Begin, LLC

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a modern social platform that’s specifically developed for the book community.

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

We were working with a software developer, so we needed an agency that can continue to supply us with custom software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We brought in Begin later in our development to provide us with continued support. They’re continuing to build the platform to the next level by fixing bugs and rolling out new features.

Some of the features they’ve implemented are a community page, similar to social media sites — the page allows users to see who their followers are and who they're following in one space.

What is the team composition?

We started with one talented senior engineer who transitioned the role to another person, and we've been working with the current one since then.

How did you come to work with Begin, LLC?

I was doing some research online and came across Begin through Clutch. I saw that they were local to my area so I reached out to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $13,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in November 2021.

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

It’s difficult to put a metric on the ongoing development progress, but they’ve resolved dozens of bugs and integrated several features over the past few months so we’ve been experiencing significant progress.

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

I basically serve as the project manager, so we’re utilizing management tools within our organization. We use email for simple correspondence, but our primary communication tool is Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with their responsiveness and empathetic approach to what we’re working to achieve. They’re very flexible when it comes to providing us with support and I really appreciate their desire to help us resolve our problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They don’t really need to improve on anything, as they’ve provided me with good resources to continue the project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise you to set your expectations up front and be very clear with what you’re trying to accomplish.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a business process automation company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

One of the software companies that we represent was lacking a plugin for Gmail, and I decided I wanted to develop it. I have developers on staff, but it was more than I could spare them for. Most of our work is client-facing, so we don’t have much of a budget for pure R&D. It would have caused a capacity problem.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did a discovery phase with them and decided to build a clickable prototype, as opposed to developing the full software package just to see if we could get traction.

The plugin would allow an icon to appear on the side of the screen that connected our customer to their CRM, preventing them from having to click back and forth between two screens.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Brandon quite a bit (Managing Director), and Cody (Co-Founder). I don’t remember all the developers but there were quite a few.

How did you come to work with Begin, LLC?

I never get on Facebook, but this one day, I stumbled across their ad.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September–November 2021 on this project. After receiving the plug-in, we’ve continued to engage them.

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

I have nothing but praise for Begin. They’re absolutely phenomenal. I’m still working with them on this project and others, and I wouldn’t be doing that if they were slackers. We’re in the sell cycle for it right now and are in-talks with our client. They’re impressed by the quality of the work; it’s a perfect representation of how the application would work.

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

They were prompt, transparent, and good with communication. One part of their business that is exceptional is their proposal process. When they send a proposal you expect their to be a range to the cost estimate, but they gave us a hard ceiling on the quote. They took ownership of their process. Rather than hedging their investment or saying they missed something, they stick to what they offer.

We collaborate through GitHub and use Google Meet to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their quoting process stands out the most.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everybody can improve but I don’t have any real constructive criticism. They didn’t drop the ball. I feel like I’m doing this review a disservice by not having anything, but I really don’t’ have any complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t know if this is specific to Begin, LLC or to software development in general, but it always helps if you know what you want. Having a specific request helps the process move along quicker. If you’re going to develop a custom product, have an idea of what you want, or at least be flexible in letting the professionals do their job.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the producer of Live Marketing, a company that specializes in live and virtual events like trade shows and big meetings.

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

We hired Begin to develop and design a game that would be hosted on a website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Begin helped us create a web-based game that users will be able to play at trade shows. Initially, we gave them the script and some general guidance for how we wanted it to look. Then, they took our guidance and designed all the gameplay pages and the UI.

After we approved the designs, they started the actual coding and development of the game. This process included creating all of the interactions, integrating sound effects, and placing different animations. Eventually, Begin delivered a website where we could play the game and interact with it.

This game was created for a Canadian-based train shipping company that specializes in cold chain logistics for temperature-controlled products. The game allows users to try to find the correct temperature for the product being shipped, and it shows them little, fun animations depending on whether they get the correct answer or not.

