Virtueinfo

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founding CEO of Blancspot Media. The company is no longer in existence, but it was the number two social news service. Then, we created another class of product in the gaming sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Virtueinfo?

I had a development team in India do the first version of the platform. We were pressing up against the limit of the operating system because we had a novel design that used rich media. When I took them on as a new development team, by way of an investor, they built a much more evolved, commercial-grade platform for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their range of services were front- and backend development for a social news platform that included a CMS. They also built UIs for an app for all the major mobile carriers, as well as desktops and televisions. They worked with P2P, Javascript, and the Symphony platform. They did the production design work, but they didn’t do the creative work.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Campeche (Owner, Virtueinfo) as my main point of contact. I worked with 5–6 people in total.

How did you come to work with Virtueinfo?

I found them through my investors, and then I did my due diligence.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $1,000,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from Q12005–Q1 2009.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We ranked number two worldwide with the product we built together, and we were ported to multiple platforms and promoted by multiple platforms including Google, Verizon, and Apple.

How did Virtueinfo perform from a project management standpoint?

I developed the project management process, and they adhered to it. It was critical in allowing us to move very fast. They understood it very quickly and liked it, and we worked very fast together as a result.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were there for crunch time – very willing to do what it took. There was no issue with the time difference or the ability and energy with which they delivered. They were very consistent as well, working on weekends or staying up all night if necessary.

Are there any areas they could improve?

With any team and project stretching against the limits of available technology, you need to research best-in-class solutions, whether it’s a third-party API or code. Understanding what’s available in the marketplace is something we worked together on, but it would have been very nice if they were able to go and find the solutions on their own. it’s hard to criticize them on that because they hadn’t done mobile before. they didn’t have a long legacy looking into and working with available technologies for certain aspects of our platform.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re good people and well-intentioned. One of the challenges that can come up with anybody is inconsistent access to power and infrastructure locally for them. Any service provider will have that issue, however.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO and founder of Vertaislaina, which offers consumer and peer-to-peer lending.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Virtueinfo?

We needed someone to develop the platform for our peer-to-peer lending service, since no solution was readily available.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a web-based marketplace platform where can people can lend and borrow money. The software handles deposits from investors and loans to borrowers, as well as money transfers, invoices, and reminder messages.

At its core, the platform was designed to automate as many processesas possible. We created APIs for making payments, sending email invoices and SMS emails, and performing credit checks.

The technology is based on Linux servers, programmed using PHP, and based on the MySQL database. They have also performed some server-side updates.

What is the team composition?

We have three people working on our projects, although this has varied over time. We have a project manager/developer, a second developer, and a software tester.

How did you come to work with Virtueinfo?

One of our investors had connections to them, so we selected them as the provider for this service.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent around €300,000—€500,000 ($366,915—$611,525 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship began in January of 2010 and the work is ongoing. We launched our product in late 2010, but they have constantly added new features and fixed bugs.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their agile service gave us a working product. They can provide solutions quickly and fix any issues that arise from hasty work later.

How did Virtueinfo perform from a project management standpoint?

In the early stages, we had more problems with communication. Over time, communication improved a lot as they got to know us and became familiar with what we needed. We almost always communicate through email, GitHub, and chat programs like Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have put in a lot of work to keep us happy, accommodate our requests, and keep new features coming in.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could work on their quality control and communication, but those have already improved.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that they are capable of meeting your requirements. Assess their capacity by checking how complicated your solution will be, the kind of tools they will need, and which languages they will use.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is 531 Networks, and I’m the CEO. We’re a product management and development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Virtueinfo Soft Web?

We needed to augment our staff with talent who had experience with PHP Symfony and AngularJS in order to help us develop a product for our client.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were building a virtual healthcare platform to allow doctors to see their patients in real time using video. The core technology is AngularJS and PHP Symphony with an Amazon Web Services MySQL backend. We assigned Virtueinfo tasks on our sprints to build many different components of the platform.

How did you come to work with Virtueinfo Soft Web?

They were referred to me by a friend who had worked with them in the past. We considered four other companies at the time. The deciding factors in hiring them were their expertise with Symphony and their response speed.

How much have you invested with Virtueinfo Soft Web?

We’ve invested close to $300,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in July of 2015, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality is very good. The amount of rework is quite small, and I love that. They’re not as fast as I’d like everyone to go, but that’s relative to the difficulty of the project. I’m happy with the overall quality of the code they write.

How did Virtueinfo Soft Web perform from a project management standpoint?

They are augmenting our staff, so we have our own project manager. There are times when we get bogged down, but that’s the nature of the beast. We started with one person from Virtueinfo, and it’s grown. We now have two teams with them, and I think that there about five people on each. We use Bitbucket as our project management tool.

What did you find most impressive about Virtueinfo Soft Web?

The quality of their developers is very high, and that is their most impressive trait. I’ve worked with many firms, and their quality is the best by far.

Are there any areas Virtueinfo Soft Web could improve?

The communication could be better and more consistent over time.