.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, for what we asked they certainly delivered. I haven’t tested them in other areas like analytics and SEO.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be really clear and transparent about the ask from the beginning.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager in the marketing department of a large health insurance company. My group is responsible for all of our customer-facing digital products, including our member website, chatbot, and mobile app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kin + Carta?

We were doing some work with Google Cloud, and Kin + Carta came on as a subcontractor. They filled in the gaps in our development team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Kin + Carta brought some heavy expertise within the Angular UI development and project management spaces. As a support team, their resources blended in with our in-house developers. They were involved in our scrum ceremonies, helping to break down the work and tackling the UI-related tasks.

What is the team composition? 

We primarily worked with a senior-level Angular UI developer who had some cloud experience. There was also a part-time project manager.

How did you come to work with Kin + Carta?

Kin + Carta was actually chosen by Google. We’d been working with Google for a while, now, so they had a good sense of our requirements. Given our high expectations, they recommended that we work with Kin + Carta. 

How much have you invested with them?

I’m not sure of the exact cost because it was subbed through Google, but I would estimate between $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project lasted between April–July 2020. We ended up liking Kin + Carta so much that we’re considering contracting with them directly for other projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I appreciated that Kin + Carta was able to come in and take the lead in their respective project lanes. That’s not always the case with other companies that need more babysitting to get through a task. 

How did Kin + Carta perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed really well, even though there was some confusion on the length of the engagement. Google had told us this would be a 12-week engagement but told Kin + Carta that it would be nine weeks. About three weeks into the project, Kin + Carta reached out to say that we likely wouldn’t finish on time when we were actually right on track. We were able to clear up the confusion and complete the deliverables on-time.

That whole process showed us that they were tracking their work well, and I’m glad to see that they didn’t wait until the later in the project to bring up their concern. It wasn’t a burden to have their team on because they could hold their own.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They seem to be pretty good at keeping up with newer technologies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Based on my limited interaction with them, I don’t have anything to say.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should lean on their expertise and experience. Like I said earlier, they seem to have a good handle on the newer technologies and have implemented them with some large clients.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of digital experience at a foodservice distributor across North America. We serve restaurants, schools, hotels, and catering companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Kin + Carta?

We had an aging platform and wanted something more robust and scalable. We hired Kin + Carta to build out a new platform for our e-commerce.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kin + Carta build a modern e-commerce interface for us. They used an agile methodology and trained us to work in a better way. The team used cloud technologies in a modern way so we could operate in a CICD manner with no outages to customers.  

What is the team composition?

At maximum, we scaled up to a team of 60. We initially worked with a smaller team of 15–20, and now we’re down to 8. We had strategists, designers, developers, product managers, and a full offshore team.

How did you come to work with Kin + Carta?

They were recommended by another partner that we trusted.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2017, and our work is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve been great. The team works well with our developers to reach our goals. Especially in the last year, they’ve been really willing to work with us as we’ve scaled back due to COVID-19 to preserve cash flow. They were able to provide resources at a discounted rate to help us ramp up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The overall level of professionalism and expertise stands out. Their ability to deliver is really clear, and their processes are easy to learn from. They consistently have the right resources and skillsets for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They have some growing pains and they’re still learning how they can help us in new, better ways. Everything doesn’t need to be custom-built, there are a lot of things we could use off the shelf.  

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of engineering at Uplight, a SaaS company that serves energy providing business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spire Digital?

Our work can fluctuate a fair amount depending on our sales cycle and even depending on the time of year. We hired Spire Digital to help us get resources to augment our engineering team when we needed additional help but didn’t want full-time staff members.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Spire Digital has helped us round out a whole bunch of different skill sets. They do most of the Python development for us, which is our main programing language here. 

We've also used them for a lot of JavaScript, Node.js, and React development, as well as data engineering. They’ve done EGL and data pipelines, and they’ve also taken data that we’ve received from our customers and helped to write data pipelines to get that data into our system.

What is the team composition?

We work with a lead on their side.

How did you come to work with Spire Digital?

I heard about them through my former boss who had worked with them, and he had good things to say.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

My contract with them started in January 2020, and it’s going to wrap up this week. However, our engagement with them as a company is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A high-level metric is the number of energy programs that they've helped us launch. When I say energy program, what that means is that, when we're working with a utility customer, they're buying a standard product of ours, but it's always configured to be specific to whatever that utility is trying to achieve. 

Spire Digital has helped us launch five energy programs this year in the time that we’ve worked with them, which represents a big chunk of work. Their ability to help us augment our team to enable us to do all of that work has been a huge win.

Had we not had Spire Digital’s help, we wouldn't have have been able to launch all of that work.

How did Spire Digital perform from a project management standpoint?

The team has been flexible in terms of conforming to how we want to run our projects and working within our boundaries. They’ve conformed to our sprint cadence, and they use our ticket system. 

We have daily standups with them where we answer questions and talk about code deployments. Spire Digital also gives us weekly hours reports about the status of the project that outline how many hours we’ve used and how many are left on our contract, which is useful. 

They are very good at communicating those statuses. The lead on their side does project management and engineering and technical work, helping to organize their team. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our business ebbs and flows a lot, so the team’s flexibility is impressive. All of the resources they’ve given us have been useful in terms of having a pool of people who we know can help us.

Spire Digital has also been good about adding additional resources when we have busy months. It’s been nice that they’ve been able to be adaptable to our ebbs and flows and help us hit the customer-committed dates.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing stands out. The team has been great about taking feedback and working with it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them as much information as you can provide. They have been good about being able to help us even when we don’t have anything, but I would advise customers to provide information around, for example, technical architecture that they need to conform to.

This will help Spire Digital make sure that they align with your expectations. Once we took the time to organize ourselves and present a clear goal, we were able to make sure that we were doing well.