AndPlus

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a communications platform in the healthcare space.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We needed to construct the platform in a way that was conducive to healthcare. There were some challenges with encryption and data storage. I wanted a partner that had experience with mobile and web platforms and was comfortable with HIPAA Compliance.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had an idea of the problem that I wanted to solve. AndPlus brainstormed with me in the beginning, and then they developed the communications platform. They created an iOS and Android mobile app, as well as a web platform.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a total of 8–9 of their teammates, including a few developers, a design teammate, a QA specialist, and two managers. 

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

I was looking for a domestic partner. I made a long list and used Clutch to look at reviews. I reached out to them and decided to start on the clickable prototype.

When I started working with them, I immediately knew that it was going to be a great partnership. AndPlus was very flexible with the payment plan and working within my budget, which I appreciated.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent between $100,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I first reached out to them in January 2020, and we began the actual project in about March 2020. AndPlus completed their part of the work in August 2020.

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

AndPlus was excellent. The people I showed were blown away by the product. The team did supreme quality work. It was world-class, and they delivered a beautiful product that works seamlessly and is integrated very nicely.

The quality of AndPlus’ work was top-notch, but I have no metrics because I haven’t brought it to market yet. 

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was excellent. They were very flexible in terms of how involved I wanted to be in project management. They acted more as a partner than a contractor, which was great. They gave their honest feedback.

The team sent notes after every meeting which allowed us to review everything. After the project ended, they sent me a 100-page document of everything that we did for my own reference, which was great.

AndPlus was very professional in terms of documenting everything for us. We did sprint developments, and after every sprint, the team would send me progress documents. They did a great job of managing the project in ways that I didn’t expect. We also had a Slack channel.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were so accommodating and willing to address any questions I had, which never happened with the other company I worked with. Even if something was out of the scope, AndPlus would bend a little bit to make sure that I was happy.

Their communication distinguished them. They was also very transparent in their pricing. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. I had never worked with a team as professional as AndPlus before.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You need to be rigid with the big picture but flexible with the details of how to get there. If you stay open to different solutions, you’ll be surprised by what a valuable partner like AndPlus can deliver. There are aspects of my product that I know I couldn’t have come up with by myself. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a product owner & evangelist for Honeywell International Inc. We design, develop, and manufacture software and hardware for building controls, such as HVAC, lighting, and more.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We needed someone to develop an app that could communicate from tablets to devices in our system that would allow engineers to monitor and control systems within the building.

What was the scope of their involvement?

AndPlus developed an Android app that would communicate via BACnet, a protocol in the building industry, based on our requirements. 

After we discussed the design requirements and capabilities, they estimated the stories that we should prioritize. The team then delivered the project in stages, and we gave feedback and acceptance.

What is the team composition?

Brian (Director of Client Success) was the main point of contact. There was also a Scrum Master and two engineers.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

They were recommended by another branch of the company for whom they had done a similar type of project.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $200,000–$999,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–August 2019.

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

They worked using an agile methodology, as we do, so it was easy to incorporate their process with ours. They completed the development quickly, in roughly 90 days, which was awesome. 

They provided complete documentation. AndPlus did everything professionally, and they met our expectations. If they didn’t know something, they learned it and validated what they’d learned with us before continuing to work. Additionally, the team was proactive and reactive to the changes we made.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They did excellently and ran everything very well. The Scrum Master handled the team well and was organized. We used Jira, and we met weekly to review progress and status and to reprioritize as needed. Communication was easy, and AndPlus was very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It felt like working with our own team, as if we’d been collaborating with them for years. We welcomed challenges to ideas and worked well as a team. We’ve built a relationship I see lasting for years.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing really comes to mind that they could've done differently. There was the usual time challenge that comes when working remotely.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very definitive in your requirements and validate their understanding of those requirements. That’s beneficial whenever you work with anyone on a project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of software development at Aquatrace Ltd, a startup that operates within the IoT and SaaS spaces.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We were looking for a software provider to help us build and manage a backend web application that would be expansible as we grow our software offering and portfolio.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our main product is a leak monitoring system. We have an IoT device that connects to insulation or fabric mats, and if water hits those mats, we can tell the particular area and particular time when it did. AndPlus helped us develop a backend cloud application platform that connects to our hardware.

