Brainhub

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior product manager at a fashion media company. We specialize in journalism about the fashion industry. My role involves looking after our mobile app, which is a tool for our subscribers to engage with our content. 

The app’s content includes members-only articles and briefings which educate our members on the history of the fashion industry and about what’s happening in relevant events today. The app also helps them with their careers in the fashion industry, whether they’re students starting out or CEOs of large corporations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We hired Brainhub for mobile app development. From working with various partners in the past, we knew that looking at mobile app development specifically and not in lots of areas of development would be beneficial for us. We wanted to get our app to a good place technically and have that expertise to ensure our app would be an industry leader.

Although we’re in a great place in our industry because there aren’t many competitors that have their own mobile apps, we wanted to ensure that ours was great and that we could service the needs of our users. Our internal team had done some work moving our website to a better technical place, so our mobile app had to follow suit. We needed someone with that expertise in building the platform away from a native experience and could own that and work themselves without us having to work on both our website and our mobile app simultaneously.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainhub provides us with mobile app development. Since our internal developers had worked on the mobile app, we had the foundations already in place at the start. We used to have a native mobile app built with Swift, but we decided to move away from that to align with how our website is built. Initially, we provided documentation on what we had previously built, and Brainhub helped us take the project forward. 

At the start of the engagement, the project was 70% of the way complete, and the team helped us complete it. They rebuilt the mobile app, making sure the development was done correctly. The team has helped us release the new version. Due to our client base, the team has only developed an iOS app for us.

Since the new version was released, we've worked with Brainhub on building a roadmap of new features to ensure the app is technically sustainable and crash-free. We've scaled down the app's development over the last couple of months, and the team is now focused on maintenance. They help us ensure the app is sustainable for the future. 

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

I believe they reached out to us in an email, though I'm not 100% sure. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September 2021, and they released the new version of the app in November 2021. Our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we were working with a critical release at the start, our first measure of success was getting the mobile app out and making sure our features were performative and without bugs or issues. The app’s features are super performative and 99.9% crash-free, which is all down to Brainhub. 

Before working with them, our previous native app had bugs due to the development we’d done on the website, and Brainhub resolved all of those issues. Whenever we release a new version, we get worried that there might be an issue that creeps in even when we’ve tested it thoroughly. However, that’s never happened with Brainhub. The team has been great at achieving our goals; thanks to them, we have a well-performing mobile app. Although there have been small bugs, that happens with any development work, and they’ve jumped on those issues really quickly without waiting for us to identify them.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent at communication and meeting our deadlines. Specifically, their developers are great at communicating. The team is collaborative and super friendly — they’re a pleasure to work with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When working with third parties, sometimes engagements can be contractually-based agreements without emotion or friendship even though we speak daily. With Brainhub, this is different. Moreover, I’m impressed with their quality of work and ability to meet deadlines, which they’re great at. They’re organized and super collaborative, which enables them to achieve our timelines. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had such a great relationship that it’s hard to identify something they need to improve. Instead of improvements, they should keep doing what they’re doing;  being as collaborative as possible, speaking up, giving their opinions, and keeping up their great ways of communication.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be to treat your work with Brainhub as a collaboration. They’re such a collaborative company that offers so much great insight that it would be a disservice to your own company if you don’t jump in and explore that partnership as much as possible. Asking for their advice and getting their insights and input on your product roadmap would also be beneficial.

We learned early on when scaling down our app development that Brainhub works in a project-based way, so they don’t really have contracts on retainers. For example, we explored having one developer working with us for a couple of hours a week to fix bugs or do small iterations to our mobile app, but they don’t work that way. Be aware of that, and make sure that you’re happy with a project-based approach so that it’s more of a collaboration rather than a contract.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a startup developing a crowdshipping app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We were developing our mobile app for iOS and Android, and we needed help with its UI.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainhub helped us design and develop the UI of our app. Their main goal was to make it simple and easy to use — they’re very experienced in those kinds of projects. Additionally, they integrated a smart analytics solution to help us determine the customer's needs.