What is the team composition?

We interacted primarily with four people from Begin, but there were five people involved in the project. Their team included Cody (Co-Founder), Seth (Project Manager), two developers, and a designer.

How did you come to work with Begin, LLC?

I’m relatively new to Live Marketing, so when I joined, they just told me that Begin was the company we were working with. I believe that my company had already worked with them in the past, but I don’t know how they found them; I only got introduced to them and took it from there.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent just above $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in September 2021, and the project took about eight weeks, so we finished it towards the end of October 2021.

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

I’m very happy with the quality of Begin’s work. They delivered a clean design, exactly what we asked for. Additionally, the game works smoothly and as expected.

We haven’t implemented it in an actual trade show yet, so I don’t have any feedback regarding user engagement. However, I see no reason why it wouldn’t be a hit.

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, Begin’s collaboration was very smooth. They provided very clear expectations for the timeline, and they were constantly available communication-wise. Overall, I really enjoyed working with them.

We mainly communicated via email and video calls through Google Meet. If we had quick questions, we also used Google Chat, and we shared documents through Google Docs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Begin delivered the exact product that we wanted them to provide. We established our expectations and goals, and they completely met them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

During the design phase, the turnaround time for some of the revisions was longer than expected. However, I don’t know what was happening behind the scenes, and maybe they were busy with other projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a lot of clear communication with Begin. They do a great job asking for clarity when they need it, so just try to set frequent check-ins.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I represent Cannin, and we’re a cannabis industry investment financial environment. We give investment-related advice to our members such as technical analysis, fundamental analysis, and trading advice.

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

We hired Begin to help us with our web development and automation needs for a lot of our products.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were following hundreds of cannabis and hemp stocks. As a result, one of the things we requested from Begin was to develop a bot we could use to make predictions on whether a stock price would go up, down, or stay the same the next day. In the end, they’ve created several predictive algorithmic bots for us. A lot of it deals with coding matrices, which happen in an automated fashion each day.

Eventually, our product is going to be on a web-based app where our users are granted access via a dashboard. It is also where information will be synthesized daily and disseminated to our members electronically through email. Overall, they’re in charge of design, development, and testing efforts.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with their founders, and they communicate the goals and timelines of the project. We also collaborate with their team of engineers who are in charge of the actual execution of our products.

How did you come to work with Begin, LLC?

We found them locally.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $10,000–$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in January 2021.

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

We’ve had limited small projects, but they’ve met our expectations in each of those projects. In comparing and contrasting them with other vendors, we believe their strength over other competitors lies in their ability to communicate to us their hurdles and progress.

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, they’ve been doing very well. We use emails, phone calls, text messaging, and video conferencing to communicate with each other.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Begin’s organized approach sets them apart. They ensure that they understand the scope of work they need to do prior to coming up with the timeline and quote of the project. On top of that, they ensure that they’ll do things the right way. Then, in cases when they have to change plans, they communicate why we have to do it and explain what the new execution would be.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind on areas they could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just give them the information they need so that they could do a good job.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is called Wellness Data Solutions. We primarily work with businesses, and we also offer a direct-to-consumer product that is in the shape of a customized score that we enter into a database. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

Before talking with Begin, LLC, we worked with another web development company that didn’t perform according to our expectations. In relation to that, we thought there could be a better way to do things. As a result, we started talking with Begin, LLC on how to automate and scale our process.

When we talked to the team, they came up with a good idea. It may not be the cheapest one, but it was definitely the direction we needed to go in order to develop our data entry and storage platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had this unique way of presenting medical data to people, and depending on the type of risks they presented, we had to file folders of that risk with verbiage. Then, we print it all out. If a person had X, Y, and Z risks, we grab the X, Y, and Z folders, print them out, staple it together, and hand them to our third-party stakeholders.

We wanted a process where we can enter data into a database and get a cool report printed out after. On the B2B side, we can aggregate all that, take all that data, compile it, and then present it to the population manager in terms of the identified dashboard which the team also created for us. 

