Brainhub

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a small software startup, and we create sales management software for the automobile industry in Scandinavia. I am currently the chief executive officer/chief technology officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Brainhub?

We needed qualified ReactJS developers. We had a hard time finding that in the market, so we went to Poland and to Brainhub.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The staff found Brainhub to be incredible. The sales effort was really effective. The resources we worked with in Brainhub were above our expectations. They were really good guys. They were working remotely. I went there for a visit for a couple of days just to meet and greet and agree on the contract details. They did all the work remotely using Slack to communciate with my developers, and that worked really well.

How did you come to work with Brainhub?

Their sales manager contacted us. I think he used LinkedIn. He did a pretty cool canvassing job [direct outreach] on us actually. The initial contact was with a colleague of mine and he said that these guys might be good. Then that was it. We started talking, and it turned out we couldn't identify a single project because we have changing priorities, and we needed a little bit of stuff done here and there. We ended up body shopping one developer from them for three months. The purpose of that was to identify and to clarify if they could be used for scaling out capacity. We did the three months, and they were perfect for scaling. We have them on the list now if we need to scale on React and JavaScript.

How much have you invested with Brainhub?

It was 300 Danish krone per hour, and it was full time at 40 hours a week. [~ $22,000 total].

What is the status of this engagement?

May 2016 through July 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did Brainhub perform from a project management standpoint?

We're using JIRA as a project management tool, and then we used Slack for direct communication between developers. We had a couple of project managers, but they were at that point not involved using Slack. They were more involved using JIRA. Other than that, there was a lot of direct communication between developers. The main thing was that they didn't need a lot of support. I've worked with other externals that basically said they knew everything about that form and the technology, and when it came down to it, they needed a lot of help. These guys didn't need any help at all. They were just up and running in hours, even though our platform can be pretty complex. They just got it up and running locally. When they were delayed on getting access to some data, they created some mock-ups really fast so they could continue working.

What did you find most impressive about Brainhub?

Working without being pampered, without needing a lot of assistance, and only asking the right questions. Also, not being afraid to ask when they had a real question. Some people don't ask when they need to, and these guys ask when they had real questions. They didn't ask for stuff that a normal good developer should know.

Are there any areas Brainhub could improve?

No, not really. They did a good job, and they performed better than expected. I will be using them again if I need to scale capacity on that side of the platform.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP of Product of a biotech company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a biotech company with a focus on addressing significant gaps in therapeutic discovery. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Brainhub to accomplish?

• Further product development, feature improvements to our application.
• Build an operable PoC with a fully working front end of our application.
• Scale PoC into a full end user application (back end and front end).

SOLUTION

How did you find Brainhub?

Referral

Why did you select Brainhub over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Brainhub were assigned to this project?

19

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Development of a demo application. Deliverable: fully operable PoC, showing the business potential of the final product.
• Further product development. Deliverable: continuous delivery of new features and releases of the further version of the product, including infrastructure work and maintenance work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A working demo of the application, product development, process optimization, and iterative delivery of further product features.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

What we appreciate most about Brainhub is their commitment and ownership. They are a group of highly skilled experts that we can trust with topics of all complexity levels. We are very prescriptive with what we want, and they always deliver so it has been a great pairing.

As a startup, we are very dynamic and need a vendor who can respond to our changing needs, objectives, and priorities. With Brainhub, we have a lot of flexibility in terms of negotiating scope and scaling or descaling the team which is very valuable.

Brainhub’s team is highly organized: they keep documentation, provide weekly reports and meeting notes, set weekly DevOps meetings, and deliver on time. Despite the timezone difference, our teams have worked seamlessly together.

What was your primary form of communication with Brainhub?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

• Ownership
• Flexibility, responsiveness, and speed
• High-performance culture
• Quality of software development
• On-time delivery
• Efficient communication, openness, a very kind and collaborative team 

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

Nothing to note

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Owner & Designer of Caddy - Second Phone Number

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Second Phone Number - Calling, texting and voicemail with a private, local number in an area code of your choice

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Brainhub to accomplish?

• Implementing new features on iOS app
• Launch Android App
• E2E testing on iOS and Android

SOLUTION

How did you find Brainhub?

Referral

Why did you select Brainhub over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Brainhub were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Brainhub provided a team of talented full-stack engineers who work closely with product owner and designer to deliver high-quality, scalable react native code for our communication app that connects via API to a PHP back-end.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Mostly organic growth on iOS - 1.17 million impressions to date and 290k sessions
• 3200 active users
• 120 active subscribers
• 99.98% crash-free sessions
• Overwhelmingly positive user reviews since launch (4.89 rating)

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

N/A

What was your primary form of communication with Brainhub?

