Vention

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of CollectorIQ, Inc. We provide a SaaS application that provides data and analytics on fine art assets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTechArt Group?

They’re our e-commerce development partner.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

iTechArt has played a critical part in the development effort that’s complemented our internal resources. They’ve been involved in both the ideation and development of features and functionalities, which involve aggregating customer information and unique data. With our team, they’ve helped develop algorithms that help predict value for our customers’ assets, while at the same time creating the aggregation technology and machine learning to discern value very quickly. 

The team developed our iOS app, using a wrapper for the Android app because we wanted to have a single code base. 

What is the team composition?

There’s probably a dozen developers of different types working on our projects. One of the advantages of working with iTechArt is not only their deep bench and skill set, but also the ability to tap into specific development needs as the use case arises.

How did you come to work with iTechArt Group?

iTechArt was my e-commerce development partner at another company I’d founded. They helped me build out the platform and expand both geographically and with regard to functionality. 

We identified them through an RFP process. We selected them with an initial modest-focus assignment, and then expanded. I was really impressed with their effort, which is why I hired them again.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since May 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have thousands and thousands of users, and the site has never gone down. The application iTechArt architected is very robust and complicated, and they’ve done a great job. They’ve enabled us to scale in a very positive way. The fact that we’ve been able to build incrementally on this solid foundation has been a cornerstone of our company’s success.

iTechArt has been critical in enabling us to develop a leading data service. Having been through many development cycles with different firms and internal resources, I’ve never lost any sleep about the development process and the quality of the foundation technology with them.

How did iTechArt Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management has been excellent. There’s been some cyclicality in both the cadence of work effort and the project needs, and iTechArt has always been flexible with regard to both of those aspects of the development process. 

The team has been able to meet all deadlines, and they perform very well. From a project management standpoint, we’ve been very pleased. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

At a high level, iTechArt delivers outstanding quality on time and on budget, which is all we can hope for. Also, all of their developers are in one place. They’ve been able to establish a team effort that’s very important to project continuity. That cohesion has been extremely helpful to our process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve been able to adapt to any challenges.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We started as a healthcare social network driven by SEO. We pivoted to a creator economy app during COVID

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Web and mobile (react native) engineers. Our goal was to improve our MVP. We had clearly defined features and products we wanted to ship but lacked the team. We wanted engineers who could get shit done without needing perfect PRD's.

SOLUTION

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

Referred by another founder. He spoke highly of iTechArt. I had a hard time interviewing, it was hard to tell who was good. So I did references on the engineers for their past projects and they were glowing. It was a pretty easy decision after that.

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

We started off with 1 web (rails & js) engineer and 1 react native engineer. The web engineer worked directly with me and i basically ended up letting him run with everything and i just scoped stuff out roughly and he was able to crank out everything.

For mobile, we had a clearly spec'd mobile app and the react dev ran with it. When we pivoted we hired two more rails engineers. We're now a team of 5 engineers with 3 from itechart. We built an MVP in 3 weeks when we pivoted and have been improving it ever since.

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

4 3 senior rails 1 react native

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Finished mobile app (didn't launch b/c of covid) Launched 2 redesigns. Launched 1 MVP. MVP is now doing 50k+/mo in GMV in third month

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

It's up to us. We use github for basically everything. For different engineers you can spec projects to varying degrees. I've been pleasantly surprised by how they can run with ambiguous requests.

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

Quality of engineers for price

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

I wish they could learn the types of engineers we like and hand place the best that would fit instead of us having to interview them (probably an impossible task but we can dream)

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of Healthera. Healthera operates a leading healthcare marketplace that provides patients with medicines, healthcare services and products through the largest digital platform of pharmacies and GPs in the UK, including national chains and independent providers.I oversee projects management, infrastructure, mobile & web product development, design & QA.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire iTechArt Group?