The team helped us add functionality that, if someone manages to get a leaky pipe somewhere in their roof, lets us tell them when. Or, if for some reason someone cuts a hole in the roof, we can let people know where the leak occurred and when it occurred so that they can take appropriate action. 

We are a very early startup and only introduced ourselves to the world last October. We have only started trading this year and that was with the help of AndPlus.

What is the team composition?

We work with six full-time team members and about 11 expansible partners, architects, and leaders. We also have two project managers. Additionally, we've interacted with Brian (Director of Client Services), Steve (Business Development Director), and Sean (CEO).

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

I had not used Clutch before, but I had heard of it. I went onto the site and looked for a bunch of different companies and I picked the technology stack I was familiar with. 

I went through a lot of the key hit markers for anyone who had SaaS development or mobile development expertise — bespoke aspects that could be heavily modified for our use case. I was looking for someone who could build the product from the ground up. I contacted eight companies based on the number and quality of reviews. 

I reached out to those companies individually with a product spec, and AndPlus stood out. They were the furthest away from us, but they contacted us immediately and I think they had the time zone advantage. I received an email back from Brian within half an hour and he was very keen and very interested in the project at the time.

AndPlus was the only group to put me in front of the developers and I found that Brian and Steve listened to me. They had me speak to a number of people there and I had an excellent discussion with them. It put my mind at ease and gave me confidence that they were the best company to go with.

What is the status of this engagement?

We formally accepted their project proposal in November 2019, but we didn’t initiate the development on the project until March 2020. This was due to some delays on the hardware side of things. We were able to hit the ground running after I visited them in March 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

They showed initiative. Brian, in particular, is really keen, friendly, and nice. He went above and beyond to make things work. They were very understanding because we engaged with them quite early on. 

AndPlus was very responsive to the feedback that we gave them early on. They were a little bit priced above their UK counterparts. The other companies we had shortlisted were mostly in the UK. AndPlus were willing to change their price slightly.

They were extremely helpful and friendly, and they welcomed me into their office. Everyone I met was absolutely stellar, from Sean all the way down to the floor staff and the people I met just walking through the building. 

Without any managers or project managers, the developers and QA specialists in the room volunteered to stay later so that they could make sure they got all the information from me while I was still there. This gave me confidence.

Since then, it has been genuine smooth-sailing. They were handed a piece of technology that was constructed by another team in our country on a totally different platform than what they’re used to. However, they knew how to use it. They made minor modifications to it but understood what they couldn’t change. It’s been a great experience.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

Sometimes the team is overly inquisitive, but to be honest, that is a personal thing. I am used to being told as a developer myself to just run with it, but I have to say their development team is absolutely stellar. 

The scrum master on the team always keeps our grooming and stand-ups flowing really well. The QA teammate is absolutely stellar and has been helpful in organizing the third-party requirements and dependencies. 

I have been really impressed with the team, and thus far, we are negotiating for a broader scope with them after our project wraps up. I think this week is handover day, and the only reason we are pausing development is because of COVID-19. Otherwise, we plan on working with AndPlus for a very long time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say it’s the people. I feel surprisingly at home working with them. The team is comfortable challenging me, which is a good sign. That is on top of all the times they went above and beyond with me.

Brian himself drove me back to the airport because of the expedited time that I had to catch my flight. It was stellar. They are really friendly, in addition to the technical expertise they have brought to the project. 

AndPlus was given a very difficult challenge of being able to deploy and very rapidly scale an Elastic SaaS application platform with a very aggressive cost threshold of what they would be spending on cloud services. 

I gave them my max, and they came up with quite clever solutions around problems that I personally don’t think twice about when I work on my own day-to-day work. It was really impressive to see them do that. So, I would definitely say the people are the most impressive because of their expertise and honest qualities.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Initially, my biggest concern with them was that I had no evidence that they had worked with anyone outside of their timezone. Our product is very internationally-focused and geographically independent. 