Email or Messaging App

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

I’m impressed by their communication and proactiveness.

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

N/A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of DGG

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Making 3D Data Prep as Easy as Ordering a Pizza.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Brainhub to accomplish?

Revamp the UI of our SaaS

SOLUTION

How did you find Brainhub?

Referral

Why did you select Brainhub over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Brainhub were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Aligned with us on business goals
• Developed a UI/UX mockup
• Delivered new UI components based on React

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Finished clean, modern, usable and performant refactoring of frontend UX for our platform within less than 6 months.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Project management was very structured, items were delivered on time and our needs were properly accomodated for.

What was your primary form of communication with Brainhub?

Virtual Meeting

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

The development and UX teams' strong skills, structured approach, and commitment to high standards are impressive.

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

No, would recommend.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I'm an executive at Cubotoo AG

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Marketplace for building material in Switzerland

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Brainhub to accomplish?

• Provide appealing design and usability for the v2 of the marketplace
• Support us with the solution development (BA/PO Proxy)

SOLUTION

How did you find Brainhub?

Online Search

Why did you select Brainhub over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Brainhub were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• From-scratch design creation for platform relaunch (incl. user/usability research). 
• Business analysis and PO proxy work for the platform relaunch. 
• Successful smart-agile collaboration in a team of 12+ from 4 companies. 
• Go-live of platform relaunch in 09/2023 (as planned).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Go-live of the marketplace relaunch in 09/2023, as planned since 2022. 
• Success-critical workload share of the PO and the solution architect taken over by Brainhub. 
• Appealing design and significantly improved usability ot the web app (marketplace).

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Quick adaptation of the Brainhub team to our truly agile, highly self-organized work culture with a high level of self-responsibility. Always quick response to new needs/requirements, willing to go the extra mile.

What was your primary form of communication with Brainhub?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I'm impressed with their flexibility.

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

No, not anymore.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Lead Solutions Architect

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Brainhub?

External development contractor for frontend development with TypeScript and React.

SOLUTION

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

We already made good experience in the past and the CVs sent over during screening looked promising for the tech stack we were requesting.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We were extending an existing dashboard for an IoT customer and were delivering against a milestone and we could not staff the project with internal people.

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

We worked with two persons one was purely frontend and the other one full stack with a focus on frontend.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We successfully met our milestone and the presentation towards our customer was a success.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Collaboration went smooth and our needs were fulfilled.

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

The best thing about Brainhub was their openness to extend one of the two people for two more months on short notice. We really value that.

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

Perfect experience. The developers and the contact point for requests were acting very professional.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Business development director Fintech group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

To custom write software to assist our project which was successfully completed.

SOLUTION

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

Their ability to customize.

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

They helped speed up the delivery of our information provided to clients.

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

There were 5

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Yes all went well.

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

Their communication is impressive.

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

Communication

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

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We create educational products using mobile technologies. I'm the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Brainhub?

We hired Brainhub to develop a native mobile app. They are also engaged occasionally in development for the web platform and backend services.

What were your goals for this project?

The main goal was to develop a community platform. To specify, there were three features to develop:

• Creating and participating in discussion groups about coaching
• Downloading courses and allowing to watch them offline

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We did research and compared a few potential contractors.

Describe the project in detail.

They provided a native mobile application designed using React Native. It aims to fulfill the missing spot for the mobile platform.

What was the team composition?

One Brainhub team member was working on the native platform. The team also composed of three developers, project manager, product owner, DevOps and more from our side

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We launched a beta version and have beta testers. We are continually improving it based on users’ feedback.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They work pretty well.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Flexibility and team's motivation

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing to add.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're building new ventures and products for products and corporations in the US and Africa.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Brainhub?

We have hired Brainhub to implement a website based on our design for one of the projects we were working on.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to launch the website in time for an industry conference while maintaining high quality.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We work with a lot of vendors and wanted to try working with Brainhub since they are familiar with the technologies we have chosen for this project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We have provided the designs in Figma along with video walkthrough using Loom and we've managed the project, while Brainhub was in charge of the implementation.

What was the team composition?

There was one team member from Brainhub, a PM/PO, a designer and developers on our side in charge of code review.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We were able to build the website in time for the conference and use it to acquire leads there. The website build has continued during and after the conference, but the most important sections were already live as expected.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We have provided project management from our side, facilitating sprint planning, daily standups, and retrospective meetings.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their expertise in Javascript is impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None than I can think of!