Capicua

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the director of software development.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

First, we needed to scale up our team at a cost-effective price point.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were looking for full-stack developers that were proficient in React and Node.js applications. For athletic departments and organizations in the US, we’re collecting statistics from large sets of games that happen in real-time. One of the programs Capicua helped us build handles this data. It uses React. Another part of the project was modernizing applications. We’d built a legacy application 12 years ago on Java, but it was very old. The goal was to move around that monolithic solution and into a microservice-based architecture with different modules.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two full-time developers and one QA resource.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

After finding them on Upwork, I went through a series of interviews with the candidates they proposed and some other members of their team. The focus of these interviews was to determine whether they would fit with our culture and technical requirements.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost was around $70,000–$75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2021–February 2022.

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

Their service was fantastic; the developers were brilliant with the technologies that we were using, and they brought a lot to our team. We were looking for resources that would basically become team members to supplement our full-time employees, and Capicua succeeded in that. They also established proper QA processes like we wanted.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

We handled the management ourselves, as they only provided the resources.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Capicua is a straightforward partner. I went through the process of interviewing multiple agencies, but their developers were the most skilled.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think so. Everything was delivered as expected. I don’t have any feedback in this regard.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your objectives and clarify the project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the co-founders of Dapestry. We customize suits for our male clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We needed help with our website's UI design.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua has initially conducted market research to identify our user personas and propose industry-specific design solutions based on those. After finalizing their proof of concept, Capicua has then executed our website's UI design via Figma.

What is the team composition?

We have two points of contact, and we've interacted with about six resources in total, including Capicua's co-founders and designers.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

I found their profile on Upwork. We chose Capicua because of their promising design portfolio and proven expertise. After engaging them, we had to stop working on the project for several months. I then reached out to them again to pick up where we left off and accomplish our design project.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in August 2021.

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

Capicua has deployed user-friendly design solutions, which have sprung from their team's innovative ideas. They've incorporated our feedback into their work and managed to comply with our complex design requirements. Overall, we're happy to be working with their creative and proactive team.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Slack. Capicua is a dependable partner that quickly responds to our queries and maintains a collaborative working relationship with our team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Capicua's biggest asset is their ability to come up with out-of-the-box ideas that elevate their design work. The cherry on top is their team's enthusiasm to help us succeed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything that needs to be done better or differently — we're satisfied with our collaboration.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take your time in identifying your project goals before relaying these to Capicua's team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a roadside assistance company. We’ve got a platform that matches customer requests for rotation systems with service providers in the area.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We needed to add more engineers to our existing team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua lends us engineers that can help us with our software development processes for our site; they manage technologies like React, JavaScript, and CSS — it’s a staff augmentation partnership. They recruit the engineers, go through the review process, and become part of our team after Capicua validates them.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is Ismael (Founder), and we’ve also been working with four engineers so far.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

I found them online and worked with them on a previous project, and that’s how I learned about their excellent work and reputation.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$150,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Capicua has made the transition of the engineers to our system of work very seamless and straightforward. They’ve also been flexible, which is a significant plus. They’ve been consistently providing top-notch engineers, which sets them apart from other agencies we’ve worked with in the past.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

They make communication easy and take around a month to recruit a talented engineer, which is excellent. The developers that they provide are also constantly in touch with us, and that facilitates things. We also talk to the director regularly. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The honesty and straightforwardness with their pricing and requirements are what stand out about them. It’s easy to do business with them.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on. 

Any advice for potential customers?

Stay engaged with the engineers so your project can be successful; make sure that you’re on top of what everybody’s doing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief digital officer at a digital agency that builds digital products for clients ranging from startups to large-scale enterprises. Our primary focus is on holistic product design, development, and support. We also help clients from a strategic standpoint, consulting with them around the digital industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We needed a partner with which we could scale talented resources. In other words, our team needed high-quality individuals that could deliver, so we hired Capicua. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

So far, we’ve only engaged Capicua members for UI/UX design. They help in prototyping and scaling our UX design quality. We haven’t engaged them for actual product development, so we haven’t used any development resources from them. However, we’re working on a few development contracts that should soon kick off. 

Apart from using them on the service side of our organization, we’re also planning to use them in building our own digital product. Their team will be responsible for the new product business that we’re going to spin off. 

What is the team composition?

