Beside the Park

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of WHENUBUY.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

WHENUBUY provides a solution that streamlines the process of on-line purchases from multiple sources.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Beside the Park to accomplish?

• Designing the software architecture
• Selecting the technology
• Developing an MVP of our software solutions
• Integration selected external data sources

SOLUTION

How did you find Beside the Park?

Referral

Why did you select Beside the Park over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Beside the Park were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The goal of the project was to “materialize” the product idea into a working solution. This involved the following stages: 

• The idea was born among whenUbuy co-founders, who shared a view that the growing trend of shifting consumer purchases to the online space opens new opportunities. Experiencing the difficulties with managing the logistics of purchasing products from multiple online sources, we came up with an idea of an app that collects all the online purchase information in one place. 
• High-level business requirements Based on the overall idea we formulated high-level business requirements in the form of user stories. We then prioritized and divided them into multiple stages. 
• Suppliers selection (UI/UX design, software development) The defined requirements were used in the process of supplier selection. This process resulted in choosing 2 teams responsible for: UX/UI design and software engineering. 
• UI/UX design consulted with the software development team. Based on the requirements, the app UX and UI were designed. While the UX/UI team was responsible for these deliverables, the software engineers were involved in the process in order to ensure technical feasibility within the agreed budget constraints. 
• Software architecture design and technology selection The technical solution development started with the software architecture design, technology, and IT infrastructure selection. We benefited here from Beside the Park’s technology flexibility and experience in working with a wide variety of different technologies and different platforms. The software engineering team provided recommendations with reasoning supporting them. This helped us to make informed decisions that took into account multiple aspects including technological and cost factors. On that basis, we were comfortable selecting Node.js as the main backend technology and Flutter as a multiplatform mobile framework. 
• Development of the MVP of the solution with an Android app as a front end. The MVP scope included setting up all the required infrastructure, CI/CD configuration and development, and development of the backend solution including integration with the first e-commerce platforms. Also within the MVP stage, the Android app was prepared for release. 
• Beta testing on the Android platform Before the first public release the Android app was beta tested by a group of invited users. The collected feedback resulted in a list of improvement propositions which were filtered, and prioritized and the resulting changes were implemented. 
• Public release of the Android App 
• Preparation and release of the iOS mobile application After releasing the Android version based on Flutter's multi-platform capabilities, the iOS version was seamlessly configured, built, tested, and released.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Both Android and iOS apps are publicly available.
• The apps work with our servers where data from multiple online stores is aggregated and provided to the app users.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

As a start up it was important for us to use our funding very efficiently. In order to minimize project management costs, we agreed to limit time spent on meetings by replacing periodic pre-scheduled meetings to meeting with meetings on request. Access to the ticketing system with ongoing task statuses, along with an ongoing visibility of current time & budget spent ensured us a transparency on progress and budget usage. As a result we managed to produce an impressive amount of software with the limited funding budget we could use for the MVP.

What was your primary form of communication with Beside the Park?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Entrepreneurial approach along with understanding of challenges that startups are facing, diverse experience in multiple industries and multiple technologies. They have a strong engineering background with technological flexibility and the ability to apply all these to turn our ideas into a working product effectively.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Beside the Park could have done differently?

I am used to more frequent meetings in software development projects. The on-demand meetings were a new approach for me. As long as it was cost effective, in the future when we have more budget flexibility I plan to try to introduce some periodical meetings in order to be able to see what amount of meeting time is optimal for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the Chief Innovation Officer at Edge NPD. Our company builds Business Intelligence services on the retail market, looking for ways to apply innovative technologies and ways of thinking about data in achieving business goals. I am responsible for the development of new IT products and technologies, concentrating on Data Analysis, Data Science, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Beside the Park, and what were your goals?

We decided to cooperate with Beside the Park on a significant part of the development of a custom ad server, Big Data, and Analytical modules for live events stream processing and reporting.

SOLUTION

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

The goal was to outsource the delivery of a significant part of this platform within the original timeline. Since the previous vendor didn’t deliver the promised functionalities it was crucial for Beside the Park to understand the scope of their part of the system and come up with solutions that could bring the whole platform together

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

I have worked with the Beside the Park founder and the Beside the Park team for a number of projects in the past. Over the years, a deep trust in their approach and values had developed. So when I took over the project and recognized risks with the incumbent developers I reached out to Beside the Park for support, and they delivered again.

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

We were assigned an experienced system architect and development team with various competencies (Google Cloud, Big Data, node.js, react) on demand when required.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

First, a new cloud-based architecture was proposed and agreed upon with other teams responsible for the remaining components of the VOD platform. Then the solution was built, delivered, and tested including auto-scaling and performance testing.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The project was conducted utilizing the Agile method. We used a ticketing system to manage tasks assignments, controlling progress, and had periodic meetings for work synchronization. Basecamp and Slack platforms were used as tools for communication with the client and other vendors.

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

The modern architecture of the proposed solution and high effectiveness in terms of the cost to contributed time ratio. Also, their quick and remarkable work organization under significant time pressure, which resulted in delivering high-quality solutions.

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

None, from my point of view.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Account Manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Beside the Park?

Programming of newsletter footers

What were your goals for this project?

Adaption of the existing design

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

past experience with the vendor

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Adaption of the existing newsletter footer design

What was the team composition?

-

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

-

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Was good! Nothing to complain about

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are fast and very reliable.

Are there any areas for improvement?

-