It would be a lot of localization and different tooling that would happen to go around with that. While that is probably the easiest thing to do in software development, I had concerns around it, and I haven’t really seen the evidence that suggests otherwise. That is a very minor thing.

The only other thing I would say is there were some hiccups at the very start with scoping. They also priced it very high very quickly, and I think that was a misunderstanding of the requirements documents. 

The pitch we got was three or four times the amount it really should have been in financial value. Once they received our feedback, they were very responsive, and the price became extremely competitive.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have a very clear picture of what you want. If you have examples, the team is very responsive to that over descriptions. AndPlus is more than happy to take what you have and create the mock-ups for you which is what they did with me. 

I found that when I was describing something technical to the team, it got more of a response when I was able to show it to them. I found myself a lot of the time during discovery taking out my laptop and showing them the physical mechanism that I was talking about.

This was both for functional elements, UI flow, how I wanted the users to interact with the system, and also technical aspects, which is probably less usual for product owners in this space. I definitely think if you can show examples, AndPlus meets the mark in nearly every regard.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of Information Technology for Harvey Performance Company. We're a leading manufacturer of industrial cutting tools. We've got offices in Massachusetts, Maine, and Idaho.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We needed help from AndPlus on a couple of big development projects.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided us with mobile application development and web application development for multiple projects. They used HTML, with a SQL server backend.

The first project we worked with them on was a web and mobile application called Machining Advisor Pro. Our tools are used in machines to mill parts, and the Machining Advisor Pro application assists operators with how to use products in a seam machine in a very optimal way by adjusting speeds and feeds settings based on a number of factors.

They also created another web-based application called "Find A Tool", that plugs into our websites, which allows our end-users to be able to search for tools based on what application they are running.

Both of these products are live and have been in production and we're on several revs of those different products at this point.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 4-5 people from their team, including a primary developer, an account representative, a project manager, and a couple of different developers.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

We went through an extensive selection process. We had a pool of 12 different development firms we could engage with. After doing some site visits, referral calls, and considering their business history, we chose AndPlus. Partially, it was because they were local, their cost fit our budget, and they had a very seasoned team.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in September 2016, and our collaboration is ongoing.

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

We've jumped to about 10,000 users and have gained a lot of traction since their involvement.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They've done a fantastic job meeting deadlines and compliance. There were some struggles, as there always are, with quoting enhancements and functionality. They've been overestimating half the time and underestimating the other half, which is typical with developers.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their project management methodology stands out, and they really do a great job at tracking stories and specific tasks that need to be done. They really did a good job with the project. Having them listen and implement our feedback has really been a wonderful experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could spend a bit more time validating what gets rolled out into production and verifying that it works first before throwing it over to UAT testing. If they were more proactive in finding these issues, the process would've been more seamless.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of consumer products at Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a leading mobile telematics provider. We build solutions to help insurance companies and their driving population be safer on the roads. Our products help people recognize where and when they're exposed to risk. Our tagline is “smarter drivers, safer roads”.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We wanted to accelerate some of our consumer offerings and bring in additional engagement. Our app is a direct-to-consumer offering, and we needed external help for revamping some of the features that provide information to drivers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We just finished phase one, which included features for the frontend on iOS, as well as some work on the backend of the app. They did that on top of AWS combined with their database offerings. The second phase will focus on the Android version.

What is the team composition?

We have four full-time developers and a part-time QA person. I’m the product owner, and they help with some aspects of Scrum project management.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

We were in the process of hiring external help to build out our consumer initiative, and I started by investing development houses that are local to the Boston Metro Area. I used Clutch to get a sense of my options, and when I started reaching out, I noticed an outbound request from AndPlus. That elevated them to the top of my list.

After talking to three other providers, they seemed to be the best fit, primarily because of their responsiveness and willingness to meet our specific requirements. We were looking to augment a team to prepare for future in-house hires, as opposed to just having extra resources.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project is ongoing—we started work in August 2019, and our first release was in December.