They suggested building a robust data entry and storage platform. Moreover, they were in charge of making the frontend look really pretty. Then, once we finish the platform, they would eventually do API so that some businesses or other places could call our database. Everything took a couple of months to finish and required a lot of back and forth. In 2017, we finally had a workable product. 

Over the last three years, we’ve been doing little tweaks and modifications on our platform based on the insights we’ve gained from working with other businesses. We often see things that we like to add to our platform and we give the drawings of how we want the output to look to Begin, LLC. Then, they do the coding process.

Currently, we’re partnering with another company and the Begin team needs to find a different way to enable them to access our data. Our relationship has evolved over time, and there are instances where we go to them for technical advice. 

What is the team composition?

We work with three people from their team. Brandon (Co-Founder & Managing Director) does a lot of the organization stuff including approving the quotes. Then, we also work with Cody (Co-Founder) who’s in charge of the graphics, and Mark (Co-Founder & Lead Software) serves as our backend person. 

How did you come to work with Begin, LLC?

We found them through a startup co-op event in town. They were working out of that place and we had a business connection there. After that, we were introduced to the team. That’s after we had a horrible experience with another web company. We also went up to Chicago to interview another software development company. However, we chose Begin, LLC because they were local.

The team seemed to get our products and really liked what we do. We really felt good about them. Additionally, we weren’t sure if our platform was going to service a few 200–300 people or a million people, so we didn’t want to hire the bigger company. Most importantly, they were nice guys. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent in the range of $80,000–$100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement may have started in March 2017, and we’re still working together. 

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

Begin, LLC delivers. When we started, neither of us knew how to plan a project, but the team has evolved as a company. We used to just throw them specific ideas of what we wanted and they developed it. However, that caused a lot of back and forth because the product wasn’t exactly what we wanted, so the beginning really cost more time and money.

We appreciate that they’ve gained a better understanding of how to build a quote and get a scope of services with very specific objectives. We’ve also improved at telling them what exactly we want. Overall, they’ve been pretty good.

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

A month ago, we had a project and they gave us a two-week window. The team has successfully completed that and everything works the way we expect it. There have been a few glitches, but they’ve been capable of jumping in right away and work on them. I also like that they stand behind their work and that makes me trust them. 

They have a good project management process. They’re also very clear on quotes, timelines, and scope of service.  However, as I mentioned, it had been a learning curve for both of us. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked with them with other tech companies because we partnered with other businesses and they just do a nice job of speaking to the product. They’re always right on point and they can speak “tech”.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The problems that I’ve mentioned have already been remedied including their communication problem and billing methodology. We used to do hourly and estimated hours, so we had a vague range of how much things were going to cost. They’ve really done a nice job of identifying their weaknesses and working to correct them. Above all, they’ve been transparent with us about issues that they were having, and they've always made sure that we’re on the same page. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear end goal and make sure that they get it. This is probably true for all tech companies — some things can get lost in translation. You may think you’ve already explain something, but things don’t end up looking as you visualized it. That’s why discussing things can clarify what you really want. 

Identify what you’re trying to get out of the engagement and determine how it fits the context of the bigger picture. In our case, we always knew that ideally, our system would be a widget that needed to be licensed or plugged into a bigger software tech-type system. As a result, from the get-go we went with that objective. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Provider Pool is a healthcare technology company based in Missouri. I’m the COO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

We wanted to rebuild our technology platform to improve the UX design.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Begin, LLC became an extension of our engineering team. We worked with a number of their developers on a fulltime basis. We provided the designs, and they helped us build, QA test, and deploy the platform. It’s a responsive web app built on the .NET stack. It’s a bit of an older stack, but it was used at our request, and Begin was comfortable with it.  

What is the team composition?

We worked with 3–4 people from their team. Brandon (Co-Founder & Managing Director) filled the project manager role.

