Xmartlabs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization builds machine learning (ML) and natural language processing products. In essence, we create AI-powered apps for automotive products to increase their functionality. On top of that, we help improve the ability of automotive technicians to look up information about cars through smartphones. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xmartlabs?

We hired Xmartlabs for their mobile app development services. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Xmartlabs is responsible for our native app development projects on both Android and iOS. Their mobile engineers use Java for Android and Swift for iOS development, and they do all coding and versioning. We have a separate team that works on the middleware side, but we’re using Xmartlabs on ML and natural language processing. 

In terms of framework, we’re using Scala, Python, and PyTorch. For core features, our app lets people use their voices to look up content. It has a touch feature where users can expand and navigate the specifications they’ve searched. Essentially, the app is an AI-powered search engine where users can manipulate content through voice and touch commands. 

At present, we’re still engaged with Xmartlabs. They maintain our environments while we’re dynamically increasing the app’s functionality and its content basis. 

What is the team composition?

We work with an iOS developer, an Android developer, two ML programmers, and a project manager. At any given time, we’re working with 4–5 people. 

How did you come to work with Xmartlabs?

I was introduced to Xmartlabs by our CFO, who was also our investor.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $150,000–$200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2020, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve launched the app and already have 15 customers; it’s on both iOS and Android app stores. Bugs have popped up across the entire system — not only within the mobile app. Most of the time, we can fix bugs in a day. If it’s a systemic issue, we sometimes take a week to figure it out. In all of these, Xmartlabs has been attentive to everything they do and ensure they provide high quality.

Moreover, our CTO has been extraordinarily happy with Xmartlabs. She’s passionate about them since they work fast and on a timely basis. The team is thorough and comes in with suggestions. In other words, they’re not robotic — they’re dynamic and creative. Overall, Xmartlabs is a truly well-run organization from top to bottom.

How did Xmartlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

Xmartlabs is good at staying within our budget and timelines. They have a strong project management focus and provide good documentation even before any project begins. To manage the project, we use Asana and Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a good development team; they’re also attentive and creative. Their resources take interest in the project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d highly recommend Xmartlabs for Python and mobile app development. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a software product-based company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xmartlabs?

We wanted to augment our team with first-class developers, designers, and engineers, as well as a project manager.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Xmartlabs has provided us with an additional workforce to develop our branding, UI/UX design, wireframes, and other tasks that we’ve scoped out with them.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with at least 17 members of their team, including UI/UX designers, project managers, developers, and QA and IT leads, among others.

How did you come to work with Xmartlabs?

We met one of their co-founders at a technology convention, and even though several other agencies approached us, we decided to work with Xmartlabs because they seemed like the right match for us. Their high values and qualifications were something we required in a partner.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around $200,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything they’ve done for us has exceeded our expectations, and their team always gives us the best in terms of development, design, project management, and so on.

How did Xmartlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been perfect in project management, including meeting deadlines and communication — they’re available for me all the time. They’re also professional and on time with our meetings, where their team provides suggestions to improve our work.

In terms of tools, we use Slack, Notion, and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re super professional, meet deadlines, and have a humble and qualified team — we need that kind of people in our industry. They’re also taking our project as if it was theirs, making us feel like they’re part of our team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I know there’s always room for improvement, but they’re the best choice in terms of staff augmentation remote partners. They’re natural problem solvers and have great leaders that are both tech- and business-oriented. Additionally, they don’t want to charge us extra and add hours to our bill just for the sake of it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Consider them part of your team, try to make meetings fun, and don't be afraid to ask them questions. That’s the best way to engage with them and enable them to make you succeed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of a CRO and CRM software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xmartlabs?

We wanted to expand our engineering team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Xmartlabs has been doing both staff augmentation and outsourcing engineering work for us.

What is the team composition?

We started with one engineer working for us, and we’re now up to 4–5.

How did you come to work with Xmartlabs?

They were introduced to us by an advisor who had successfully worked with them on one of his companies.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$250,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in early 2021, and the engagement is ongoing,

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, we’re pleased with them, and they have displayed a high level of excellence and commitment — we can’t ask more of a partner. 

