Beryl Systems

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

NetGym is a fitness software program, so our customers are gyms and studios across the world. I’m the chief customer officer, and I look after all our customers, product management efforts, and more. My husband and I run the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Beryl Systems?

We partnered with Beryl Systems to closely support us on our product development project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we hired Beryl Systems, we wanted them to build our software. My husband was the one who started working with them early on, and I took over about a year and a half ago. We gave them the wireframe of what we wanted to create, and they worked on it. That way, we could sell our product to our external clients. We used Trello to develop our product roadmap. They also built our iOS and Android app from scratch. Additionally, they created our entire notification system — both email and text notifications.

Beryl Systems continues to function as our offshore development team. They perform infrastructure setup, and they host our databases. The team continues to update our software to make it more innovative. They do that by implementing bug fixes, improving our UX, optimizing existing features, and building new features. Right now, we’re focused on modernizing our code to make it efficient and agnostic to different browsers and computers.

To monitor both our software and app, they use New Relic, Crashlytics, Google Analytics, and more. They also ensure that our app certifications are updated including SSL, Apple development, and more. On top of that, they develop keyway and testing procedures for the products that we’ve built. 

What is the team composition?

We work with 4–5 people depending on our requirements including a QA tester, mobile phone developer, and 1–2 developers.

How did you come to work with Beryl Systems?

My husband found Beryl Systems on Upwork. Their company stood out because they had good reviews. Furthermore, they shared past projects that looked similar to what we wanted to do. When we met them, they were incredibly thorough and responsive. Above all, they offered a very good price compared to what we would get in the US.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent in the ballpark of $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2014, and we continue to collaborate.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At the beginning of the project, we didn’t have any metrics to establish the team’s success since we were a small startup.  As our partnership progressed, the team’s high-quality and timely work has allowed us to increase our customer base. 

When I’ve joined the project, Beryl Systems’ efforts turned towards optimizing our testing efforts. In that respect, they’ve made sure that they can respond to emergencies we have such as P1 and P2 bugs by putting new testing procedures in place. We highly appreciate that they have a dedicated person who’s focused on that and is capable of solving our issues across many different versions of our program. Overall, they’re doing great at keeping everything functional and making our external clients happy.

How did Beryl Systems perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve had a rocky start when it comes to their communication style, but that has improved a lot. Today, they’re extremely responsive and supportive. On top of that, they’re available 24/7, and they ensure that they submit deliverables in a timely manner. 

Since they’re in India and we’re over in California, the time difference is pretty aggressive when it comes to getting support. The peak hours of our support are usually between 6 p.m.–7 p.m. PT. Despite it being an awkward time for them, they always make themselves available, especially during emergencies. It also helps that we can file tickets of issues they need to process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They take our issues very seriously. As a result, they have a sense of urgency when it comes to processing matters. Given that they’re across the world, their responsiveness is extremely needed so we appreciate them. However, at the same time, we always need to know what’s going on for the sake of our external stakeholders. In connection with that, their improvement in giving progressive updates can still be enhanced.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Previously, they’d release things without testing them against many different scenarios, so it was like a chicken and egg circus show where a bug would be released. When they submitted their work, my first test run with their output would always have issues. However, that happened because we didn’t give them thorough acceptance criteria. 

As such, we’ve established the right processes and procedures to ensure our success. Now, I no longer find the issues we’ve had before. We're just interested to see more transparency on their future QA testing procedures.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear about your expectations. In addition, when creating new projects, be very detailed about what you’re looking for. Don’t expect anything you didn’t write; if you want something, you have to be very literal when it comes to your request to ensure your company’s success. Furthermore, have a project management system in place that can make everything organized and timely.