It is a crowdshipping app that works similarly to a car sharing app but for packages. Users can send things from one place to another using our solution.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a full team of around 10 people, including a project lead, four iOS developers, four Android developers, and a scrum master responsible for all the agile development process. This person also took care of the sprint cycles.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Brainhub from January–December 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Brainhub delivered a user-friendly interface, and our first impression was that users already knew the app's features without a manual, which speaks volumes about how simple it is.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

Brainhub was really agile, and they were very responsive to the timelines and milestones we established. Throughout the project, we had scheduled agile meetings, as well as daily sync-in meetings. We also had some meetings to overview the project, see what was good and bad, and see what we could improve in the future. We used Trello and Jira to manage the project and Slack for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Brainhub has a lot of experience and a very strong team. Additionally, they offered a very personal experience, as opposed to larger development companies. They asked us very specific questions strongly related to our requirements, and they worked collaboratively with us and not for us, which was great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They even provided us with recommendations for us based on their experience and knowledge, which was really helpful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I strongly recommend working with Brainhub.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the engineering manager for the mobile and desktop applications of an e-health platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We needed help with the development of our desktop application. We didn’t have any knowledge about it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainhub has helped with the development of our desktop application. They’ve used the Electron framework. They initially took the legacy project to improve it.

What is the team composition?

We have a project manager as the bridge between two developers and us.

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

They were already working with us when I started working here.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent €100,000 (approximately $104,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2022, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The engagement has been great. They onboard quickly and are efficient. Moreover, they’ve improved the legacy code.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is good. We give them tasks every week, and they complete them seamlessly. We communicate via Slack and Google Meet and use Jira for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They know Electron. It’s hard to find developers who do, and their developers are excellent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be more involved in the project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You can work with them without any problems.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of delivery for DACH and Italy for a wealth management platform solution. We’re a utility provider and provide services to banks, insurances and asset managers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We hired them to do frontend development for projects in Germany and Italy.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainhub did frontend development on a website using React, Redux, and TypeScript. We had created the wireframes with the design team and had our own developers. About 8 developers from Brainhub joined our individual Scrum teams. They participated in planning meetings, daily calls, retrospectives, and development.  

Additionally, they supported us in implementing a test automation framework called Cypress, helping us set it up. After the initial setup, the project team took over the framework.

What is the team composition?

We worked with an account manager and about eight frontend developers from Brainhub.

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

I found them on Google while looking for a company who provides staff augmentation for top notch React developers. When searching on Google, Brainhub showed up in the top 10 results and through the entire vendor selection process. they presented themselves very professional. Although we issued an RFP to look at alternatives, Brainhub was the clear winner.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly £500,000 (approximately $613,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from May 2021–April 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Brainhub was very engaged and provided the best service possible.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

We had weekly check-ins through Google Meet, and they addressed any performance issues we found. They also shared very good feedback when they felt we were missing something or that something could be improved. I could raise issues with them when needed, too. Overall, the experience was very positive. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Brainhub was very proactive and acted as a cohesive company instead of a group of individual contractors. They worked together and really took care of their people. Additionally, we appreciated that they had a key person managing the project who wanted to ensure they were providing the best results possible. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they were excellent. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be really clear in regards to what you want. Brainhub will tell you if you’re not explaining what you need with enough clarity because they want to be successful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a B2B SaaS company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We needed fast and flexible scaling for our engineering department.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially described our requirements and needs, and Brainhub was quite fast in delivering a project proposal with a framework on how we could work together. Their proposal addressed all of our concerns, questions, and needs. Based on that, we started the collaboration.

Now, we continuously ramp up and extend the work.

What is the team composition?

We work with around eight people from Brainhub. The most significant part of the team is the software engineers, but we also have business analysts and UX designers.

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

We found them online, through my network, and a referral. We got to know them and started with the collaboration.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent about €150,000 (approximately $158,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership began in January 2022, and it’s still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The best metric we can give is that we just finalized our funding rounds and a company evaluation of $12 million based on their work, and we don’t have any internal engineers. We have product management and engineering managers, but no one is writing the code internally.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re professionally set up. Also, they’re flexible in how we can work with them. 

They have multiple clients with different working modes, so they’ve adjusted to our preferred way of collaborating. Overall, it’s working quite well.

We use Jira, Notion, and GitHub as tools and Slack and email for communication. We also have video calls on Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Brainhub can build up a high level of trust, and they continue to earn it. The quality of their work is based on our internal stakeholders, and it’s good. In the end, it all comes down to trust, the way we work together, and the quality and speed of work — all of which have earned our trust over time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They can improve the availability of resources. It’s a scarce market, so that’s probably where everybody could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust their experience and best practices in consulting and building the product.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a stealth startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We were building our first beta product, so we needed extra help in a short period of time. We already had an internal team, but our hiring was slow, so we hired them to help us hire engineers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Brainhub supported us in building a complex website. We already had an existing product built and Brainhub’s engineers served as additional support to our team. They joined our meetings and learned about our processes and existing codebase.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two software engineers.