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

We’ve received several perfect, 5-star reviews on the App Store, and our feedback from internal stakeholders has been positive as well. Our B2B customers—the insurance companies that we work with—are starting to see us as a leader in the space.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They asked the right questions to understand how to execute and then implemented their plans quickly. Their design abilities made for smooth communication with the engineers because their goal was always a pixel perfect match. Another plus was their willingness to discuss potential challenges with alignment and sizing 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their flexibility stands out. I’m impressed with their ability to receive feedback and provide input as needed. They know how to handle challenges effectively to increase our chances of success.

Also, from a quality perspective, their development team is technically proficient and consistent in their process. The predictability that comes from that is helpful, especially with a cross-platform product like ours.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The quality of work has been high throughout, but the QA process was difficult to navigate at first. There was a lack of clarity at the outset. Although the testing was always effective, I think that explaining the back end of the process early on would’ve been helpful

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be flexible in terms of which project management tools that you use, because that can make a huge difference if you’re not local. We chose AndPlus because they were local, and that was very beneficial, especially at the beginning, in terms of our productivity and speed.

When you do start a project with AndPlus, make sure to let them run their process. They’ll adjust as needed, but the more you let them create their own rhythm, the more successful they’ll be at implementing your ideas rapidly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the vice president of product strategy for a back-office platform that lets restaurant managers and companies manage food costs, labor, and reporting.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We wanted to update the UX of our web-based app which had grown. To some extent, we were struggling with its user-friendliness in terms of accessibility for users with different skill sets. We needed feedback from a UX company to help us tackle some of our more challenging screens. We wanted feedback on best practices and guidance on state-of-the-art designs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

AndPlus offered an outside perspective, ideas, and a process to help us develop a better UX for our web app. They consulted our team to give us something that we could then build ourselves. In collaboration with our product team, AndPlus followed a three-sprint process. First, they dug into our project and product: what it does and how it’s used. Their team learned what we were trying to accomplish, went through our manuals and training documents. Then, we went through a sprint when they iterated some ideas for our application that we were focusing on. Their team created some prototypes and mock-ups. They worked with our team for feedback and made changes. After, we had our final sprint. We did the same process to create a more fleshed-out prototype but also engaged clients for feedback. In the end, we had prototypes that our team could develop.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project lead from AndPlus. Brian (Director of Client Success, AndPlus) was our senior contact. He touched based with our team to make sure the project was going as expected, answering any questions and addressing challenges.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

A colleague either found or knew AndPlus. We reached out to a handful of companies to get their takes and estimates. AndPlus was local. They came to our office and made a compelling presentation, which led to our decision.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $36,000 with AndPlus thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our engagement in July 2019, and it’s ongoing. While this particular project is done, we’ll do another round of consulting with them.

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

I don’t have any measurable results because we haven’t implemented what they’ve done. There’s a lot more engagement from my team because it was collaborative. Both business analysis teammates and development teammates were engaged throughout the whole project. They brought energy and good ideas, which got my team thinking about things they hadn’t previously. There was a great deal of excitement and engagement from the clients who we connected with. There has been positive feedback from various and clients. AndPlus helped us deliver more value to our user community.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been on time and within budget consistently. We used Slack and GoToMeeting. For the mockups and prototypes, we used their tool: InVision. Their team has been very responsive and easy to contact. Top-level and frontline members of their team have been good with communication. They’ve also been very flexible. When appropriate, their team has come and visited us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have valued their knowledge and insight. They bring ideas from dealing with UI and UX challenges across clients and industries to help us develop state-of-the-art approaches to what we do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’ve got everything I wanted to out of this project and more. They were a good partner and I expect to continue working with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ask questions. Have a clear idea of what you want to get out of the project. This isn’t a collaboration that you can have vague expectations of. As long as you discuss upfront what you hope to get out of it you will do well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CMO of a company that develops tech accessories for pets.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We designed a smart collar for dogs, which integrates elements of smart home and wearable technology. It comes with fun, engaging tools and features, which allow owners to track their dogs’ location, wellness, and activity, and to make dog ownership a little easier.