I mainly work with two people from Capicua. One is the co-owner and the design director of the company, while the other one is the lead designer. They manage the design resources and junior-level staff that we use. 

How did you come to work with Capicua? 

One of my previous company’s partners worked with them and brought them in for a digital product. As a result, I saw their outputs. They were the first truly nearshore team that I had the privilege of working with, though I’d worked with plenty of offshore companies from India and the Philippines. By comparison, their work caliber was at a much higher level. 

In other words, I knew their capabilities and expertise level. As a result, when I started working with my current company and needed a partner, they were the first ones that came to my mind — it was a no-brainer. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested more than $25,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Capicua in January 2021, and the partnership is ongoing. 

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

I gauge Capicua’s work by their ability to grasp the concepts we need. In a nutshell, I don’t have to repeat myself a lot to them. If I have to repeat myself three times, we might not be getting what we’re paying for — luckily, they usually understand the concepts the first time. More importantly, I look at the work that they present. Our clients are happy with their work; they love it, and that says a lot about the team. 

From a product design perspective, Capicua is good to partner up with since we’re thinking holistically and we target multiple buyer personas. I’m highly impressed with their ability to overcome challenges. If they miss the mark the first time, they’ll get it the second time. On top of that, they’re agile in the way they think. They can take on complicated requests and understand not only our business model but also end users. 

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great at project management and have a good cadence. They break down the tasks at hand. To communicate, we primarily use Slack. Overall, their management is truly strong.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Since Capicua is the first nearshore company I’ve used, there’s a sense of cultural consistency between our teams. They understand the American culture better than other teams in other parts of the world. That has always been truly impressive to me. Moreover, the design skills they’ve brought to the table are of high quality if not better than others I’ve hired in the US. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. While there’s always room for growth in any organization, nothing truly stands out that they need to change at this point in time. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for truly high-quality, talented, and experienced nearshore individuals, go to Capicua. They do fewer repeat works, so their cost is lower. For comparison, other offshore teams may charge lower rates, and you might get 80 or so people, but they’re less productive and effective. As a result, you’ll waste more money. By contrast, one talented individual from Capicua can equal 10 badly performing offshore individuals. In other words, you should be focused more on quality than quantity. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a director at a global strategy consulting firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We wanted to go to data platform solutions to work better and faster with employees and clients whenever we had to deal with big data. We’re developing a vision of receiving big data from the client, analyzing the data, and storing that information somewhere we can use the next time we need to.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work with Capicua to build an MVP from scratch. We had nothing but a white sheet of paper and a dream. They led the team for six months to move from nothing to something, getting it on staging where we could physically do testing performances.

In terms of technology, they use all the modern architecture to develop an MVP, such as Snowflake, AWS, React, and Node.js, among other tools.

They’re also currently helping us with making our product work with other system solutions.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with around 7–9 people from their team.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

They’re known for their capacity to move from zero to one, and they have a competitive technical vision. They’ve worked with our network in the past, and their reputation was amazing. We work with a SCRUM methodology, so we started with giving them a couple of small tasks, and they achieved our expectations every time — the one-month engagement turned out to be two years working together.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together on this project since around November 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

They tested everything and learned about people’s feedback to achieve a decent deliverable in only six months. We measure the data analytics of every engagement before and after the process with every client, and by using the platform, we significantly reduce the time to deliver to our clients.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

We don’t use any management tool, but they handle an agile way of working where we can quickly know if we’re getting positive feedback or if there’s something that needs improvement. We also value their flexibility in adjusting to our needs at every stage of the engagement; they can reach out to the right expert for every aspect of the project. The proximity and trust they provide are very important to us too — we have an honest and trustworthy relationship, and that’s gold.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with how they built that kind of MVP in just a few months. Additionally, the timezone hasn’t been a trench for us; they have the maturity and capacity to be global. In addition, they’re capable of understanding our vision and deliver our objectives, being both autonomous and close to us at the same time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on; they’re great. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive and a music education technology company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We needed someone to develop our software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We completely redesigned and overhauled our product. Capicua was brought on as an outsourced engineering team for us. We let go of all of our internal engineers, so they took over all the development areas. They’re building an entire functioning learning management system for music education from scratch. They’re using GraphQL, Microsoft Azure, JavaScript, TypeScript, and PostgreSQL for all the front- and back-end matters.

