Bulbera

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a white-label online ordering solution for the restaurant industry. We operate in Ireland, UK, Canada, and the US, and we’re looking to expand to more countries.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bulbera?

Bulbera is basically our outsourced IT team, so they look after the technology side of our business.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, Bulbera helped us develop our MVP product, which required a lot of work on the backend because we integrate with a lot of different POS. Essentially, we have to pull out the restaurant’s menu from their POS and send it into our platform. Then, we add pictures and other elements to get the menu ready. We then push the edited menu through a frontend, where the restaurant’s customers can place their orders.

Once we developed the MVP, Bulbera helped us migrate all of our customers to the new platform. We were growing really fast during the first three months, so we spent a lot of time working on the security and stability of the system.

Currently, the project continues, and there’s no finish line anytime soon. We’re always integrating with a POS system or payment gateway, and at the moment, we’re working on languages.

What is the team composition?

We started working with six people from Bulbera, but we extended the team to eight people. We have four backend developers, two frontend developers, and two project managers helping us. We also communicate with Zhenya (Operations Manager) and Stefan (CEO & Co-Founder).

How did you come to work with Bulbera?

We started working with another company, but there were some issues around some of the details in the contract. Bulbera got in touch with my business partner, and they spent a month learning about our project to make sure that they understood all of what they needed to build, which was good.

After a month of working with them, we flew to meet their team in person and have a couple of days to discuss the project in more detail. It was important for us to have face-to-face interaction with them before making our final decision because this was an extensive project, so we wanted to make sure that we picked the right team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $1 million. At the current rate, we spend around €400,000 per year (approximately $475,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Bulbera in May 2018, we launched our MVP in March 2019, and we migrated all of our clients in August 2019. We have a contract for 2021, and we probably will have a contract for 2022.

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

We saw 3x growth in our business in 2020, and we expect the same growth in 2021. As we’re focused on restaurant ordering, our platform has to be stable, and the orders placed need to go to the restaurants in a timely manner. We track the order times and the number of orders we receive, and we make sure that the platform is reliable.

How did Bulbera perform from a project management standpoint?

Bulbera’s project management and organization are excellent — we always know exactly where we stand. We meet with them every week to discuss what we’re working on and the plans for the upcoming work.

Before COVID-19, I would usually spend a week per month in Sofia, Bulgaria. We also have offices there with customer service, sales, and administration teams, and I would spend two days per month with Bulbera.

Since COVID-19, we’ve used Google Hangouts for our meetings, and we use Trello to keep track of the development progress, for future developments and our active tasks. 

Bulbera is a very efficient and well-run organization. The communication flow between us works extremely well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Bulbera’s ability to understand complex tasks and deliver them distinguishes them from other providers. If something is difficult, they tell us and don’t just say yes; they offer a lot of transparency and honesty. For example, if I want something built in three months, and the timeline is unrealistic, they tell me.

Our project is one of the biggest on which Bulbera has worked. It is a huge platform with a lot of different parts, and some of them are very complex. However, they’ve been able to manage the complex parts extremely well, and they have a very talented development team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything that Bulbera could improve on — I’m a very happy customer. Maybe they could reduce their bill, but ultimately, they charge us a reasonable price.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It is all about the organization; the more organized you are, the more organized Bulbera will be. When you’re building software, they’ll come up with a lot of questions, and you have to give them your full attention. I spent a lot of time showing them what we intended to build, and it took a month to go through all of the information.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am co-founder of a social enterprise. We bult a social network that provides next level social entrepreneurship to everyone. The platform connects people and organizations who are committed to making a positive impact in the world.

We call it one stop shop for good deeds because it's a unified social network where absolutely everyone (citizens, NGOs, companies) can find absolutely everything connected with good-deeds-doing (causes, bazars, volunteers’ initiatives, financial and material donations, charity events, CSR campaigns, NGO and business profiles, on-line store for products/services with a cause and many more).

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

After 3 years ant the market Volontime needed of new vision and upgrading of the features. So, we hired Bulbera to jump on next level and build more sensitive and useful platform according to the users’ needs. By doing those changes and upgrading we wanted to increase our traffic substantially during the next year and to transform Volontime social network as one stop shop for good deeds.

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

We searched online for IT company and asked some friends to advise us a proper firm. Friend of mine recommended us Bulbera’s team. We had contacted Stephan and Deyan from Bulbera and after we met them and discussed what we needed of we have decided to hire their company. Bulbera offered us fast and sustainable solutions of our problems and the price was acceptable to us. 

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

We started with kick-off meeting to discuss our goals. They introduced us the guys who were the most suitable persons to develop the new features. Bulbera also included a project coordinator, a girl who made the communication and the whole process smother and faster. 

Bulbera developed following features: 

• Donating by persons and donating by companies (everyone can announce a donation of materials, skills / training or services that would like to help someone develop with);
• Contests (everyone can organize a competition and reach the target audience or can take participation in a race);
• New vision of the landing page and every single types (Causes, Donating, Charity, Volunteers, Contests, Donation Campaigns);
• Better users’ experience with the newsfeed of Volontime;

Bulbera built notification button for all users/organization in order everyone to follow up the news and everyone’s post at Volontime according to their needs and interests. We had weekly meetings to follow up the development of the features. We used Trello for monitoring, following up, communication.

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

3 persons:

1 front-end developer;

1 back-end developer;

1 project coordinator.

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

All the mentioned featured in my previous answers are visible and can be tested directly at volontime.com We increased the users of the social network up to 20 000 (almost two times more)

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

We used trello platform for the project, skype for direct connections and short questions, mailing. The project coordinator from their side scheduled weekly meetings with us and the developers.