How did Xmartlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We feel like we can trust them and let them run free with some parts of the codebase. They’re also good at probing requirements and working with our customer success staff to understand what we need to build.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They've built solid dependability on the project, and we treat them as regular members of our team — we don’t have to spell everything for them as we’ve done with other providers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — everything’s going very well with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Social Print Studio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xmartlabs?

We wanted to scale our engineering capacity to tackle more projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They add capacity to our internal team for big and important projects. In terms of technology, Xmartlabs uses Scala, Node.js, and AWS tech stacks. They take on projects with us from start to finish. 

What is the team composition?

The team composition changed over time, but we work with 2–3 people at any given time, including the project manager. 

How did you come to work with Xmartlabs?

We found them through a referral from someone in my network. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Xmartlabs in September 2020, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Xmartlabs has allowed us to get things done and achieve things that we couldn’t have done without their help. Those things wouldn’t have been possible for us with just our internal team. Overall, they’ve massively improved the timelines of our highest-value projects. 

How did Xmartlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication is absolutely fantastic. It’s been a pleasure working with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to become embedded on our team and work with our whole organization has been impressive. We’ve had fantastic collaborations, and their engineers have impressive skill sets. Moreover, the in-depth talent of their team added advising value to their services; we’ve used their knowledge when issues come up with our complicated legacy code base. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. I’ve had a good experience with Xmartlabs, and I have nothing bad to say about them. I look forward to working with them for the years to come. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The project in question was a prototype/demo of a small proof-of-concept for Bitcoin purchase agreements. I created the first pass of the implementation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I'm the co-founder of a startup, and I didn't have time to work on my side project. I had built out maybe 20% of a prototype or proof-of-concept for a Bitcoin related web app. Lacking the time to complete this, my goal was to bring in someone to finish out the rest of the demo. At the same time, one of my other goals was to minimize project complexity and remove as many features as possible.

SOLUTION

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

I previously worked with Xmart in the past on another project. I mainly considered timezone, availability, and cost.

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

I handed-off the initial project, and we talked about the requirements and features that were absolutely essential. Once an initial plan was made, I had someone available from my end to participate in daily standups, and I would attend once weekly retrospectives to see a demo, discuss progress, and discuss next steps. I also participated in code review and ticket management.

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

We primarily worked with two individuals- one was a developer, and the other was a project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The demo/prototype met all of my expectations and worked as I had envisioned it.

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

We had daily standups with the project manager and developer from our end. Once weekly we would have a sprint retrospective to see a demo, discuss progress and identify next steps. I was asked to review code frequently which I appreciated.

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

Xmartlabs was very willing to accept my unusual requests about how to go about executing the project. I appreciated that they could take what I had to give them, and they were able to figure out how to get to the next milestone even if it didn't exactly match their normal project cadence.

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

We identified one minor glitch in the process closer to the end where close-out of the project was not as fast as it could have been (just some minor outstanding hand-off items that we probably both forgot about); once I mentioned the issue, it was resolved within 24 hours.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder and CEO

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I charged Xmart Labs with the creation of my startup beta product. The goal was to be build a web prototype version of a retail technology solution for consumer shoppers.

SOLUTION

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

I searched online and here on Clutch, reading reviews and assessing their portfolio.

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

Kick off meetings, User research, UI UX mockups wireframes, front end and back end programming in React Native (web scraping, data cleaning), extensive and thorough product management, QA testing

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

1 PM, 2-3 backend engineers, 2-3 UI UX designers, QA Tester

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We completed a fully functional platform able to onboard hundreds of beta users who in turn could search, filter, and save items on the site. The platform connected to other sites for key and valuable data.

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

Their project management skills were superb. It made everything so much easier. Tools used include slack, Jira, Notion, Miro etc. Very organized and timely. Communication was excellent.

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

They were very kind and professional, a pleasure to work with. I felt like they were a part of my FT team. The de-stressed and de-risked a lot of the process for me.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of We The Project, which is an entertainment platform that connects creatives with people in the industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xmartlabs?

