AleaIT Solutions

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of FloorDetective.com and have been developing this site since 2012 in order to provide necessary online resources to the floor covering industry and consumers of floor covering products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AleaIT Solutions?

Our website was created in 2012 and after a few years of use, we were in need of updating the site. Several companies were commissioned between 2014 and 2020 with substandard results. We found Alea IT in 2020 and will never use another development company again.

SOLUTION

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

We found this company through Upwork. After reviewing several proposals from different development companies, we selected Alea IT because we felt that there skill and pricing were appealing and met our needs.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

After several zoom meetings and back and forth messaging, we decided on a theme for this project. We provided Alea IT with all the necessary content to allow development to begin. In a short period of time they were able to go live with the new website which is no small task as this is a complex site.

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

In total there were three or four people from Alea IT that have been performing various development functions related to the website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The skill and development of Alea IT has resulted in a significant increase in revenue and subscriptions to the site. The feedback from users has been fantastic and new functionality that Alea IT has been able to create on the site is state of the art functionality never seen before in my industry.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have had constant communication with the lead director Shweta at least two or three times per week. When necessary, we do video Zoom calls. They understand how to take my words and turn them into the functionality I am looking for on my site. They are also extremely pleasant and fun to work with.

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

Not only are they extremely knowledgeable but they are a lot of fun to work with. They really bend over backwards to try and make me the most important person in the world.

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

I cannot think of anything they could have done better. I literally wake up every day with a smile on my face because web design can be stressful but Alea IT has proven to me what a fabulous web development company is capable of. Great customer service, great attention to detail, excellent pricing and a pleasure to work with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the VP of technology at a marketing firm, and I worked there for more than three years. I was responsible for turning a $12 million company into a $25 million company, and our firm was growing 100% year-over-year (YoY).

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AleaIT Solutions?

Our internal software team wouldn’t be able to handle our long list of technical deliverables, so we were looking to expand offshore resources to our development environment.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the beginning of our partnership, I worked with AleaIT Solutions’ engineers. I trained them in certain processes such as our engineering methodology.

The first project that we worked on with AleaIT Solutions was a complicated UI — it was very dynamic and it required a lot of frontend and backend development skills using JavaScript. It was a real-time database-driven system that was built in AWS, and the team worked on enabling it to process millions of records a day. To do that, they built a custom control system for logic similar to a rules engine. That way, we could implement configurations in a web page and it would affect how the system operates. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with 4–5 people from AleaIT Solutions including Ashutosh (Technical Director) who served as our main point of contact and technical project manager. We also collaborated with their senior engineers, mid-level engineers, and UI designer.

How did you come to work with AleaIT Solutions?

AleaIT Solutions applied to the project we posted on Upwork. We chose them because their proposal was well written. Additionally, their understanding of our business stood out during the application process. We also liked that we could add multiple resources to our internal team because their price was very affordable. Above all, the team was flexible and honest.

How much have you invested with them?

We probably spent $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration ran from January 2019–July 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We appreciated that the team was able to learn high-level engineering very quickly. We grew our relationship over the course of years, and AleaIT Solutions brought skills that we didn’t have. More importantly, they offered affordable services. With their support, we were able to double our outputs.

How did AleaIT Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We added the team on our Slack, and they were comfortable working right alongside our team using our tools. They had a good project management process, and they delivered on time 90% of the time. Whenever they committed mistakes, they’d be the first to admit, apologize, and fix the situation. They would always work extra to make things right.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most visible traits that kept us working with AleaIT Solutions were their dedication and effort. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes some details were not communicated effectively and some project deadlines were missed. However, since they were upstanding people, they were quick to offer refunds or redevelopment of projects. They even offered to work late or work on weekends if they failed to fulfill their obligations. 

There were definitely faults from both sides for missing a deadline or two — it was bound to happen in pretty much every relationship. Despite that, AleaIT Solutions was always incredibly gracious about it. Overall, they were such amazing people, and they were willing to grow and learn with us. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Involve AleaIT Solutions in your planning because they’d be able to bring some ideas to the table that would improve your services.