Blackstone Studio

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of the Polls Platform, which allows users to add embedded polls to their mobile applications or website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Blackstone Studio?

We needed help turning our product into a Shopify application. We almost built it ourselves since we’re a software team, but we wanted a partner with experience in this exact type of project to help us avoid some of the pitfalls of the complicated ecosystem.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Blackstone Studio provides Shopify development services to make our existing technology work as a Shopify plug-in. The project is a greenfield project, but it was also fairly large and complicated due to the integrations with our existing technology. We work in separate code bases but on the same solution. Blackstone Studio has taken 100% responsibility for the front- and backend of the Shopify app, and we’re taking ownership of the changes to our existing technology that are needed to improve the Shopify app. I’ve also been doing code reviews and QA on Blackstone Studio’s work.

The app is deployed as a Docker container with an AWS and Amazon Relational Database System database. Blackstone Studio has written the backend in Node.js with TypeScript. They’ve used GraphQL, REST APIs, and incoming webhooks. They’ve also implemented the UI that we’ve designed. The frontend of the app is an interface for administrators that gets embedded into the Shopify website. They’ve built the frontend in React, using TypeScript. They’ve had to do additional work to make TypeScript work well with Shopify. They’ve also used Shopify’s software development and UI kits. 

Blackstone Studio has also implemented the Shopify infrastructure and integrations with our technology. We use a software development kit (SDK) that’s injected into the Shopify storefront using traditional HTML, Git, Javascript, and CSS. There’s also a Shopify-specific language called Liquid that Blackstone Studio had to be familiar with. We provided documentation on our REST API so Blackstone Studio could link up with our system. They pull data for analytics charts using Google Analytics and Amplitude.

Store owners open our app on Shopify and proceed through an onboarding flow where they decide what style, font, colors, and text they want to use for our product. The onboarding flow provides step-by-step instructions and tells store owners what percentage of the onboarding process they’ve completed. The app allows them to check their account status, including their current plan and billing cycle. There’s also an analytics dashboard that includes details data in charts so store owners can see if users are creating polls and if the polls are driving growth.

We’ll continue working with Blackstone Studio after the MVP is built and have them manage 80% of the Shopify app; we’ll manage the other 20% since we have some domain-specific knowledge. They’ll also help develop new features.

What is the team composition?

There are at least 2–3 senior engineers, and there are some junior engineers supporting the project under the supervision of senior engineers. There’s a technical program manager who handles the solution architecture. The project manager keeps everything on track. Bernardo (CEO & Co-Founder) is the teammate with Shopify domain expertise; he’s been our main Shopify solution architect.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $18,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them at the beginning of May 2023, and we’re still working with them.

How did you come to work with Blackstone Studio?

We interviewed 25 developers — both individuals and agencies — and selected Blackstone Studio for their Shopify domain knowledge and development portfolio, which included React projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m very happy with Blackstone Studio. We’re wrapping up the project now, and it’ll be live in the next couple of weeks. Blackstone Studio has solved all the challenges we set out to solve; they’ve never told us they can’t do something.

It’s difficult to quantify, but we absolutely feel like we’ve saved money by working with Blackstone Studio. To have done this in-house would have taken us significantly longer; working with them allowed us to focus on other pieces of the business that we needed to.

How did the company perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager has been fantastic. Blackstone Studio has been on time with their work, which is rare in engineering; it’s difficult to estimate timing properly, and they’ve done a great job. There have been changes to the scope, which is why we’re going to be about one week late.

The communication between both teams has been good; messages occasionally have to go through layers of contacts after reaching out to our one point of contact, but I understand that this is necessary. We’d rather be speaking directly to the teammates involved, but the communication has been strong. We’ve been able to clearly and effectively communicate requirements, problems, and timelines.

We use Google Meet for video meetings, Slack as our primary communication tool, and Jira as our project management tool, which Blackstone Studio manages.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Yes, I’d definitely like to shout out both Daphne (Project Manager) and Bernardo.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge of the Shopify ecosystem has been critical, and their project management is the second most impressive aspect of the partnership.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

This isn’t specific to Blackstone Studio but is helpful advice for anyone looking to do a software project. Having a very clear picture of what we wanted to build has benefitted us. Uncovering unknowns in the middle of a project can cause friction, so we’ve tried to think through the whole project. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of Dactilar. We run ROI focused ads for B2B companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to automate part of the billing service. Some of our clients were taking too much time to pay and we were spending too much time invoicing and sending due payment notices.

SOLUTION

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

We had a couple of calls with several vendors but we decided to go with them because of how they made sense towards our needs in the project with expertise and confidence in delivering, and straight to the point proposal.

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

From the start we were introduced to a scoping team that helped us define our MVP and create all the milestones we would need to achieve. Then we were introduced to the development team that kept us updated every week with updates & demos. Once we were closer to the finish line they created an AWS environment for us to start testing and provide feedback. Upon completion we were delivered all the codebase, diagrams & project documentation

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

There were 5 people in the team, but we would get most of the diligences with the Tech Project Manager. When needed, some meetings would be with specific team members, ex. Prototype with UI/UX Designer. - Tech Project Manager - Team Lead - Customer Success Manager - BackEnd Developer - UI/UX Designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Product features:

1. Ability to create custom invoices for 1-time payments.
2. Invoice automation
3. Credit card subscription system
4. Automated payment reminder

Even though it got delayed a couple of days by our feedback, project got delivered on the date we established.

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

Project management was very transparent and always kept us in the loop. Communication was fast and efficient and we always had our questions answered within the hour, they also have a system for providing weekly updates and estimates on any change of scope.

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

They always gave us recommendations on products and technology that helped define our MVP and optimize it to align better with our billing strategy.

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

We're nontechnical and we would love a little more documentation for customers like us. We've shared this feedback with the team and we've received some Loom tutorials.