Black Bullet

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the program director of Europa FM, a radio station and media company. I also served as the CDO and I was in charge of managing the online presence of the station.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Bullet?

We hired Black Bullet to offer us services in custom software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we started working with Black Bullet, we were among the top three radio stations regarding online presence.

We had ideas about what we wanted to do in terms of design and implementation and worked with them on our websites and apps for smart TVs and phones. Furthermore, we had organized briefs and challenges for the developer, which they made improvements on without straying too much from the budget and timelines.

The app was built from scratch and we provided them with the requirements we wanted to include, which they implemented accordingly.

What is the team composition?

There were two people; a project manager and the CEO.

How did you come to work with Black Bullet?

After looking at sources in Google Play, we decided to work with Black Bullet after seeing the quality of their codes. We asked them to participate in our pitch and everything went smoothly after that.

What is the status of the engagement?

We began our partnership in September 2019 and the final package was delivered in March 2021 — we entered the maintenance phase shortly thereafter.

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

The number of downloads for the app has increased to about 50%, and it currently holds a 4.5 rating in Google Play and the Apple App Store. We also gained a lot of web traffic and became the top radio station with a positive online presence after working with Black Bullet.

Apart from that, we’ve also decreased the number of complaints from customers, which was made possible with Black Bullet’s high-quality development expertise.

How did Black Bullet perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well from a project management standpoint. They respected all our terms so the project went very smoothly from my point of view as a client. We used Asana to track the project’s progress and mainly communicated through email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed with their responsiveness and solutions-based approach to the development. They were very proactive and took ownership of the entire work without much handholding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would’ve loved to have better control of our budget, but that’s not really a major complaint — they’re the best provider in the market so it's understandable their services can be a bit pricey.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to communicate and voice all your concerns, so Black Bullet can come up with solutions more quickly.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a director of Calibrus, which was launched in 2001 and which via its Keyfact brand supplies over 60 UK financial institutions with carefully curated insights into market and competitor activity. Speed and accuracy and reliability as essential to our business, which operates 7 days a week.

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

Keyfact was using an old, out of date website to store some of our business insights. This did not allow us to store or extract information the way we needed to, and we needed a completely new user facing website underpinned by an easy to use data input process for us to capture, index and store all our business critical insights.

Keyfact also needed ongoing maintenance and support for the website and data input, as well as server migration, security and more.

How did you select Black Bullet and what were the deciding factors?

I was referred to Black Bullet by a friend with experience in this area, who also gave me details of two other suppliers.

From the outset it was clear that Black Bullet were streets ahead of the others - in professionalism, speed and clarity of response, understanding of what we wanted to do, and a proactive approach to the project, for example suggesting better solutions to how we (non experts!) suggested the new system and website might work.

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

The project involved building a completely new SQL-driven database for our existing insights, and migrating them over to a new indexed database which imported our existing method of classifying data. Whereas previously our (very) old system was updated weekly, Black Bullet built a new online real-time data input system which allows us to search real-time to extract the latest insights which have been input by different people in our teams.

They also built good functionality to export output in new formats we did not have before (including pdf, xls) and with new filters and search options. The end result is very fast, stable and reliable - indeed, our platform seems far more reliable than many of the IT systems used by our bank clients!

How many people from the Black Bullet team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We have dealt with three people at Black Bullet, two directors and a programmer - project management is very goodm we have one core contact (Ionut) who we have contacted/can contact with any requests or issues, plus a back-up contact also.

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

This is easy - with our previous website, an existing client said based on how it looked they would not buy from us if they didn't know the quality of the information we offer! The new website is excellent for what we need.

Our team colleagues also find it much easier to input, and we get superb feedback from our clients on the speed and quality of the one-off insight reports we can produce using the new system.

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

Very good project management style, friendly, responsive AND proactive, and very good at keeping us informed on progress when work is scheduled etc.

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

The quality of the results, speed of response, and knowledgeable personal service are notable in the engagement. we've sometimes have a few things that needed to be sorted urgently, they've always delivered.

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

None I can think of - the only areas of improvement are genuinely on our side when we've been slow to respond to things we needed to do our end to move the project forward at times, but that aside I'm very happy that with chose them, and with the results of their work, and their ongoing maintenance and support.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the general manager of 50s Digital, a company that I started back in 2011. I'm also the managing director of a new group in Romania that’s under the umbrella of McCann, a big worldwide agency.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Bullet?

When I started my company, I only had web developers. I didn't have any iOS and Android developers on board. When one of our clients asked us to build a mobile app, I turned to Black Bullet to provide the mobile development expertise that we needed.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Black Bullet helped us with complex mobile app development projects for different clients of ours that were in the telecommunication, food and beverage, and tobacco industries. 

We worked on two big applications, the first of which was made in 2014 and was a dating and matchmaking app similar to Tinder. The Black Bullet team made the iOS version while the Android version was built by somebody else. The other app, developed in 2016, was part of a global telecommunications company’s national campaign. For that one, Black Bullet built both the iOS and the Android versions. 

The other apps we had worked on were smaller in scale, ranging from a reservation app for the tablet used in restaurants and bars, down to apps that contained mini-games. All in all, we made 10–20 kinds of mini-apps for iOS tablets.

Black Bullet was mainly responsible for the CMS, API, and front- and backend development, while my own team took care of the UI/UX. All of the apps were developed from scratch. We would go together to the clients for debriefing and Madalin (Managing Partner) would help me construct the wireframes afterward.