The product relies on complicated backend software, and we wanted a team to help with Android and iOS app development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed a lot of the backend for the features and functionality attached to the collar. We worked together on early app development, and they played a bigger roll in the second half of our development process. The app has three location states, which the collar connects to via Bluetooth.

If the dog is at home alone, the collar sends hourly updates to the cloud via the base station. Those updates report levels of activity and other information to your phone.

When you enter the house, your phone outranks the base station and the dog enters a with-you location state. This allows you to enable features like turning on outdoor lights or using training sounds. The with-you state sends steady updates to the app board, and stays active on walks, at home, or in the car, as long as the collar connects with your phone.

If the collar can’t connect to the base station (at home), or your phone (with you), it fires up GPS and sends location information to the cloud. Some parents give their children an emergency cellphone for their own peace of mind. The collar is basically a cellphone for your dog.

What is the team dynamic?

We collaborated at least three or four key developers on their side, and we have a project manager on our site. We used Jira to track sprints and align our priorities. During the build, we met once a week to review and pivot as needed. In addition to ticket tracking in Jira, the engineers used Slack to communicate.   

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

Another firm introduced us, and AndPlus pitched some of their services to us. We knew they had a good backend and server-side technical reputation. The server communication with the cloud and the tracking unit in the phone are both complicated, and we hired them based upon their reputation.

How much have you invested with them?

I’d estimate we’ve spent around $500,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started engaging with them heavily in 2016, at the end of that summer. We’ve just given them another scope of work and are planning other projects with them. We have new features we want to introduce into the app, and are still working together.

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

Our sales have grown every week since we launched the app last spring. The first launch of any pet product involves stabilizing the systems and fixing bugs, which we’ve done. We’re amplifying the launch for the fourth quarter.

Amazon reviews rate the product at about a 3.7. We just released the collar on Chewy, and early reviews are at 4.8.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re communication was very good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They work quickly through different technical challenges. They’re very good at estimating an efficient timeline and number of hours.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their graphic design capabilities. Their UI/UX [User Interface/User Experience] is good, and we’ve gotten to a good place, but design from a graphics standpoint could be stronger.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an IT manager for a sports entertainment company. I lead projects and work with external vendors. I’m a business relationship manager for our facilities’ safety and fire systems.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

AndPlus is the only vendor that has ever been allowed to integrate mobile applications into two massive fire control systems. Their engineers worked with all of our vendors to create a solution that helped our building managers control mission-critical alarms and fire control systems.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The most recent project we’ve been working with them on is infrared sensor integration. We needed a mission-critical app to watch a light that would indicate if there were a fire alarm occurring in a remote location. All our buildings are currently wired to notify the local fire departments, but our facilities team is only notified after the fire department responds, resulting in loss of critical response time for our team. AndPlus developed a solution that checked each alarm via infrared on every campus around the world so that a desktop notification goes to the appropriate people of any campus that we chose. They also wrote the app in a way that will be transitioning it to mobile devices in the future. The user can also acknowledge the alarm and view a historical archive of alarms on any of the campuses that we own as well.

What is the team dynamic?

I usually communicate directly with their project engineer. One or two engineers join our phone calls.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

They came highly recommended by one of our facilities managers. AndPlus was the only one that’s ever been able to do a mobile integration to these massive firm alarm control systems. We felt we had the right fit from the beginning.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent a little over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2013, and the work is ongoing.

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

If we save five to ten minutes each time we catch a false alarm before it forces an evacuation, that’s an hour of airtime that equates to eight figures worth of savings.

On the most recent project, there was a bug in the system. When we brought it in to test with a power outage or a fire alarm trigger, we noticed there were multiple notifications that were popping up. We notified AndPlus and they made changes immediately. Within a week, they had an updated batch of code that resolved the issue.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a project management team of certified scrum masters. These are the guys we entrust to ensure that our investment is being spent in the right places. We’re technical and like to speak directly with the engineering team. The project managers are great at allowing great conversations to occur without derailing off topic too much.

