Bitnoise

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the managing director of Worldfixer Ltd.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bitnoise?

Right at the beginning, we had a strong concept, but the functionality was not built out properly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bitnoise helped us figure out what was going to be possible within our budget and what was the best way of communicating our plans in a digital way.

How did you come to work with Bitnoise?

They had a relationship with my business partner. I spoke to Bitnoise and they had a good grasp of what it was we were trying to do while keeping in mind our limited resources. We wanted to build something scalable but also something that could adapt to us as we changed and as our business changed.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Bitnoise around March of 2014. We’re still working with them on a completely new build of the site, which is very exciting.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work is excellent. Bitnoise gets projects done as we describe them so they’re the perfect partners for us. We haven’t had to spend much time project managing the work they do.

How did Bitnoise perform from a project management standpoint?

Adrian, their co-owner, is excellent at being in control and aware, which is exactly what we need. We don’t have to keep any project managers in-house. Bitnoise has a good pool of designers as needed, but they’re extremely busy, which means that we have to be organized with the things we build. Once it’s going, I’m happy with the workflow.

The process has been quite rudimentary between Adrian and myself, but this is partly because we’ve been working together for a number of years and I know I can trust them. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t need to see an actual project management tool. We can judge the work based on results. We use Basecamp to keep tabs on everything, but, in the current build, it’s not really applicable. We have so much going on, and it would be impossible to monitor all of it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their skills and developers are on par with anyone in the U.K. as far as I know. Bitnoise’s pricing is much more reasonable, and we’re getting good value for money. We’ve been cautious with our expenses, and, by and large, it’s been fairly easy progress for us with no major problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s some resourcing work they could do internally. I understand that finding good people at the right price is not easy, so we’ve had to wait a bit to get some things built. Hopefully, for the future, they can get their hands on more people who are as good as the ones they’ve got.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a Berlin-based design and build product agency, making digital products for startups and companies. We have a user-focused design process and typically build open-sourced technology, such as ReactJS, and native mobile apps.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bitnoise?

Bitnoise is our development partner and specializes in custom open-sourced platform builds. We lean on them for development expertise and technical architecture consultancy.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bitnoise works with ReactJS, PHP, MySQL, Node.js, React Native, and MongoDB.

What is the team dynamic?

Currently, we have three members of their team working on our collaborations.

How did you come to work with Bitnoise?

Their technology stack matched our preferred technology stack, and they have the same expertise we do. They're also only two hours away from our office, and that proximity was important to us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Bitnoise two to three years ago. It is an ongoing collaboration and they are our best partners.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In general, their work is of a high standard. They have strong attention to detail and are knowledgeable of leading technology.

How did Bitnoise perform from a project management standpoint?

We collaborate through JIRA and Slack on our processes. We communicate daily and typically hit our deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their appetite for leading open-sourced technology is great. We find this to be an advantage when compared to other partners.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there is nothing I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder and CEO of a social photography platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bitnoise?

I needed software developers. Our biggest challenge was creating all the interfaces and making it easy to vote for photos.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bitnoise helped us create the prototype of our platform, and they did a great job. They helped us test out the business idea this way. From what I remember, they used PHP and Symfony2 for the framework. They also used Node.js. Bitnoise continues to do freelance support and consulting for us. They continue to help us, but we've got our own software development team now.

What is the team dynamic?

I'm not sure how many developers were assigned to the initial project. I remember that I've been in contact with 2–3 of them.

How did you come to work with Bitnoise?

My design studio recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around €25,000 [$29,877] on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve worked with Bitnoise for a long time. Our first project with them was around 2012 or 2013. It was completed the same year and took six months. In 2013 or 2014, they helped me develop some very small projects, which were completed within two months. They’ve finished the first phase of this project, but we’re still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of the work was excellent, and the results were very good for us. The users loved the whole experience. Of course, there are many things that we still need to improve, but it’s not the developer’s fault. It’s the business model that we’re going to improve based on customer feedback.

How did Bitnoise perform from a project management standpoint?

While they’ve sometimes missed deadlines, our communication with them has always gone smoothly. We’re aware of everything, and there are no more problems with that. The communication part is the most important part, and they did that very well. We also have tools for managing tasks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are committed to making the best products possible. They focus on improvements even when we tell them how things should be done. Often, they are able to suggest better solutions, which is quite unique in our experience of working with developers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they can improve their response time for questions. It's very minor, though, and not even an issue. It’s just that I'm a person who loves to have very quick response times.  

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

HRtech startup, series A. 30+ engineers. CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bitnoise, and what were your goals?

Hiring talented and trustworthy outsourcing engineering is hard. Bitnoise was tasked not only to create a team for us but to spearhead our architecture and team management while maintaining our HQ culture across the border.

SOLUTION

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

Transparency, effective communication. HR culture and perks they provide to their people shows how much they love them and that a long-term partnership is in place

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

Bitnoise team owned mission critical services, hiring processes, architectural decisions. We used typescript with react and nodejs on GCP with kubernetes

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

5+ engineers 2 principal engineers 1 engineering manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Very product oriented, challenging partners. In time delivery. They easily adapted to changing management.

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

We enforced our own mutually crafted PM style.

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

Quality and longevity of their candidates

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

Work on salary raises together with the customer