After healthera raising series A funding, the company hired me to grow the tech team and scale fast to meet the ongoing demands. The mobile, web apps and infrastructure was created over 3 years ago and it was out of date and need to clean up the technical debts along with launching new products. We have in house developers and we use iTechArt to help to spin off the development work and grow the technical and design team

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to launch the new product feature to capture a wider market; reduce the number of bugs and improve qualities.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I have been comparing to other nearshore development companies, so far iTechArt has straight forward pricing model, provided good quality candidates. They were really proactive in gathering feedbacks and improving ways of working.

Describe the project in detail.

We mainly used iTetchArt for Design , Node.js, iOS Swift, Test automation, DevOps to improve different areas of the products and launching new features.

What was the team composition?

1 iOS, 1 Backend Node.js, 1 Test Automation, 1 Designer, 1 Project Manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have successfully launched the integration projects and product features to increase conversion rate and captured wider markets. It results in a good retention rate in our user base and increased our clients' satisfactions

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The communication between our team and their team members were effective. We constantly messaging each other and engage in discussion on Slack and Zoom calls. we have daily standups and JIRA to capture progress. We have a weekly team meeting to celebrate achievements.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Not only they were highly skilled professionals in their own domain, but also they have good communication skills. We learnt from each other on technical knowledge and also on project/ product management side. They were very engaging and proactively listening for feedbacks and improve ways of working.

They were willing to accommodate our working hours and actively involve in company events. They are very honest and constructive and provided invaluable feedback to us as well.

Are there any areas for improvement?

It would be good to have a long term contract with some appealing price. The rate was good for contract work, but not good for a permanent engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product for a B2C startup that provides a free moving concierge service as well as an app and related services for people who are looking to move. We connect them with professional movers. A curate d set of service providers that we’ve partnered with. We have a website and mobile app to provide their details and get matched with a  moving service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTechArt Group?

When we first brought them on, we were looking for general staff augmentation. It’s hard to find really talented engineers. We were looking to expand our team with high-quality talent. We also specifically needed a React developer, which was very difficult to find.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the last two years,  they’ve built a React Native app. They’ve also developed and improved various backend features.

Their Python developer worked on various backend APIs on our website as well. This would help our demand partners integrate with us.

The  API allows our partners to push information into our platform so our customers would have a seamless experience. When or partners’ clients go to check out on their site, they get a little advertisement asking them if they want help finding a moving company.

 Then, they can pass into our experience without having to fill out all the same information. All of that is prepopulated in our system.

The Python developer also developed an API from scratch with various endpoints for our partners to connect to.

What is the team composition?

We brought on one React Native developer as well as one Python developer.

How did you come to work with iTechArt Group?

They worked with some other startups that we were familiar with. We were attracted to their expertise in the real estate industry specifically, and they had a practice around mobile development that was very appealing.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s about $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2018 and we wrapped up in March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The partner's API contributed to 20% of our revenue growth in 2019. It’s a key aspect of our partnerships, and it’s what we rely on today for our partners to send clients our way. iTechArt Group has been instrumental for those partnerships. We didn’t have the capacity to complete this kind of project without them. It was a very successful project.

How did iTechArt Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very autonomous. We’re a small team, with not a lot of managerial resources, but they were able to pace themselves. They required very few check-ins to stay on pace. They’ve been able to roll with us as we go and adapt to what we needed as a startup.

We had daily standups over zoom. Those face-to-face interactions really helped us develop a relationship with them. They had full access to Slack, which helped them navigate our team as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

iTechArt Group favored and facilitated direct relationships, which empowers their developers. The Python developer felt like another member of our team and would work on whatever was necessary at the time. They were comfortable jumping into different parts of our codebase, trying out different technologies, and working through our stack.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you treat your third-party developers like one of your own team members, they’ll take ownership of the work, the product, and the team, just like any other developer. I would definitely recommend that you give them access to Jira, Slack, and Zoom too.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is named PhoneWagon and we do call tracking for marketers and small businesses. We also provide a communication tool for our clients to contact their potential leads. I’m the CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTechArt Group?

We needed to build and MVP product to show investors. iTechArt Group provided resources at a good cost to build out this product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was a web application. After we developed an MVP, they helped us optimize what we already had in place. They helped us create a better version, fix some technical issues we had, move to a newer tech stack, and include new features.