We communicate primarily by phone and email. During the initial project kickoff, they came onsite to work with us directly in order to clearly understand what they’ll be working on.

They’re using the Agile Scrum methodology and so they know exactly the amount of work that is needed in order to complete the particular project, as well as specific timing on when the project deliverables are needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team learned our vocabulary and our technology immediately with zero experience in this specific industry. They got started and adopted our way of thinking. That was pretty impressive.

With their most recent release, we needed a historical archive of when fire alarms were tripped and who acknowledged the fire alarms or power loss. They were able to get this out into a historical report that allowed us to filter easily. We only asked for a table to show all the information. They went above and beyond.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A couple of times we had to follow up to find out the status of the project. It would be great if they had some sort of dashboard or email notification system that would let us know where the project is as it passes each phase. This would make it easier for us to report to upper management.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the president an online sign company that provides banners, decals, and other custom products for customers across the United States.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We were looking to build an online design studio that customers could go into and either upload their current files or design their files online. We had originally worked with a company for about a year but they hadn’t made it work, so we left that company and built a relationship with AndPlus.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the last five to six years, we’ve converted almost everything that we had to AndPlus's platform. We use them for almost all of our website needs. They actually just built us our first app as a company. 

In terms of this project, AndPlus started from scratch and built a brand new, custom HTML5 platform. They built an internal processing system that incorporates our customer service and our internal production workflow. It also includes our employee check-in and check-out system so that we can monitor the hours that people are logged in. Our whole business operates on it today.

What is the team dynamic? 

Depending on the complexity of the project, we have different people working with us. Chris, an intern at AndPlus has been our lead since we started. When we have new projects, the project manager, JD gets involved as well. I don’t know how many developers there are behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

We looked online for companies. I spoke to the owner, Sean, while interviewing several other companies at the same time. What set AndPlus apart was that Sean put in the extra effort to come out and see our business. We mutually felt comfortable and they showed genuine interest that they wanted to work with us. 

How much have you invested with them?

Around $400,000 to $450,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2012 and the work is ongoing.

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

We have been an Inc. 5000 company for the last three years as a direct result of the work that AndPlus has done for us. Without their platform, we would not be able to be growing at the speed that we are. The quality of the coding has been very good. They completely custom built it to exactly how we wanted it. We’re continuing to make usability better all the time. They’ve made the user interface very custom in that functions like checking into work in a production area is a simple user experience.

I own another company as well, and a different company built that platform. I find AndPlus to be way easier to work with than that company. Even though it’s more expensive on the frontend with AndPlus, we spent less for the results that we’ve gotten because they don’t have to go back and rebuild things over and over. It’s part of a learning process for us. We're finding that what looks cheaper initially, probably isn’t cheaper in the long-term.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a really great relationship with AndPlus — they are very responsive. We have a shared document that we work together on. We have a weekly call that my marketing department, office management, and external marketing team are all on with AndPlus. There’s a window each week that they tell us the things that they’re working on, things that they’re pushing, and things that are on the test site for us to test.

We currently work in two-week sprints where we assign tasks and they put values on it based on time. That allows us to control what we think are the most important new features for our system. If there are any pushes or changes, we can let our team know that the changes are going to happen and when it’s going to become live. There are no surprises for our customer service team or our production team or whomever that push may affect. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They genuinely care about the success of our business. I care about their success so they can be a vendor for us long-term and they care about our success. That’s the most distinguishing of the key vendor relationships that I have in our business. It’s a ‘we’re in this together’ feeling.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They seem to keep up to date with things that are happening in the industry. They come to us with solutions that could speed up the website or that Google or some other SEO advantages might happen because of this. At this point, I can’t think of anything they could do differently. Their communication is good. Their development is good. I’d recommend them to everybody if I wasn’t so selfish that I want them just to do our work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of software engineering at Onset Computer. We develop data loggers, weather stations, and environmental sensors in four different markets, and we develop all of the software for our end users.

What challenge were you trying to address with AndPlus?