We hired Xmartlabs to build our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Xmartlabs has developed our entire platform. Their team was responsible for creating profiles, establishing connectivity, and building the site’s payment infrastructure.

What is the team composition?

From inception to its current status, at least 15 people from Xmartlabs have worked on the project.

How did you come to work with Xmartlabs?

I met one of their sales representatives at a technology convention. I was speaking with several development agencies at the time, and our CTO actually did a background check on all of them. He decided that Xmartlabs was the best fit based on various criteria such as qualifications and pricing.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent upwards of $350,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started to collaborate in January 2018, and it’s ongoing. We plan to work with Xmartlabs for at least several more years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Xmartlabs visually and technically translates all of our ideas. I’m really impressed with the fact that they’re able to address every concern that we’ve had up to this point.

How did Xmartlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We have regularly scheduled calls, and it’s good to have that consistency. It’s hard enough to run a business, and Xmartlabs keeps everything on track by setting tasks and making sure everyone hits their deadlines. Their team’s fantastic at keeping track of the process. They’re collaborative, and it’s helpful to have a team that’s super communicative.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Xmartlabs doesn’t only run with what we ask them to do. Instead, they delve deeper into the problems and find solutions to them. Their team goes above and beyond. It’s nice that Xmartlabs comes with their own perspective, and we always come to a meeting of the minds. That’s really powerful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When working with any company outside of your time zone, there’s some give and take. However, that’s easily rectified.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of CellarEye. We built an inventory management system for private and commercial wine cellars.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xmartlabs?

I used machine learning models on an edge device that offered limited computational power. I wanted to improve the models' performance and increase their run-time speed.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team tried different approaches, models, and schemes to make the models run faster. They tried different models in PyTorch. Their team also tried different libraries.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three team members from Xmartlabs including a project manager, a senior engineer, and one junior engineer.

How did you come to work with Xmartlabs?

A colleague who owns a startup recommended Xmartlabs. They developed my colleague's mobile app, which required computer-vision machine learning modeling. Their team knew what they were doing, so I went with them.

How much have you invested with them?

(Confidential)

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in April 2020 and completed it in six weeks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I was happy with the outcome, so it was a successful collaboration. Their team was knowledgeable. The price was steep compared to other outsourced teams, but they delivered high-quality results. I would give them a 9/10.

How did Xmartlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated via Google Hangouts. Depending on the project's stage, we had either bi-weekly or weekly meetings. Their team used a project management tool with a panel that we used to track their progress. I knew all of the details. They also sent a report halfway through the project and another report at the end.

Their project manager was on top of the engagement, so it was a smooth process. They managed to complete the project in a short amount of time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It was a good experience, so I’m happy. Xmartlabs delivered what we expected.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I only have such minor comments that they’re not worth listing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO. We provide our customers with the ability to import photos through their mobile device’s camera roll or any of their social media platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram. Through the convenience of using our mobile app, customers can edit and design their photobook albums. Once the customer pays, we fulfill and deliver the order.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Xmartlabs?

We already had a mobile app that was developed by a different vendor. As the business continued to grow, we wanted a better and stronger technology provider that could help take us to the next level, so that we could compete with the other big players in this space. We’d like to expand both locally and globally as part of our business growth.

We have our app available on iOS and Android, so it was important that whoever we engaged was capable of working in native languages for these platforms. At the same time, we needed someone who could work with Amazon services and databases. We also needed help building our PHP back office, which supports our frontend.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with a total revamp and redesign of our app’s UI/UX, which took about 3–4 months. Followed by that was the development and testing life cycle. We built the whole app from the bottom up. At the same time, we asked them to help us out with website development. They were up for the task and executed all of that.

What is the team composition?

At this point, we’ve had almost 15 Xmartlabs team members work on this project.

How did you come to work with Xmartlabs?

We started looking on Clutch for companies that were very specialized and had good reviews in UI/UX design as well as mobile development. Xmartlabs popped up, as did other vendors from Hungary, the US, and Belgium. We looked at a lot of criteria: the company’s hourly rate, execution, and previous portfolio. 