How did you come to work with Begin, LLC?

I asked for referrals on LinkedIn, and one of Begin, LLC’s founders got in touch. We asked for quotes and had a number of interviews with them and a couple of other vendors. We decided to take the leap with Begin, and we’re really glad that we did.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested around $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Begin in July 2020, and the first phase wrapped up in September. We’ll engage them again after we’ve designed the next phase of the project.

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

The platform is used by hundreds of nurses around the country, and we’re incredibly satisfied with it. It’s been instrumental in helping us secure a round of funding. Our nurses love it, and we’re getting a really high NPS (Net Promoter Score). 

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

We worked closely and collaboratively with Brandon, and every deadline was hit. We had very transparent, proactive communication, and I couldn’t ask for more. We used Trello for task tracking.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They provided cost-effective, high-quality work. They were reliable, and their communication was top notch. We never wondered where they were at with a task or worried about them not getting something done. In the world of development shops, that’s incredibly rare.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t comment on any areas for improvement because we’ve had a wonderfully positive experience with them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Begin, LLC should be treated as a real partner, and you should be transparent with them about what you need. They’re incredibly flexible, so they can simply execute a project that’s already scoped out, but they can also be more of a thought partner and help you think through use cases and features. The more proactive and communicative we are, the more we’ll take advantage of what they bring to the table.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

FourKites is a supply chain visibility platform, and we work with large shippers to help them get real-time updates across their different loads on truck, rail, and ships. I lead the digital marketing team for our website, digital campaigns, and paid advertising.

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

We recently did a rebrand and created a new website, and Begin, LLC helped us to transfer our live network diagram to the new website, which involved transferring product APIs without taking the system down.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The complexity of the project came in with the design because we needed the plugin to remain consistent but also blend with the new website. Beyond just writing new API code and configuring the backend to handle the program, they helped us to maximize the responsiveness and optimize it for mobile and different screen sizes as well.

What is the team composition?

I had one main point of contact on their team and I know of at least one designer and one developer who worked with him on the project as well.

How did you come to work with Begin, LLC?

One of my contacts referred them to me, and we set up a call to talk about his experience and what the challenge was. It seemed like a good fit, so we decided to work with them from there.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent in the range of $4,000–$5,000

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from November-December 2019.

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

From a value and cost point of view, Begin, LLC was able to save us a lot of time and money through their level of skill and professionalism. A lot of developers tend to go back and forth with things, and their team was able to get it right the first time, which I really appreciated.

We will have more data in a few months around time of use, but everything functions very smoothly and can be used in all of the ways we wanted it to, so we are very satisfied with the quality of their work in that regard.

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

Our point of contact did a very good job of managing the project relatively independently. Once we explained our goals for the project from a high level, he worked with his team to take care of a lot of the details without having to come to us with a ton of questions about everything.

We gave them all of the deliverables upfront, and they did a great job of sticking to deadlines and getting things done on time. Any of the delays we experienced were on our end in terms of getting approvals or waiting on resources for the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They just have a really acute sense of professionalism. It was clear throughout the project that everyone on their team really knew what they were doing. Because they were able to incorporate all the best practices on their own, it saved us a lot of time and made the experience really great for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t really think of anything that would have improved this particular project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As long as the client has a clear idea of what they want done and communicates that well, the project is going to be cost-effective and successful.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CHASER is an event management platform that gives fraternities the tools they need to manage their events and ensure safety. I act as the CEO and project manager of CHASER. 

For what projects/services did your company hire Begin, LLC?

We hired Begin, LLC to develop our Web and Android platforms in vue.JS and supplement our internal development team. Further, they acted as mentors for us and advised us on certain decisions from time to time. Our company had just gone through a massive change, and we were scattering for developers. We're lucky we found Beg.in. 

What were your goals for this project?

