BoostHigh

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with BoostHigh?

We needed to solve the problem with the communication between our system developed by a software house and 7,200 devices. At that point, we were having trouble meeting the communication-related demands with our application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the part of our application responsible for all external communication in C++  and C#. We needed them to deliver a small application to communicate with a system developed by another software house.

The app connects our system to a ski slope's snow cannons. BoostHigh delivered the communication part between the snow cannons and the whole system.

What is the team composition?

My main contact was Mariusz (CEO, Co-Founder, BoostHigh) and Tomasz (CTO, BoostHigh).

How did you come to work with BoostHigh?

We were looking for a software house that could handle the development part of the project. Our team heard good things about the CEO from BoostHigh. It seemed like they'd be able to help us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about €5,000-€10,000 (approximately $5,597–$11,194 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March–May 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered high-quality work. I was referred to them because of their skill and dedication. There were no problems fixing bugs. They found readable, long-lasting solutions.

How did BoostHigh perform from a project management standpoint?

We were very pleased with their project management. In the past, we've had communication issues with partner companies. However, we didn’t have these problems with BoostHigh.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their process was transparent, and it was easy to connect with them. Easily plugging them into our workflows, we always understood each other's timelines and methods. There wasn't much of a difference between their estimations and completion time. We communicated frequently. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their process is really good, but they should consider taking on project with greater scopes. They perform better with increased numbers of outsourced developers.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have a quality team— work with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the R&D manager for PIXEL, a midsized company in Poland that manufactures passenger information systems, transportation center video recorders, and matrix and LCD displays. Specifically, we deal with the equipment and software for display tables in bus and tram stations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with BoostHigh?

Our monitoring system comprises firmware and client and server applications. We use GPS to track vehicles and display times at stations.

The system is complex and we struggled to increase our developer capacity and comply with new software requirements for commercial bus displays. Our team wanted to utilize the LCD monitors for this purpose, which would require us to mix the commercial and passenger information systems. We hired BoostHigh to develop this new custom software solution in collaboration with us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

BoostHigh built the web application with a Symfony backend. They used JavaScript and PHP for the frontend. We prepared the use cases and they worked in agile through a series of five milestones. The team prototyped each component of the software—which included a video recording system—before making the final delivery. The custom software ran on Linux and was based on the Qt framework.

What is the team composition?

We interacted with the project manager and a system architect. The latter focused on use cases and technical implementations.

How did you come to work with BoostHigh?

I met Mariusz (Co-Founder and CEO, BoostHigh) 6–7 years ago while managing a course for startups. He had just completed the program and wanted to establish a company. Later, we met and discussed the possibility of collaborating, starting our partnership a month later.

How much have you invested with them?

The preparation and use cases cost $30,000. We then spent $50,000 on the project’s subsequent stages.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started partnering with BoostHigh over four years ago, but this project lasted from February–October 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The final software was on time and on budget. BoostHigh successfully delivered a high-quality solution that complied with our specifications. The team provided the full source code as well as complete documentation with clear explanations for each feature; the latter also included end user documentation.

Now, our team can sell the software to end users and provide complete implementations. The comprehensive source code enables us to make modifications with in-house programmers.

How did BoostHigh perform from a project management standpoint?

BoostHigh met our expectations without any obstacles or problems. They were efficient and collaborative on a range of project management tools including Jira, GanttProject, and Apache Subversion.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciated the collaboration and have already recommended them. This was the first external partnership for our R&D department and it went well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some bug fixes failed during regression testing. What’s more, BoostHigh did not use regression testing for every functionality. Since testing wasn’t wide enough, some fixes created functionality problems in other areas of the application. But we resolved these incidents quickly and there was no significant impact on the end results.