BeeByte Software Solutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and co-founder of a software company that’s main product reviews PowerPoint presentations for formatting and consistency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with BeeByte Software Solutions?

We were looking for some contract work to be completed for our general product updates.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided software development around new product features.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one person from their team.

How did you come to work with BeeByte Software Solutions?

We found them on a freelancer platform.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $4,500 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s been great so far. The team is extremely responsive and has produced good quality work.

How did BeeByte Software Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great with project management. We communicate via Microsoft Teams and Upwork.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is personable, responsive, and practical in their approaches. They constantly think about ways to enhance what we’re working on, outside of the preliminary scope of a project. I feel like the team has our best interest in mind, and is strategic in thinking about the product beyond the task at hand.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to scope the project accordingly. Be responsive when the team gets things done, too.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I own a small software company called BrightLab Software. We’re currently launching a new spreadsheet product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with BeeByte Software Solutions?

We hired BeeByte Software Solutions because we don't have the full-time capacity to do all of the development of our product. After three failed partnerships with other vendors, we decided that we needed better architectural talent and someone with WPS expertise.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Andrei (Founder, BeeByte Software Solutions) has been helping us with our software product. He started with a WPS-based UI and used C# to restructure the application. Andrei is developing it as a plug-in to allow for additional features without requiring a change in the infrastructure.

The product is an add-on for Excel that automates quality control and formatting functions, as well as some pretty advanced business analytics processes. Andrei has developed a range of features that let users format Excel workbooks according to professional standards. With this add-on, users can find errors in formulas, identify outliers in datasets, and clean up data to prepare it for analysis.

What is the team composition?

I’ve only worked with Andrei.

How did you come to work with BeeByte Software Solutions?

I found them on a freelancer site. They were one of many different firms that I conducted pre-screening interviews with.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent about $5,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with BeeByte Software Solutions in June of 2019, and the project is ongoing. We have at least another month of work left to do.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As I mentioned previously, BeeByte Software Solutions is the fourth company that I’ve engaged for this project, and they've been by far the best. Andrei has architected the solution to make it much more responsive, flexible, and resilient.

The original structure was functional, but a little bit brittle compared to the current iteration. We also had some challenges with threading issues. Those are gone now, and the performance has been greatly enhanced.

I’ve also learned a lot from working with Andrei. He’s an excellent communicator and has a keen sense for how to bring his clients along the development journey.

How did BeeByte Software Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Skype for communication and Visual Studio Online for DevOps. Andrei accommodates my schedule, which is great. Some of the other firms that I worked with were not willing to do that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

He has the skills that my team and I don’t have, and he’s very adaptive. For example, we used Caliburn.Micro for some of the UI frameworks, and he came up to speed on that very quickly.

He’s also done an excellent job of thinking through the structural needs of the product. The refactor from the original way that it was organized came from a conversation with Andrei, where he listed out the benefits that it would bring.

The quality of the work is also much better with Andrei. He's more responsive than other developers, and he genuinely cares about architecturally sound code. While that doesn't sound like it would mean a lot, when you think about it from a product perspective, it means that the product will be more stable, more functional, and easier to expand.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A larger team might lead to improvements. I would love it if I could work with a second Andrei!

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make the time to give proper direction. If you work closely with Andrei, you’ll get more out of the partnership.