We needed developers who could work with us to develop the platforms in a short 3 months. We were on a very tight time schedule, and we needed this done just in time for our launch. Every single other development company we reached out to said that it would take much longer, but Brandon (Managing Director, Begin, LLC) and the team helped us work through some features to pare down the time. 

How did you select this vendor?

We went through looking for tons of development teams. We used Upwork, other freelance sites, and even walked around in our WeWork to try to find developers. Lacking in all of them was communication and clarity. Beg.in acted as a partner in our journey of creating the product, and they were the clear right choice the second we spoke to them over the phone. Brandon, Cody (Lead Frontend Developer, Begin, LLC), and Johnmark (Lead Software Engineer, Begin, LLC) were welcoming from the start. 

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Before we came to Beg.in, we only had developed an iOS platform. However, we needed two platforms (Android and Web) made for our August launch. The web platform needed to be a full event hosting portal (like Eventbrite) and Android needed to mirror the iOS platform. After we came to them with our needs, they quickly suggested that we use vue.JS in order to supercharge our development. We took their advice, and everything turned out well. In two short months, they provided the products exactly as we wanted them. 

What was the team composition?

Brandon was the coordinator with our team, but that doesn't mean that we didn't speak to the developers every single day. Cody and Johnmark (our developers) would Slack us daily with questions or concerns – all in the hopes that we were exactly on the same page about what they were building. The result was a cooperative development workflow that I've never seen before. 

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that Beg.in has had on your business?

We were about to have to push back our launch when we realized that we had to build two huge platforms in three months before summer was over. We were lost. However, because of Beg.in's efforts and desire to help us out, we made it happen. We're forever thankful to Brandon, Cody, and Johnmark. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We used Slack to communicate. Brandon would reach out to me personally regarding billing, and we would work from there. We had a big Slack channel where the Beg.in team would send updates, ask questions, etc. We would also frequently get on Skype calls to work through tension points. Getting to such an effective point was naturally a work in progress, but once we figured out a great system that worked for both the Beg.in and the Chaser team, the result was amazing. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their empathy and ability to cooperate with the team they're working with. Beg.in is not a development company that you just hire and forget about. Not one bit. Brandon, Cody, and Johnmark are knowledgable people that work with you to battle through the roadblocks present in every single startup. They spent the extra hours to ensure that we were super clear on what needed to get done. 

More importantly, any time we had a serious business strategy issue, we also reached out to them for advice. We're grateful to say that Beg.in helped us out so much. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not at all. Beg.in knows what they're doing and they take care of their clients. Seamless experience!!! 

Please describe your company and your position there.

Qikpix is a mobile platform where you can find and book professional photographers on demand. I am the CEO and founder of Qikpix.

For what projects/services did your company hire Begin, LLC?

Beg.in performed a range of services for Qikpix. My work started out with Beg.in to build a landing page that would act as the MVP to test the market for validation. After market testing was performed and our theory was validated we moved to full production the a website and mobile app.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals for this project were ever changing. Goals when building a startup are ever changing as they should be. Pivoting pieces of your company to point in the right direction is absolutely necessary.

I wouldn't have been able to reach the goals I had set for myself without the dedicated work from Begin, LLC. They didn't help me just reach my goals they helped me achieve better than what I had even thought possible at times.

How did you select this vendor?

I met the members of Beg.in through a co working facility. I didn't want just a dev team, I wanted a real team. Beg.in was reasonably priced and they showed the passion and dedication that I was looking for in team members. Team members helped me navigate the murky waters that are web and mobile development.

Describe the project in detail.

Qikpix was a project of many levels. The first part of the project included building an MVP product that was a website with a few basic selection options for customers.

Beg.in helped me monitor and change the MVP as needed and helped me reach my product validation goals of customer acquisition and photographer acquisition. We then went on to build the website which was the first part of the product.

The website allowed customers and photographers to sign up and register with Qikpix. Customers were also able to submit photos fro editing through the website. The mobile App was developed for both android and iOS. The app works in conjunction with the website. 