Between the time from one to another meeting I was communicating with the project coordinator who transferred my questions or something else to the developers. The project coordinator also was making checks if the new feature works properly.

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

They gave us simple, fast decisions which save time and money but at the same time they are sustainable. They work as a team and the communication was easy and peaceful.

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

I guess they can think of providing 24/7 support (including weekends) to the projects that are used by users all the time or to sign a contract with the customers if there is an emergency problem during holiday what could be the time for fixing the problem by their team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive manager for a nonprofit organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bulbera?

We needed a new website built, so we brought in Bulbera.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We prepared a Word document containing examples of the images and text that we wanted to appear on the website, and we provided this to Bulbera. The team did all the necessary research and developed the website on WordPress. They also implemented an automatic translation function using the specific company we requested.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager and a developer.

How did you come to work with Bulbera?

We found several service providers online, and Bulbera was one of the agencies that we considered for the project. I already knew about them beforehand, though.

A colleague of mine spoke highly of their work and their proposal was well-structured with clear timelines, so we decided to go with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2020–June 2021.

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

The website is now up and running, with the classic look and feel that we were going for. The feedback surrounding its user-friendliness has been positive and overall, we are quite happy. Bulbera worked quickly to complete the website and fixed any glitches that were found. 

How did Bulbera perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager was knowledgeable, always available, and responsive. She worked in a timely manner and kept the costs within the originally presented quote. We communicated via Zoom and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are punctual and efficient.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s not part of their business model, but they could do more design work

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would highly recommend them to anyone for their punctuality and efficiency.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-founder of TEACS Ltd. We develop software solutions in favor of the dental industry. Our pilot project is AMOSYS which digitalizes the processes and relationships between dentists and dental technicians.

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

For building AMOSYS proof of concept web based platform we needed Bulbera services as we don't have in-house developers. We rely on their expertise in design, development and testing. We wanted to avoid spending time to build up an IT team and rather focus on the creation of the product itself.

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

We contacted several vendors with similar profiles and 3 of them participated in the vendor's selection process. Eventually, Bulbera was chosen with the best cost and time estimation. Also, previous experience in the health care industry was an advantage for them.

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

We had few meetings to discuss the scope and the details. After that, the team delivered visual mock-ups and bi-weekly work plan of the project execution.

After each bi-weekly iteration, we had a meeting to discuss the deliverables in the past iteration and details about the upcoming iteration. In the process, they developed our AMOSYS web-based platform with the needed front-end, back-end, and database components.

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

A project manager and a senior developer were our main points of contact throughout the process. There were also a designer, a developer, and a tester working on the project.

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

After launching the system we started acquiring clients. The marketing process is tough due to the industry. There is already positive feedback on the design, performance, and functionality. And several change requests which we addressed with Bulbera.

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

We had bi-weekly meetings with their project manager and lead developer. We used mainly e-mail for exchanging information beyond the meetings.

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

They were very professional in the technologies needed for the implementation of the project. They had a precise delivery schedule and process.

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

There were some bugs that our team detected and we were a bit surprised their QA missed. Anyway no big issue or outside of the standards was observed from our side.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the head of product for a mobile app development company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Bulbera?

We hired Bulbera to develop an Android App to help parents manage their kid’s time on mobile games and videos. The project started as a medium-complexity single app and later grew into a highly complex system with a cloud backend, launch application, web interface, and remote application control.

What were your goals for this project?

We set out to create an app that would be compatible with multiple devices and wouldn’t crash. It also had to be difficult for kids to uninstall.

How did you select this vendor?

Another company we were working with referred us to them. 

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They designed and developed our mobile app and web interface.

What was the team composition?

We worked with four people: a technical program manager, a software development manager, and two engineers.

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

After launching the new version of the app, customer reviews increased from an average of 3.3 to 4.1. New customers doubled, and we received a lot fewer complaints about the app crashing or not working.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Bulbera managed the project and coordinated with us weekly. The meetings were useful and well-planned.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They truly cared about us as a client, as well as our project. We had several elements of the new interface remaining when our budget ran out, and Bulbera offered to complete the outstanding work for free, as long as their schedule allowed it.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Bulbera wasn’t able to prioritize our project in the beginning, but once we committed to a more consistent workload these issues didn’t occur anymore.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are telecommunication vendor in delivery organization towards the telecom providers.

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

Automation in telecommunication providers needs certain optimization that can result in really reducing time to market for the fulfilment services, that requires complex flows to be implemented.

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

We are using part of the capacity of Bulbera to help with development of certain integration interfaces and workflow development for the BPMN designed processes. So far the delivered quality is pretty high and we are very happy working with them.

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

Java EE, WSO2, BPMN, FlowOne.

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

5 - Software engineers

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

Feedback for them is positive ,they treated their work with a focus on the details and acted professionally

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

We are working in a organized backlog on the outcome based deliverables.

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

Their expertise and development capabilities, but really the game changes is the focus on the details. They are very well organized internally to handle different loads.

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

They are taking any feedback for immediate correction, so with them you can be sure will be on the right track.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Health center doing health retreats, management position

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

We needed custom software to collect data for our health clients, to have individual profiles from them, to fill out questionnaire before visiting our center, to upload their results, etc

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

Satisfied customers, word of mouth

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

They helped with many questions and detailed discussions to make the outline. Then we had different phases and test periods. But cannot say you technologies used.

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

They were 2 persons, project manager and one more.

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

We did the project on time and all our team members were educated from Bulbera. Our work considerably improved. Then we decided to continue develop the software and also maintenence by Bulbera. They are always reacting fast if there are some issues.

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

Great communication and very satisfied with their attitude and fast reactions. Emails, Skype and Google meet. Deadlines were always on time.

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

Personal attitude and always adequate reactions.

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

No. Everything has been perfect.