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

Their team was recommended to us by another startup.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent €250,000 (approximately $275,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Brainhub from January 2020–March 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We only had a pre-launch, so we didn’t have any metrics yet.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

They didn’t do any project management because they only supplemented our existing team. We communicate through our weekly sprints and on Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Brainhub team was known for their JavaScript expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They tried their best during our engagement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Treat them as experts who would teach your team about JavaScript's best practices.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Chief Brand Strategy and Community Partner. Our company simplifies international education via connecting students, universities and a community all in one platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Brainhub to help us scale our engineering teams to enhance and deliver solutions for students and universities. The goal was to do a significant tech upgrade and simplify our existing architecture of web portals and several mobile applications, which manages the journeys for our key stakeholders.

We looked for the React and React Native specialists, able to transfer one of the platforms to React, with a deep understanding of the technology stack, our business vision, and goals.

SOLUTION

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

Through researching and talking to a range of companies we found on Clutch.

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

Brainhub took responsibility for a huge development part and for organizing their developers' pipelines. Business Analyst, Delivery Manager and Technical Advisor from Brainhub were working closely with us especially in the early stages of development and were responsible for adjusting tech decisions to meet our business needs.

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

Brainhub provided 5 skilled, knowledgeable fullstack developers. The Delivery Manager was focused on making sure everything is going in the right direction, and the Business Analyst took care of the backlog and results. The team was also composed of a Technical Advisor who combined technical and business points of view to make sure technology decisions are made with the business goals in mind.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project ended with the production version of the Client Portal and the Account Manager Portal, and a beta version of a mobile app that had a few thousand users at the end of our cooperation.

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

The project was organized with Scrum sprints. Business Analyst and Delivery Manager from Brainhub made sure the team was working on the right priorities from the business perspective. In terms of tools we used Jira for tasks management, and Slack for communication, which was very convenient.

We had daily meetings, and every two weeks there was a planning session where we discussed what should be delivered next to meet the business goals. Once for two weeks, we had a review when Brainhub showed the results of a sprint and progress toward the product goal. The whole process was flexible, and the team was ready to make changes and adjustments when possible.

The sprints were short so no time was wasted and together we were able to quickly spot when something was going in the wrong direction. The Business Analyst was immediately ready to adjust the tasks allocation and Backlog.

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

We were impressed by the technical knowledge of Brainhub developers and the quality of the code they delivered. We loved the ability to contact developers directly, it facilitated communication and removed possible obstacles. Brainhub team members were very proactive.

The company was able to compose such a team that was focused on aligning tech with business needs and making the right decisions swiftly.

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

Nothing significant to add.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Collegial. We’re an educational technology provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We brought them on to support us in the development of our platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our engagement is based on a strategic, tactical, and operational level when it comes to design and engineering. We work with Brainhub. They provide a strategic perspective to ensure that the development and design are aligned with the business objectives connected to what they’re involved and engaged with. Our stack is primarily built on TypeScript, React, and Go. Our cloud environment is AWS.

What our platform delivers is a content aggregation ability. We have an open content catalog that allows for integration with various digital learning providers, whether those may be digital natives or it may be a university or other educational provider that offers virtual interactive programs or on-demand content. We provide those types of integrations that enable our product to deliver a single point of access to a multitude of different learning providers.

Another aspect is that we aggregate data from all of our providers in order to give a holistic view of an individual’s, team’s, and organization’s learning and development activity.

What is the team composition?

Our team consists of six developers, a UX designer, and a team lead.

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

We came to engage with them through a recommendation. One of our own developers had worked with Brainhub at a previous company. I was impressed with both the technical skill of their developers and the cultural aspect of how they worked — both within their own teams and with the organizations they service.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $200,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started around September 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The impact was seen as early as two weeks in. They immediately produced a very high quality of work. Everyone we have worked with on the Brainhub team has been curious, self-driven, and structured. They have a clear sense of how they work.

After two weeks of onboarding the first three developers, they proposed doing a weekend hackathon in order to accelerate a particular feature they were involved in. This was completely on their own initiative. This showed the commitment that these three individuals had for our company and the product. This was a phenomenal start to our partnership.