Our project is very focused on a lot of photo enhancements and artistic, creative style, so we needed to make sure that whoever we chose was very good when it came to the English language; we needed them to take the scope of work provided by us and understand it. We wanted them to work autonomously during the process while asking important questions along the way, without charging too much. We did our due diligence and landed on Xmartlabs; their portfolio was relevant enough to our space, and they ticked all of the other boxes.

How much have you invested with them?

Confidential cost.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration began in March 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven’t released any of the production yet. We were hoping to release it by March 2020, but because of the pandemic, we’ve decided to hold off until things settle down. The rescheduled website and app launch date will likely be June 2020. At that point, I’ll probably have better metrics of how our user base has been able to receive what Xmartlabs has done. 

From my own perspective and experience of dealing with them, their graphics department is very talented. Their research and design team is also amazing; they’ve done their due diligence when it comes to market research. In terms of the big players we strive to compete against, Xmartlabs has helped us to learn from their mistakes. They’ve also adopted their successes and applied it to our design and development. The app is ready to be released and I’m very happy; I have nothing bad to say. I’m just excited to release it to the public. 

How did Xmartlabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve used a lot of project management tools, like Notion for documentation and Trello for sprint runs, tracking action items and who is working on what, and prioritization of feature sets. Another tool we used was Pivotal, which is mostly for the technical feature sets and making sure that cards are assigned to the right developer and part of the software development cycle.

From a resource perspective, they’ve been on top of it. They make sure that action items are assigned and documentation is posted and available for everyone to see for the different departments we have internally. They’ve communicated with us in a very prompt manner the dates that they anticipate something will be accomplished by, and they’ve met those dates with flying colors.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very good at multiple things, but one that comes to mind is autonomy; as a CTO, I have a lot of things going on internally, and the last thing I want is to be micromanaging people. It’s as simple as me providing Xmartlabs with a task that I want done and its prioritization, and they’re very capable of understanding the task and asking any questions if anything is unclear during the process. They work autonomously and deliver right to the point.

Another key strength of theirs is that nothing seems to faze them. If I ask for something, they’re capable of having ideation sessions and problem-solving, and then they come back with multiple solutions to address any problems or feature sets. When I’ve presented things to previous vendors, they’d do nothing but complain about it taking too long or something not being feasible or clear. Xmartlabs takes whatever I give them, asks the right questions, and acts upon it.

When it comes to quality, they’re amazing; they don’t compromise or take shortcuts, which I’ve also experienced with previous vendors. Xmartlabs learned very quickly that I’m a perfectionist who pays attention to very small details, and they’ve made sure to apply this across the whole experience and application.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The one thing that I struggled with a few times was the availability of resources. When we needed extra developers for iOS, Android, or PHP, it did take them quite some time, around 1–2 months, to find that resource. My only criticism is that they didn’t always have someone available, but not every vendor is expected to have a developer there to dispense. They did eventually find the right person, and sometimes the new person was even better than the previous person.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is a B2B medication-related data provider; part of a broader healthcare portfolio of one of the largest media companies in the world. I am a Product Manager overseeing a medication management/adherence-related product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Xmartlabs?

We needed to build a mobile app demo of our content for sales purposes.

What were your goals for this project?

Create a simple mobile app that shows medication information in a mobile-friendly, interactive way (vs. as digital PDFs).

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Xmart was referred to us internally.

Describe the project in detail.

The goal of this project was to build a simple demo iOS app. A user could import and ID and add meds as needed. Within the app a user could click into each med to see schedule and clinical details (cautions, key instructions, side effects). We provided high fidelity wireframes and they adapted the design for the MVP. Overall the project took about 5 weeks from kickoff to handoff.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, lead developer, and UX designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Too early to tell.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The team was extremely responsive and friendly. Very quick to address feedback. Overall there were little to no communication barriers.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Responsiveness and friendliness.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Asset management throughout the process was mostly via email.