We initially built everything off of Twilio, so they worked closely with us on that. Our MVP was written in .NET on the backend, and they helped us transition to a Clojure backend.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager that is local. Then the team fluctuated between 1–2 members during the duration of our project.

How did you come to work with iTechArt Group?

It was difficult to find Clojure developers. We went through a program called Techstars, so they were recommended.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in May 2018 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were successful, and were able to raise a little over $2 million. Revenue continues to grow, and we’ve been able to deliver features that customers ask for. All of our projects have been successful. We’re happy working with them and want to continue to work with them. Without them, we’d probably be paying double for the resources.

How did iTechArt Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re based in Belarus, but our local project manager was easy to communicate with because he was in our time zone. We also met face-to-face a few times. We touched base once a quarter.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One resource in particular added tremendous value to the team. Their training and experience was great. Using their network, they were able to find someone who knew Java and could work in Clojure. So they had a pool of resources to recruit specifically for our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing stands out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Interview the developer you want to bring on board to make sure that they’re able to communicate well and understand your domain and the problems you want to solve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The StreetShares platform is a multi-tenant on-boarding, decisioning, and lending platform provided to banks, credit unions, and non-financial institutions — organizations that aren’t technically banks but want to provide loans to their small-business customers. 

As the head of product for the platform, I'm responsible for the functionality of the component lending systems as well as conceptualization of new services in the Lending as a Service model.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTechArt Group?

Last summer, during the pivot, we took our old application into a white label model, so that banks could actually make it feel coherent with their online banking experience. If they didn’t have a strong online banking experience, they could, at the very least, make it feel like the app was part of their offering. In doing that, we also made a number of radical changes to the way the borrower application worked. We needed more capacity to do that, so we looked to iTechArt to supplement our team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

iTechArt provided two fantastic developers on super short notice. From a coding perspective, they started the work on the branded application before my in-house team even began on the project. About two months later, we added two more developrs. When we delivered in December of 2019, a large proportion of the application had been developed by the iTechArt developers.

Since then, we've worked together on a number of other challenging projects. Throughout iTechArt has taken our ideas and concepts and run with them, delivering the best possible solutions and products.

What is the team composition?

We have four developers from iTechArt at the moment, and may expand in the future.

How did you come to work with iTechArt Group?

I’d worked with iTechArt at my previous company and had a fabulous experience with them there. When I got to this company in early 2019, it was fairly obvious that we didn’t have nearly enough developer capacity to meet our business needs. I suggested we contact iTechArt and a couple of months later we began the current relationship with StreetShares.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re at the low end of $50,000–$100,000. The cost is very reasonable for what we’ve gotten.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started with two developers in July 2019, and then brought on two more developers from iTechArt at the end of August. We rolled the project out in December. The work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All four developers we have from iTechArt have just been fantastic. Something I really love about them is that they’re experienced and not afraid to ask questions or suggest better ways of doing things. They challenge assumptions and drive us to try better software. When we’ve worked with offshore developers before and told them to do something, they’d do it to the letter. iTechArt’s team takes ownership of delivering the best possible product they can. They’ve been just fantastic to work with, from start to finish. They’ve been responsible for developing a huge portion of the project, and they’ve done a fantastic job.

The branded borrower application — which iTechArt built a significant part of — has been the deciding factor in bringing on a number of our largest clients. I don’t have actual statistics, but I believe that our two largest clients have said that they signed up with us because they felt that the application was so lovely and provided such a good experience. It’s clearly making a huge impact on our ability to sell to our clients.

