Yotalabs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Director of product at Werner Enterprises, and we are a national transportation services company for tracking on railroads.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Yotalabs?

Right now, we are working with Yotalabs to build an internal product software that gives the ability to track everything that we deliver, whether it’s baggage or freight. There’s a similar software to this but it would have been extremely expensive to adapt it to our needs, so we decided to develop our own version.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Yotalabs to build a proof of concept for our product. We built an MVP and have now started working on the full-service stage of production. We use JavaScript, along with angular, NodeJS, and SQL database for pretty much everything. The mobile version of the app, which they have worked on as well, is in Android.

We work together with their team to develop the UI designs and wireframes, and then they do all the writing of the actual code. So that part of the project has totally moved to their side, and now we are working on an AI module that involves machine learning, and that is in the proof of concept stage as well. That won’t be implemented until we are scaling way down the road.

What is the team composition?

They have seven software engineers and one project manager working on our account.

How did you come to work with Yotalabs?

A friend of mine from San Francisco was working with them on a small project and referred us to them because of how well that was going. We saw that they had an unusual amount of experience in the transportation industry, so we decided that they were a good fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

I think we have spent between $200,000–$300,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our negotiations and wireframing in October 2018 and are continuing to work together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven’t had any outward feedback because we haven’t launched the first version of the product, but our impressions are all really good. Right now, we are running within timeframes and within budget, which we’re really excited about.

The quality of the build is highly satisfactory, so I think if we need any technical help on other projects, we would definitely reach out to Yotalabs again to help us with that.

How did Yotalabs perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been really good. I’m personally involved with that project, so I handle up to 40% of the project management, but their part of it has been very impressive.

Culturally there’s not too much of a difference between our teams, but the time difference is eight hours, and you have to be a good manager to handle that properly. I’m very pleased with the job they’ve done.

What did you find most impressive about them?

My whole experience with them has just been really enjoyable. We’ve been working with them for a year and haven’t had any problems. All the signs are pointing towards our collaboration going well in the future.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they could really improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you are a logistics or transportation company, you should definitely consider working with them, because they really know the industry.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a software engineer with a core focus on AI, machine learning, and data science. I’m working for TransSoftGroup, a firm which outsources software engineering services. We help startups develop their core products, so they can focus on marketing, venture negotiations, and other business challenges.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Yotalabs?

I was looking for offshore developers, data scientists, consultants to augment our core team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Yotalabs offered development support for multiple projects.

We worked on a medical project, analyzing people’s DNA from blood tests to find patterns that showed predispositions to medical conditions. Our own third-party client had around 30 software engineers in-house, and they were responsible for the architecture of the product.

Yotalabs supported that project by working on a neural network using the Python TensorFlow and Keras machine learning frameworks. Their component was meant to analyze the data we aggregated. We’re currently using it in production.

An ongoing project is in the airline space, building a smart cargo loading software. It’s important to stack cargo in an efficient way on planes, and we wanted to solve this. For example, we can have similarly sized boxes, but with different weights. Our goal was to build software that used AI to come up with the best stacking solutions, and Yotalabs has provided support for this.

What is the team composition?

We’re currently working with three software engineers from their team. We worked with two managers in the past.

How did you come to work with Yotalabs?

They were recommended to me by a friend who’d worked with them. We reviewed 3–4 companies in total, and we found Yotalabs very affordable. We hired one of their members for 10 hours per week and then scaled up the collaboration.

How much have you invested with them?

The total has been around $130,000. They have an hourly cost of $50–$80.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around May 2018 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Yotalabs has allowed us to deliver more and expand our range of services. Their engineers are skilled and can deliver what we need. They’ve been able to solve our business problems. The managers I’ve worked with also have a strong understanding of our business.

How did Yotalabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira for tracking. They charge us for story points and not for hours spent. We make estimates before scrum sprints, and they give us estimates. The risk is on their side if they can’t cover something.

We’re working through a nine-hour time difference, so it’s better to send them requests during our mornings. This led to some issues, but we’ve been able to handle them. Yotalabs also has 5–6 software engineers near our location, which has been helpful for us during urgent needs.

We’ve fixed any issues as they’ve arisen, usually within 1–2 weeks. They’ve always been responsive to my feedback.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There are other companies providing the same services, but Yotalabs has a well-established team, with people who’ve been working there for more than 10 years. They have a good understanding of each other, and they’re reliable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They have a 20–25–person engineering team, and they have some problems with scalability when it comes to larger projects. They’re mainly a small lab for research and development projects and not a large software company that can help an enterprise the outsourcing of a core team.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I advise clients to contact the US-based team. They have a pretty good understanding of our mentality and the business problems startups face.