The software's key features include the ability to upload content, play videos, play songs, change the pitch and speed of songs, and match up lyrics to song titles.

What is the team composition?

We work with Ismael (Founder), QA developers, and other members of their team. There are around seven people involved in the project.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

I did research and several interviews for this. What I liked about Capicua was their good references, their prior work with companies in the US, and that the language barrier wasn’t a problem; there are no issues with communication compared to other offshore companies.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $500,000 with Capicua so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019, and the partnership is ongoing.

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

The product meets our quality metrics and is working properly. Capicua put countless hours into hard work, and that speaks for itself.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate through Slack, Jira, Confluence, and Google Meet. Capicua’s team does a great job and is detail-oriented. They’re also organized and document everything.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with Capicua’s work ethic. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s something they can improve on; they do a great job and there’s not much more that I can ask for.

Any advice for potential customers?

Capicua’s team likes details and doesn’t want to make assumptions. You need to make sure you’re spending the appropriate amount of time with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a company that develops technology products to serve the nonprofit industry to help them raise more money. I’m the owner and founder.  

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We wanted to update the sponsorship industry within nonprofits. Over the last 20 plus years, trying to find corporate partners has remained a cumbersome research project.

We also wanted to create a learning lab so that lessons learned by experts in the field could be shared on-demand with newcomers to the charity world or folks trying to improve funding.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua helped us from start to finish. They looked at how to transfer all of our existing learning lab content into a new LMS. They also created a data aggregator and implemented the UX from my business partner. They worked with him to refine the UX and add a dashboard feature.

The team also helped us with the data source prioritization and outreach. They helped us decide what needed to be in the MVP and what we could save for future releases.

The new LMS is web-based and mobile-friendly. It’s available on-demand with a certification. It sends emails automatically and there are prompts for users to take the next lesson. We continue to use them for other projects.

What is the team composition?

Ismael (Founder & Director) was our initial contact. At one point, we had 10–12 people working on our project.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

I was working out of the same WeWork office as Ismael. I told them about my company’s vision and he met with my partner six months later. He stayed in contact with us until we had the funding to move forward.

We were impressed by the depth and breadth of their experience; they had a lot of the pieces we were looking for in terms of e-stores, data aggregation, and LMS experience from previous projects. They also understood we were a startup and sometimes we move quickly. They were responsive and respectful.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $100,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2017, and our work is ongoing.

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

We were able to take some of the initial development work that they provided and do some testing with our audience. Then, we were able to implement that feedback immediately. The investors and CTOs have all commended the work we’ve done on the platform and the tech stack that was used. We’ve been called the best of the best and I credit that to Capicua.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

I really appreciated how they broke things down into stages. They also did a lot of check-ins as we went along. They were great at meeting our deadlines. My business partner was in constant contact with them.

The only time they ever missed a deadline was our fault because we didn’t give them enough information to get moving. From their standpoint, they set real expectations and made sure that we understood the scope of work and the hours needed. We communicate via Zoom and Email. We also use Trello for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The sophistication of their work stands out. There are cheaper developers out there but their ability to service a client long term is attractive to me. I know they’re not going anywhere and they have a lot of amazingly skilled people.

They know all of the latest trends and they’re also team players. They’re willing to work with everyone on the team based on their skillset. They’re flexible, friendly, and helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve addressed this since 2017, but sometimes things take a bit longer or require more work. Building in some additional contingencies to their estimates to set better expectations for their clients would be great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be organized and ready. They’re able to move very quickly. If things slow down, it’s probably because the client isn’t prepared effectively. Be extremely responsive and prepared to start the project; it’ll move fast.

Get to know them; they’re a fantastic group of people. They’re kind, loving, smart, and funny. See them as partners, friends, and colleagues and you’ll be extremely pleased with the work product that’s provided.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder and CEO of Re:store, a physical space service that allows physical placement to online brands. We take on store leases and convert them into shared spaces for online businesses. We have a subsidiary, and that's where Capicua is helping us.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

We’re primarily a physical retail company. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we had to find omnichannel solutions, so we expanded into live stream selling. We partner with about 60 companies in any given month, so we tried to figure out how to have all those brands put their catalog online. We didn’t have a website at the time.