How did iTechArt Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re proactive in noting where things are and whether they might miss a deadline, although I don’t think they’ve missed any. They’re fast; if anything, we have trouble keeping up with them. They’re happy to work during our working hours. They’re off and on until at least 11 in the morning, and often until 12 or later, which is fairly late in the day for them. That gives us a nice chunk of overlap with our in-house team. They work as part of our team, and they’re right there for sprint planning, common grooming meetings, and standups. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been able to bring in absolutely top-caliber talent. These are developers that we’d be happy to hire locally if they were here in this tough job market. They’re just super professional, really good developers. We’ve been able to get them in quickly, which is hard to do at the moment if trying to hire domestically. We’re often looking at a three-month or longer timeframe to go through the recruiting and onboarding process. They’ve all been up to speed really fast, so they’ve been easy to work with from infrastructure and DevOps perspectives. A lot of people think of offshore teams as being second-tier, but that hasn’t been our experience at all.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They should treat iTechArt as part of their team and let them do what they do well. I think we’d get tripped up if we treated them like junior developers and they needed to be told every little thing; we’d unnecessarily slow them down. Clients should treat them like the senior developers that they are. My experience is that iTechArt will perform just like the local developers in the same capacity.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former owner of an applied physics company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTechArt Group?

They were responsible for building out the entirety of our API and tech infrastructure.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After determining the best market fit, we built out the entirety of our technical infrastructure. That included API integrations and documentation. I visited their offices to build rapport and hand-pick the team of engineers myself. We requested that they create the infrastructure using Python and MySQL. Our team provided them with designs, and they handled the technical end of the work. 

We built a large database of consumer information. Companies were able to use it to gain insight into their callers’ demographical information. For instance, an amusement park could use it to see if a single person was calling rather than a mother of three. We provided insights and data that way. They created that from the ground up. 

What is the team composition?

We started with one developer but scaled up to a team of eight people. They assigned a project manager to the work to keep communications streamlined.  

How did you come to work with iTechArt Group?

I found them through my network after I was referred to them. Over the years, I got to know their team. Because of my positive experience with them, I’ve referred them to several startups in my network.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2014–2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything was completed on time and any delays and downtime were very rare. I was really impressed by that, previously thinking this was unachievable. 

How did iTechArt Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated with our project manager over Skype and email. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been burned by outsourced groups before, but I can always count on them to get the job done right. They created an extremely robust, complicated project reliably. Similarly, none of the companies I’ve referred them to had anything but a positive experience. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their communications were handled particularly well. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We’ll continue working with them into the future and recommending them to others.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a small company that provides customer engagement and conservation software to water utilities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire iTechArt Group?

Our web application and mobile apps were looking a little dated and somewhat dissimilar from each other. We also needed more capacity on the backend team to quickly release some important road map features.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to release some roadmap features quickly, include updateing the web and mobile applications to have the same look and feel.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We have used iTechArt before and had good results. We choose to use them based on our positive experiences before.

Describe the project in detail.

There were several projects:

• Existing ios and android apps were modified in a variety of ways to improve the user experience and aesthetics.
• The web application was rearchitected and rewritten in React to provide a better user experience and to match the look and feel of the mobile apps.
• Several major road map features were added to the platform.

What was the team composition?

We were assigned 2 developers, one backend focused and one frontend focused. I directly managed the developers with daily standups, writing stories and reviewing pull requests.

We also had a non-billing technical lead/supervisor from iTechArt. The technical lead took a hands-off approach once my competence at and interest in managing the developers became apparent. I think he would be very helpful for less technical and/or experienced clients.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the half-year engagement, the iTechArt developers helped us deliver substantial improvements to the platform, mobile apps, and web apps. The developers were highly competent and eager.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was great. The developers adopted our software development process and practices and participated as full members of the development team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The quality of the developers provided. They were really easy to work with at the end of the project.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall we are very pleased with how this project went.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior engineering manager at a restaurant title company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTechArt Group?

They’re supporting the legacy app and doing both iOS and Android work for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They reached out to me during a time when I was looking for someone to take a small iOS/Android project off our hands. We did that as a trial project, and their developers proved to be super-competent. Later on, we contracted them to do a full development project. They provided a team of engineers, QA resources, and a tech lead. The team was fully-autonomous for this project.  

What is the team composition?

I work with six of their resources: developers, QA assets, and a project manager.

What is the status of this engagement?

They’ve done a series of month-long projects with us. The current one started in January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was nice that they were able to carry the project to completion. We didn’t have to hire a staff of people for a singular project. After the engagement, they answered questions we had about integrating the work into our operations. They’ve been available to make sure we can move forward with their products. 

