In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?
We have launched our product and we have won substantial business. The amount of investment that’s under management has grown substantially, I would say the amount has doubled since we’ve launched this product. It’s been very positive. Brainvire is one critical piece of our success. In part, they’ve enabled us with the technology and with the product, but our company executed it. We asked them to build something and they built it and, as a result of them giving us what we wanted, we’ve been successful.
How well do you think Brainvire Infotech performed overall?
Overall, it’s been positive. I haven’t second-guessed my decision. We’ve gone through a couple of different team members so far, primarily because people grow in their career and they get promoted, so new people get added to the project. Transitions were a little rocky to begin with. But, it worked itself out. I thought it was handled well when I brought up issues. Resolutions to those issues are pretty good and I can escalate all the way to the CEO. The CEO travels quite a bit. When he comes to the U.S., he’s always willing to do meetings on a quarterly basis, just check the status.
In terms of what else I might need going forward, it seems like they would be able to address my needs If I need to add several developers overnight, they have a bench of people that they can offer clients.
When working with Brainvire Infotech, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors you’ve used?
It’s hard to say what’s unique about them given that I’ve seen so much, and I’ve seen everything that they have elsewhere. Maybe the unique piece is that they have it all together.
Responsiveness, chain of command, tasks, and tracking software for the sprints and the organization of all the tasks that I give them is in place. All of these important elements are built into their process, they just expose an application to me to populate for them so they can do their planning and execute. Having all of that together and having a pretty solid process around how to communicate, how they engage, and how they deliver is very useful.
In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?
We should have added more requirements up front. A lot of what they built is exactly what we asked for. We asked for something quick, we wanted to go to market fast. I wanted to be set up well, but automated test leads weren’t our primary focus when we first started.
Three months ago, we embarked on a project to add some automated test cases and user tests to make sure the system doesn’t have bugs. That’s something that nobody wants to do in the initial phase. Now, we’re feeling the pain of that, so I probably would have changed that process.
Pros include the quality of the initial site buildout as well as Brainvire's responsiveness and eagerness to course correct as needed. One con for the non-technical founder is that invoicing could tie costs to production more clearly.