Agosto, Inc.

Could you give me brief overview of what your company does?

We’re a non-profit organization. We do events, youth programming, and stewardship of parks in Minneapolis.

What was your main goal going into the project with Agosto?

We wanted to recalibrate. We sent out information beforehand as people register with a bar code. They can check in very quickly rather than having to look the information up. There are about 26,000 people in this particular event. We needed a unique bar code for each person that was also associated with the email and emailed to everybody.

Agosto helped us put that together so we could send out a unique bar code to each one. That made the process even better by allowing us to add some of the custom information for each participant as well.

What was your process for discovering and then choosing Agosto to work with?

I’ve gotten to know Irfan, who partnered with Agosto before that. They had done good work for us before. When the time came to do this project, it seemed like a natural step to hire Agosto.

What parts of the project was Agosto involved in?

They put all the pieces together on the project. They did all the programming, made sure that it worked, and then sent out the product. They were involved from start to finish.

How long ago was the project completed?

The project was completed about a year-and-a-half ago.

Could you provide a general cost estimate for the project?

I think it was in the $5,000 range, maybe a little more.

How satisfied are you with the work that Agosto did?

I was really pleased. They did a nice job. They’re pleasant to work with. Agosto helped us problem solve, and went above and beyond our expectations. 

Is there anything that you found to be unique compared to other developers or consultants that you’ve worked with?

They made sure they knew our world and knew what was happening. They are very pleasant to work with. They did it in a fashion that wasn’t overly intrusive to our company. It was a turnkey type of situation. It was very good.

Is there anything that you’d do differently a second time around or think that they can improve upon?

No, I can’t think of anything like that. I think they did a nice job, and we were very happy with it.

Can you provide a little bit of background information on what your company does?

We are a coffee franchising company. We have about 80 coffee shops through mostly Minnesota but basically through the central corridor of the US. The restaurant shops are a very small operation, 15 to 20 people in the office. I’m not sure what else there is, small operation.

What was your main goal or objective for undertaking the project with Agosto?

Basically, the project was bigger than just the cloud stuff. The idea was based on us being a small operation. I’m the IT person, but I’m actually an accountant. So I was looking for some expertise, some guidance in IT in general. In working with Agosto, they showed us that the cloud stuff and Google Apps specifically and it seemed like a good fit to help us communicate with our franchisees and still do a lot of things we needed to get done.

What was the process for discovering and choosing Agosto to work with?

Basically, we just had a number of people that had been contacting us. And we just had face-to-face interviews and discussions about what our situation was and what recommendations they might have. And they had the best overall package and understanding of business as well as IT. They weren’t just techie people interested in business pieces.

Could you tell me a little bit more about the project itself?

Fairly simple project actually, we had an exchange server. It’s where we had our email, which was housed here in our office causing issues. The franchisees were accessing information, stuff that we had, outages or anything. They couldn’t get to where they needed to get to. So we basically we moved off that platform to Google Apps. Now each franchisee has their own Google Apps account and we communicate that way. Agosto helped us with the migration of 80 plus accounts from Exchange to Google Apps. They were helping us set up an Intranet where we can put out training manuals and communication pieces that we needed to have our franchisees to have access to.

How long ago was the project completed?

This was way back in 2009. That’s when we went online with it.

Can you provide a very general cost estimate for the project?

Quite honestly, the cost was their time. I don’t remember what that amount was. We were able to pay less to have the Google Apps than we were having to maintain the Exchange server. So the payback was pretty fast.

When working with Agosto, is there anything you find unique or special compared to other developers that you’ve worked with?

They got some very highly technical people but they have a lot of people that also just understand the business needs. Someone could wrap up in a techie answer if the answer doesn’t need to be technical. If we have an issue, they will look to how does that make sense from a business standpoint. Sometimes when you deal with technical people, they get really tied into the cool method. They say, "Let’s do it this way", when it may not make the most sense. But we haven’t had that with Agosto.

Looking back on the project, is there anything that you’d do differently a second time around or that you think Agosto could improve upon?

Probably not. It’s a learning experience to do things. We’re actually re-engaging with them to help us redo our Intranet because the initial setup was great initially. As we’ve grown, learned, and changed, it needs to be revamped. Nothing is static. But I wouldn’t say that as an Agosto issue. It was just more the evolving over time, I guess.

If you could sum up your experience in one sentence with Agosto, how would you do so?

They’ve been a great partner, always helping us out. They are able to guide us to make the changes we need.