In this current product, they’re showing competence in getting a legacy platform up and running. It’s nice to not have to worry about supporting that app in-house.  

How did iTechArt Group perform from a project management standpoint?

I communicated with their team daily. We communicate with them through Jira and Slack. Our team handles most of the project management, but they are great at communicating and delivering on time. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a great team and a good group of people to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s a time zone difference, so we have to make sure that we’re organized on our side to accommodate questions they may have on the job. If we aren’t on top of their requests, it’s easy to lose time. That, of course, isn’t their fault.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Webfinity, a platform that enables partners and vendors to work together across all types of content and data. We bring in opportunities, leads, accounts, documents, articles, and blogs from various vendor systems. Then, we enable the vendor to share those with their partners. After that, the information gets broken down into specific tagging that’s based on which content is delivered.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with iTechArt Group?

We’ve always struggled to find motivated developers. Our main goal was finding a partner that could help us onboard new staff members, including QAs, DevOps experts, and developers, in a quick turnaround. We didn’t want to waste resources or spend time interviewing hundreds of people.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed help developing a single-page application that sits on AWS. It uses .NET and Angular on the frontend, with SQL and other Amazon databases on the backend. After speaking to iTech Art Group about the types of people we were looking for and the holes we saw in our business, they helped us identify what we needed.

We were looking for three to four people initially. After setting up a few calls and having brief discussions, they flew their team out to work in our UK offices, where they spent between 10-14 days working with our existing development team. It’s a continuous cycle of conversations and feedback sessions with the development team and account manager.

What is the team composition?

We work with around six people from iTechArt Group.

How did you come to work with iTechArt Group?

iTechArt Group was recommended by someone who’d used them for a previous project. We were in the early stages, looking at our options in the space. After the strong recommendation, we had conversations with their team and felt confident in their offerings.

How much have you invested with them?

iTechArt Group has a three-tiered level service plan for personnel. Depending on their level, each developer has a yearly salary of $60,000-$80,000. Most of the people on our team are on the higher end of that range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with iTechArt Group around mid-2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The fact that we continue working with them speaks volumes about their impact. iTechArt Group’s team has experience across front- and backend development. Their DevOps team understands how to deploy their services using specific technology. They’re eager to learn and skilled. Their team blends incredibly well with ours; we can’t distinguish them from our other members. They each take the lead on different aspects.

From our perspective, it’s been a complete success. I’m confident that without their resources we wouldn’t have been able to push the product forward as quickly as we have.

How did iTechArt Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The process has been a combination of day-to-day interactions, Slack for communication, and Hangouts meetings. I have frequent conversations with our account manager that involve catching up and running ideas and feedback. We talk about any issues or challenges, or if we need to invest in other technologies or services. I’m working across all of the teams and have conversations with someone from each one.

Projects are run through agile development. Their team takes on user stories and delivers on time, often going above and beyond. They do whatever is required, based on what our teams have agreed upon.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The key thing I look for when it comes to people involved in our business are people who can take responsibility and ownership over their work. I don’t want to direct people every day, telling them what to do. While people work best with guidance from above, everyone has to be willing to stand up and make changes or enable us to make changes to processes. We got lucky with iTechArt Group because they fit that mold and with our team perfectly.

We don’t have to worry about finding a new developer. I could get someone tomorrow from their team that would be of incredibly high quality.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One potential challenge is the language barrier. Their English varies, but they speak it better than I could ever speak a different language. It can be noticed at times, but a lot of conversations are through Slack, and their written English is absolutely perfect.

In terms of improvements or more expectations, there isn’t anything I would ask more of from iTechArt Group. They deliver what we ask them to provide, in a way that’s in-line with how we see all of our staff members.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

My main advice would be to have conversations with the account managers. They have a vast wealth of experience and can work in a variety of different projects. Even with companies who aren’t sure what they’re looking for, iTechArt Group can help define a role based upon the experiences they’ve had within the industry.