Other services that Black Bullet provided include project management and software consultancy for one of my personal clients. 

What is the team composition?

The project management endeavor involved about 6–7 people, and the smaller projects generally involved 2–3 iOS developers and 2–3 Android developers.

How did you come to work with Black Bullet?

Black Bullet’s managing director and I were colleagues 15 years ago; we were developers in our first job in an independent digital agency. I started my own company in 2011 and my former also started his own company three years later. He had more experience than me, which is why I trusted him and his team to work with me on those development projects.

I knew many medium–large agencies in Romania that were great, too, but Madalin was simply the best one for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent a total of €80,000–€90,000 (approximately  $93,000–$105,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2014. The partnership lasted for 4 years and officially ended in January 2017. I no longer collaborate with Black Bullet as I’ve since grown to have my own development team.

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

I don't have any metrics because most of the apps we developed together don't exist anymore. I do know, however, that all of the projects we undertook were a success at that time. The applications were great. 

For the Filmwise project, we were able to make 15–20 tablets apps one year and our clients were very satisfied. The Vodafone project was a big campaign three-month at the time, and it was successful throughout our entire country. Our client earned a good number of views and thousands of app users. 

How did Black Bullet perform from a project management standpoint?

They had no problem with handling the project. In terms of meeting the deadlines, their team was never late. They delivered everything on time and within the budget.

Whenever there were bugs on any of the apps, Black Bullet was very prompt to respond to them. Especially if our clients needed an error sorted out, they quickly got those fixed within a day or two.

We communicated daily through phone calls and regularly used email and Basecamp. We would also meet in person at their office.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate how dedicated they were to the work. Madalin, in particular, works very hard. He's very meticulous when it comes to how he talks with our clients.  

I remember one instance where he worked for 18–20 hours straight in order to meet the deadline. He is very genuine and will not do something just for money as many development companies often do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any complaints. They handled our projects very well and there is nothing that they needed to improve on. They actually did things better than I would’ve. They were able to deliver the product in a very excellent way.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

For any relationship to work, communication is the key. Let Black Bullet know exactly what you want to achieve. Be ready with a detailed description of what you or your clients want to get out of the project. Madalin is sure to commit extra meetings to help you navigate that path.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the process manager for a company that produces fresh yogurt and drinks for Romania.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Bullet?

We wanted to boost the digital tools in our plant because we were maintaining reports in Microsoft Excel, but it was very hard to manage. As a result, we needed someone to create a tool where we could keep all the data from reception to the end of production.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Black Bullet created a tool where we could introduce all our data related to production. We provided them with a lot of documentation, including the recipes that needed to be integrated into the calculation model. On our part, we already calculated the recipe and taken into account the real properties of the milk we were using for production. We also had a contract to keep everything confidential, and we provided them with all the steps for production.

As such, our starting phase was all about defining our tool to Black Bullet. After they understood what we needed, we set the project’s milestones. Following that, they started with building our web app's infrastructure and they installed some servers into the platform. One of our requirements was for the tool to be accessible throughout the plant. We then agreed that they’d spend two weeks testing our app and that we would provide feedback through Jira.

In the end, we had all the data, reception, and quantity produce for each step of the process — in one single tool. The solution also enabled us to see reports where we could see what was happening and we could view extra information from the app through the form of a report.

How did you come to work with Black Bullet?

We did some research and looked at four companies. We then presented to them what we needed. In the end, Black Bullet offered a very robust cost and solution.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent €35,000–€40,000 (approximately $41,000–$46,900 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership ran from September 2018–March 2019.

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

The application was utilized by five operators per shift. Some of our people also worked directly with the software where they input data inside. The rest of the employees such as quality managers, quality engineers, and performance engineers — extract from reports. We then calculate KPIs based on the data. Overall, we benefited a lot from working with Black Bullet.

How did Black Bullet perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management process was good. We communicated via email, phone, and video calls. They would also come to our plant to see exactly what we wanted. Overall, we had active communication, and they met deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very responsive, and they quickly solved our issues.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they met my expectations.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Tradex Platform SRL, an energy product exchange startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Black Bullet?

We needed help with project planning for IT development. Since we’re a startup, we had to deliver the platform from scratch.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Black Bullet helped us with software development and product design. First, we started with the project planning part. We had a pretty clear description on the product that we needed them to develop. We had a lot of meetings to describe the exact product we wanted.

Then, they did the implementation. We’d told them the basic functionalities that the platform needed to rely on, and they developed everything based on that. Black Bullet proposed the design as well. They got all the programmers together and ran the entire project from one end to the other.

What is the team composition?

I work with Madalin (Managing Partner) and Ionut (IT Security Consultant & Project Manager). They’re brothers and part owners of the company.

How did you come to work with Black Bullet?

I have a friend who has a factory, and they’ve worked with Black Bullet for 7–8 years. I asked them if they knew anyone that could take on a project from start to finish, and they recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent €130,000 (approximately $158,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2018, and the relationship is ongoing.

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

The platform hasn’t officially been launched yet. In the next few months, we’ll see how it’s received by the market.

How did Black Bullet perform from a project management standpoint?

During development, there weren't any communication issues. This project was well-run by them. Any delays came from my side because I wasn’t sure if the technical description was exactly what I needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re very satisfied with their services. We had a pretty clear picture of what needed to come out of the software, and they delivered.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a very clear picture of what you want developed. Black Bullet’s team is good at implementation, but you need to be specific about the products that you need developed.