Brainhub is fully integrated with our team. They’re an extension of our organization and are valuable members of our team. We don’t see them as external consultants, they’re very much a partner. We have every intention of making this a long-term partnership.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re experts on project management tools. We utilize Jira, and Brainhub is proficient with it. We do regular check-ins. Their team has very good processes for how they work and have been an inspiration to us. For context, we’re a relatively young company and have had our product in the market for about 18 months.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Brainhub brings a lot to the table. They provide quality of work and interest in what they do. What’s more, they’re nice people who are fun to work with. We enjoy having them on the team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any areas that need improvement. We’re successively increasing our commitment because we’re so happy with how the relationship is evolving.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Articulate the value that you’re trying to provide for your customers. The idea of working with something that has a higher purpose really gets your team fired up. Secondly, make sure your organization’s culture matches with that of Brainhub. There needs to be a focus on inclusion, transparency, communication, and care for each other.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager and senior developer for a telecommunications company that specializes in vanity and toll-free phone numbers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

When I first joined, they did product management for us. Since then, our partnership has grown and they’ve provided design and development support on a variety of different projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve developed a React Native website and are hosting it on AWS. They also have worked on our Android and iOS app. They generally use Atlassian tools such as Bitbucket and Jira.

When we begin a new project, I usually sit down with the CEO and stakeholders to go over our vision, define what features need to be implemented, and prioritize bugs. Then I sit down with their team to go over the requirements and they help me divide everything into Trello cards.

From there, they go through a few rounds of designs. Once they’re finalized, they help us divide the development work into milestones. Then developers then start working on those deliverables with feedback from us.

What is the team composition?

We have two frontend developers, one designer, a project manager, and a scrum master.

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

They were partners with my company before I joined the company.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend between $15,000–$20,000 a month (approximately $180,000–$240,000 in total).

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in February 2020 and our partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m very pleased with their designs for both our website and mobile apps. Even though our Android and iOS app share a code base, they seem to be very native. Additionally, they’re quick to act upon and feedback I give them.

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

We work hand-in-hand with them. They’re basically members of our team. We have at least three video calls a week. Usually, they send us links to review their designs. Then, during our meetings, they use a variety of tools to facilitate brainstorming and create a vision board. They also use Trello and G Suite to manage tasks and share their work with us.

I was also really happy with how quickly they worked. They were able to develop our iOS and Android apps in a pretty short timeframe. They’ve never failed to deliver on time or within the expected range.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re more proactive than other development teams I’ve worked with in the past. They constantly try to communicate with us and ask for feedback.

They emphasize the importance of communication and clearly prioritize our weekly meetings. They insist on hosting regular calls and meetings. They seem to be fluent in our language, so we haven’t had any miscommunications.

They’re also very team-oriented. Even though there has been some turnover on our team, they’ve been able to quickly fill any void with another developer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this point, nothing springs to mind. Mostly because we communicate so often that I can openly give them feedback when things come up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have a lot of experience in software development, so new clients should trust their methods.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Business Developer. We offer an API for residential IP and proxy services and specialize in data-center and residential proxies. Our solution helps independent search engines to index the web.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

As a consequence of the increasing number of new clients, we wanted to expand our platform, make it more scalable, take care of the highest performance, and extend the range of our services. We needed an expert who could augment our team quickly and work closely with our developers. We cared about the profound knowledge and understanding of the technology stack we use, to spend as little time on onboarding as possible. Brainhub supplemented our team with a knowledgeable developer who could start right away and fitted the team perfectly.

SOLUTION

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

We had seen their work on other projects and decided to use them.

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

We needed Brainhub to help us with the platform’s expansion in terms of development. The technology stack of the project was fancy and included Node.js, Golang, React, Kubernetes, and Prometheus, among others. Brainhub helped us with creating fault-tolerant, distributed, and scalable crawlers.

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

We hired one developer to supplement the team. He was very proactive, responsible, and fitted our team perfectly from the very beginning. He worked closely with two other developers of our team, and together they turned out to be very effective.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project is still ongoing. The proxy is already deployed and stable, and work has been completed in most cases. Our current goal is to evolve the platform according to the growing number of clients.

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

We had regular daily meetings in the mornings to discuss current tasks and priorities, and feedback sessions to submit amendments. The team was able to run several releases daily, making the process dynamic. We managed to arrange cooperation effectively despite the time zone differences and create a great, engaged team that worked very swiftly. In terms of tools, we used Slack for communication and Trello for project management, which allowed us to stay in the loop.

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

We appreciate their knowledge, engagement, and dedication. They deliver high quality, are open to feedback and collaboration. They supplemented the team effectively and were able to cooperate with our developers flawlessly, oriented on our platform’s success, as they were working with us since forever.

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

Nothing comes to my mind. We were impressed with how quickly Brainhub developer was able to start, with his knowledge and the level of dedication. We felt like he was a part of our team from the very beginning and that’s exactly what we wanted.