Blank

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at Databook, a SaaS company located in California. We offer a custom intelligence platform that provides insights for enterprise sales organizations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Blank?

As a small company, we needed the support of either having more engineers in-house or contracting someone external. We had to be very careful with customer data because many of our contracts were with big enterprise companies. These companies asked us not to have contractors working on the backend or have access to the data. That was why we decided to have an in-house team working on the backend and brought in an external company to take care of the frontend, where they didn’t need access to the customer data.

Our web application was based on AngularJS version 1.6. It was an old version, and it had a lot of vulnerabilities. The version wasn’t maintained by the community anymore, so we needed to migrate it into React.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We brought Blank in to take care of the project. They started moving features one by one into the new React app. We had to keep those two apps customer-facing and make it seamless for them while we were moving everything from one to the other. 

Blank was reimplementing, improving, and adding new features to the new web app. We only engaged with them for the custom software development because we’d already given them the UI/UX design.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Blank’s CEO and with two full-time engineers.

How did you come to work with Blank?

One of our engineers recommended Blank to us because of the quality of their code. This person had worked with them in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $90,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from September 2020–March 2021.

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

Our main metric was the performance of the web app. There wasn’t a quantitative metric because we were only migrating the existing functionality to a new framework that offered the same. It was completed successfully without any detriment.

The second metric we measured was the visual impact on the ease of use. We had the same functionality but with a different design. It was very acceptable to the internal team and customers.

How did Blank perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management was great, and the communication was constant. I was in contact with Blank’s CEO through Zoom on a weekly basis to supervise the project and discuss specifics. In addition, we brought Blank into the 15-minute daily standups with our internal team. 

We also had one of our engineers be the point of contact with them to review the code and help their team out.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Blank was willing to take on anything. The communication was very easy and friendly. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

One thing Blank could improve is to have a bigger overlap between their teams. Having a project manager on their side to take care of everything from the beginning would have been good because of the time difference we had. We gave that feedback, and Blank fixed it right away. They performed amazingly.

Any advice for potential customers?

Do a similar setup as we did and have daily quick catch-ups. It really helps to get quick feedback on how things are going. Let Blank do the work.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of an IT consulting firm providing enterprise custom software development services.

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

Develop a cloud based kiosk application used in law enforcement. The goal of the project is to reduce the amount of time offenders spend with correction officers by automating routine functions on a kiosk.

How did you select Blank and what were the deciding factors?

Experience working on complex software development applications. Years of experience in the industry. Upbeat and positive attitude during our early discussions aligned with our values.

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

Develop new features for web application and kiosk software. Refactor legacy code to improve stability and performance. Work with our business analyst and Q&A team to produce code for applications. Work in agile methodology with 4 week sprints. Technologies include AngularJS, .NET, EntityFramework, SQL, Azure, React.

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

Two senior developers. One provides oversight and has been with the project for much longer.

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

Continue to meet release dates on time and within budget. Leadership to development team has been outstanding.

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

Regularly meeting deadlines without concern. Primary tools used for collaboration and project management are JIRA and Teams.

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

Communication, professionalism, and depth of knowledge. They are experts on the subject matter and are very good at what they do.

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

No areas for improvement needed. They are a great team of highly skilled software developers. Looking forward to working with the team for many years to come.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a project manager for a small company that offers a unique digital welcome book.

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

We hired Blank for the development of our welcome book project. We were planning a larger product evolution and needed someone to deliver high-quality work in a relatively short amount of time.

How did you select Blank and what were the deciding factors?

We needed someone who could meet our time and quality requirements, and we had a referral for Blank.

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

They have developed and tested new functionalities for our system, based on our specifications and designs. We would send them the designs for each functionality and agreed on the delivery date. We would receive tested and working functionality on the testing environment and after our final check, release was made.

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

There were 3 team members, one quality analyst, and two developers. One of the developers also did the project management.

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

The new functionalities were delivered within the agreed time and matching specifications and designs.

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

They were really easy to communicate with. The arrangements were made quickly and efficiently. They were transparent and flexible. We communicated via e-mail, Jira, and the phone.

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

The Blank team is really thorough and reliable. The functionalities were delivered as specified and very well tested.

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

Nothing at the moment. They delivered within the expected parameters.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the director of Južni pol d.o.o. who owns dobartek.hr. Our main business is online food delivery platform dobartek.hr.

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

Blank developed and scaled out our online food delivery platform. They helped us grow into a profitable company, with sales, customer support and a marketing departments.

How did you select Blank and what were the deciding factors?

We needed a knowledgeable team that can help us with our goals. They worked with our CEO before and were referred by him.

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

Blank implemented a complete online food ordering platform using asp.net, jquery, and angularjs technologies. Work was done in sprints and prioritized by our product team. Their QA engineer tested the solution and made sure everything was working according to the specifications.

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

There were 3 senior engineers, 1 junior engineer, and 1 QA engineer. Project management was done by one of the senior engineers.

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

Everything was delivered per specification. There were no issues with delivery quality or delivery dates.

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

We used Trello, g suite, and slack for all project management and communication. There were no issues regarding the deadlines. We would always know upfront if certain dates couldn’t be met.

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

They have highly skilled engineers, great communication, and good project management. We would talk daily and got demos frequently.

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

We didn’t have any requirements for the documentation and they didn’t write it. Maybe writing some documentation can be something they could work on.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CEO of Digital Assets , and we are Cryptocurrency brokerage service

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

We hire Blank to develop hybrid mobile app, for our cryptocurrency exchange Bitcoin Store

How did you select Blank and what were the deciding factors?

We work with them before , and we need someone who can deliver this project fast and with high quality

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

first we made mock ups, and agreed with feature set after that they delivered app through one moth sprints they use react tech to make app work on iOS and Android

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

they were 4 people working , one project manager , two developers and one designer

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

they were able to deliver product on time

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

we communicated through Jira , Gitllab and Slack

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

communication was easy. They have a lot of knowledge about cryptocurrency.

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

they could on work on improving documentation