Users find and book photographers through the app and photographers are able to accept request that are submitted. Customers had the ability to search for photographers within any geographical area and photographers could accept request as well.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of 4 software developers. Two team members were UX/UI developers and two were full stack developers. The team did grow over time to about 12 people. This included an admin team from my side of the company. Beg.in members communicated with everyone on a daily basis and were involved in every meeting.

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

Qikpix went on to raise over $100K with the help of Beg.in. We achieved a CAC of about $3.5 and we had over 150 photographers nationwide that had signed up through the platform along with roughly 100 editors located overseas.

We received great customer feedback, customers who used the platform loved how easy and simplified the process of hiring a photographer had become. We would have liked to see more adaptability but this was due to lack of funding for marketing.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The work relationship couldn't have been better. Team members from Beg.in went to speaking events and advertising engagements around the country with me. they were always ready to fix any problem or bug that was found.

We used many different communication tools such as slack on a daily basis. There were quite a few tools that we tried to weigh the benefits, begin members helped me understand some of the communication and development tools better.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The dedication was what was most impressive. The energy that all the members had made it a great work environment. Having a dynamic team that can be cohesive is something every founder wants, I was lucky enough to find this first and that is what helped me even create Qikpix in the first place!

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is always room for improvement, just ask them!

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO at GovFlex, where we produced an e-commerce platform that connects service providers or freelance consultants with government contractors and agencies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Begin, LLC?

We hired Begin, LLC to develop a set of functionalities for our analytics tool to enhance it. Our team calls it opportunity analytics. It’s a tool that allows our customers to forecast the probability of wins against a given federal opportunity.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially had an introductory conversation in which we explained our requirements. That was followed by an evaluation and quote. The first phase of the project consisted of us getting them up to speed the technology. There are several data sources needed for the analysis, so they needed to understand where they lived and the various APIs associated with them. 

Once they had access to the appropriate data, we provided them with a business logic algorithm that would produce calculations on the probability of winning. They digested that information, integrating and refining their code.

The third part of the engagement concerned the UI and how users interact with the interface. Their team laid out the solution graphically to most effectively visualize our conclusions and recommendations. They helped us present the findings in a web-based report format for our customers’ benefit.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four of their teammates in total. That included a project manager, a database specialist, a UI designer, and an analytics professional. Brandon (Managing Director, Begin, LLC) was my main point of contact.

How much have you invested with them?

To date, we’ve spent between $25,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2019, and our teams continue to collaborate.

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

Statistics on the utilization and feedback from our users is not yet available, but consumers are activating it in high volumes. 

Internally, it’s reliable. Some of the underlying data we use comes from systems we don’t control. They deserve credit for looking into calculations that weren’t working properly and writing specialized code that will alert us if these external systems suddenly stop working. Their code is protecting us from the repercussions of that. We feel very confident in the work they did.

How did Begin, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

We worked closely with their project manager, who provided us with updates each week. Even though we made some changes to the project along the way, they were able to accommodate our adjustments and deliver an ideal solution in the end. 

Their team was very honest, even with their shortcomings. There was one instance when the project manager informed me of a cost evaluation oversight, and it was corrected from there. I understand that it happens and was appreciative of their transparency in that error.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They showed an authentic interest in the problem we were trying to solve. Several past partners focused only on the technical details of the project, without achieving a basic understanding of why we’re building what we were building. From the very beginning, they had a legitimate understanding of what we wanted to create and the product’s implications. They wanted to know how the product was designed to work before jumping right into the code, details, and technology.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything—they deserve a very good score. Their team communicated well and was responsive throughout. Sometimes, when you work with an outsourced team, figuring out how to schedule meetings can be challenging. They delivered without any difficulties.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be available for communication because issues in that area often cause real problems downstream. Make sure your requirements are clear. As things change, communicate them swiftly and effectively.