We released an iOS mobile application three years ago. We didn't have the bandwidth to handle the Android development so we reached out to AndPlus to do the Android development of our two mobile applications.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with AndPlus a couple of different ways. We started with a model where we would develop the iOS version of the application and then they would take that application and develop the Android version. Effectively, they were mimicking the functionality of our iOS version. This process worked well for the original versions of the app, but the delay was significant by not just weeks, but several months.

Next, we moved towards a model where we would start developing the iOS version and we would get some of the work done before giving work to them. This would make the delay about a month. We took care of the high risk items and worked things out so as to not expose AndPlus to the complexity of the product. We are now offset by a month on the Android release for our two mobile apps.

Recently, we have engaged with them in two other different avenues. First, we had them do the custom development for a brand new Android-only application; we couldn't actually do this particular application on iOS because of some limitations by Apple. They developed the completely custom app with specs from us. This application involved a lot more rigor as far as requirements definition, UI reviews, etc., and it worked pretty well. There have been some bugs in the app but they've continued to work on fixing the bugs and getting the app out to the customers.

Most recently, we have taken one of their developers and brought him into an active development project that we have going on from the onset. It's an embedded project, which this specific developer at AndPlus has experience with. We pulled him into our team and we've fully integrated him. He has been a fantastic addition to our team and the product is finishing up this week.

The main purpose of the applications is to interact with a set of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) products. The standard Bluetooth is a little different from BLE; with BLE, there is no human interaction component. BLE is the way that all of our new line of data loggers work, and AndPlus has developed expertise in that area. They're focused on helping us get BLE connectivity working on Android specific devices with Bluetooth connectivity. There is also a cloud integration component - once the data is pulled through Bluetooth we push it up to the cloud. So, AndPlus has been working on cloud integration, but most of the project has been focused around interaction connectivity with our Bluetooth devices.

How did you come to work with AndPlus?

I manage the relationship now but I did not start off the relationship. The president of our company was the one who initially reached out, and I'm not sure how he found them.

How much have you invested with them?

On a yearly basis, we spend several hundred thousand dollars.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together three years ago and the relationship is ongoing.

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

There are two metrics to measure, and one is schedule. They have gotten significantly better than where they were before with regards to being on schedule. There was a big learning curve in understanding how our products work and making sure that our teams were aligned, especially in regards to QA. Recently, they've been within 5 percent of the estimates for schedule.

The other metric is the amount of post-release bugs present in their software, which I know has gotten better, but I don't have any specific metrics around it yet.

How did AndPlus perform from a project management standpoint?

They do well from a project management standpoint and they're extremely responsive. I work with one particular project manager on a daily basis. If something needs to be escalated I can escalate it up to the CBO very easily. We have a daily meeting every morning at 9 AM. For the meeting, we get on the phone for a quick 10-minute call to make sure everybody's on the same page and get the day going.

We both work using the agile methodology. We work not only in the same overall process but we work in the same toolset, which makes things easy. We have access to their system, and they have access to ours. We use Jira, a tool for managing agile software development. We incorporated JIRA into our processes after seeing how well it was working for AndPlus. Consequently, we have modeled some of our new processes off of theirs and that has worked quite well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What has impressed me the most is their ability to understand and internalize the needs of our customers without us providing specific use cases or user profiles. We have a very diverse set of users and we make a unique, niche product. AndPlus’ development team understands that well and part of the reason that they can do that is that they have maintained consistency in their development team. We've had two developers who have been working consistently with us now for at least a year. One developer in particular, the tech lead, has been with us the entire time. They struggled a little bit with consistency and QA for a while, but in the past six months they have maintained really good consistency on QA and it has showed in the quality of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If we have struggled with anything it has been QA. We have an internal QA team, and the expectation is that AndPlus will do full QA and then we'll do a little bit of smoke testing here before we release something. We were struggling at times because our team would do a smoke test and find things. The question was then why didn't their team find it. We have put some additional checks and balances in place to try to make sure that that doesn't happen. Because of this, it's happening less than it used to. That said, it was never an egregious problem.