In addition to that, we wanted to do live-streamed shows to create content around the actual products. Instead of having a traditional website where customers could see and buy a product, we wanted to live stream from our stores. Then, customers would be able to buy in real-time as the products are displayed.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua developed our e-commerce, live streaming website on Agora. We came in with a paper and a pen and listed our requirements. We didn't have a team at the time that had anything to do with the online business. As a result, they took our ideas and gave us the team that did the prototype, the wireframes, and everything else. We needed to make sure we were creating the features necessary for the vision we had for the business. 

The website is finished. Now, we’re working on launching an app in a month and a half. It will be another way for us to connect with customers. We’ll also be working on a project to allow other stores to live stream with us, which is going to open up a new revenue venue for our business. 

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is Carlos (COO & Senior Graphic Designer), who also serves as the main project manager. We also work with Ismael (Founder & Director), although he works more on the finance side. 

How did you come to work with Capicua?

One of our team members did a project with Capicua when he was in a different tech company. We hired him as we were building up our online branch, and he recommended Capicua.

When we interviewed the team, it became instantly clear that they were a great option. They also had the right scope in terms of team members and the project timeline. We interviewed a lot of other firms, but for this project, we decided to go full-on with Capicua. We worked only with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent around $60,000–$100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2020, and the engagement is ongoing. 

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

Within three months, they're able to launch a whole live-streamed shopping experience with the catalog and everything included. It’s been insanely fast and cost-effective. The website is now finished, and it's used by 30–35 retailers. We originally created it for us, but we ended up expanding it to other businesses. 

We've increased our revenue by having online sales — we've essentially added a new revenue stream for us. We've also been able to increase our new customers. On the website alone, we get 200–300 brand new visitors every day. We're getting fresh eyes coming into the online store that we wouldn't otherwise have without the website.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

Carlos is such a great manager. He understands the pushback that we give them, and he also pushes back on the team in an effective way. He keeps everyone motivated and moving fast but not in a way that there's any burnout. It's quite magical. Having worked with a lot of people in the past, we know that management is hard. However, his project management skills are incredible. 

I also appreciate their simplification of matters since our company is new to the tech space. We considered a hundred million features for the website, but Capicua told us to create a beta version first and then get feedback on that. It saved us time and money since we didn’t build features that wouldn’t have been helpful for us. 

I wasn't a big fan of working with agencies because I liked things to be done in-house. However, Capicua changed my mind. They've become part of the team. Before, we had to develop some management practices as a young startup. With them, we tapped into that side of things without having to rebuild management practices. Now, we're looking for ways we can use agencies like them in marketing and things like that. 

I also like the fact that they're in a different area and time zone because they have the time to absorb information and work on it. We use Slack, Google Meet, and email to communicate. We meet with them a lot on our live streaming channel, too. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their talents distinguish them. In the past, when we worked with agencies, we had a lot of turnover in talent. We didn't really have our dedicated people. We’d be promised a person, but someone else would be working for us. It created a lot of confusion. 

We don’t have that experience with Capicua. We’ve able to choose the people that we hire, and they’re the people that we meet with every day. We can also tell if the people have been working with Capicua for a long time. There's a good colleague situation going on, and contractors aren’t brought in at the last minute. They have a great pool of talent ready to jump into any project with relevant backgrounds. 

For instance, when we finished the website and started working on the app, we wanted to work with the same team because they were efficient. However, we needed new people because the business was growing. We also needed more app-based developers. Capicua was able to hire a great new team member within a week and a half. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Capicua needs to get the word out about them. I didn’t initially know about them, and the person that recommended them only found them on Upwork. I wouldn’t have found them there. They need to be better at positioning themselves as an agency that helps startups. They need to brand themselves better to get to the US market. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open-minded to hiring agencies, and compare the cost-efficiency of hiring just one person versus a whole team and having the management of the agency. I feel like people have a bad experience with agencies, but I would say Capicua has been easy to work with.

They're very Americanized in the way they do business, so it simple for anyone without any experience working with a contract agency to work with them. They easily integrate into the business. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Lifetripper. We have five full-time people working on a mobile platform for remembering and sharing trips.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

I wanted to build an MVP for the idea I was working on. The platform would need to gather information from Facebook, Instagram, cell phones, and so on, and I didn’t know if it was technically possible.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Capicua developed our MVP app for iOS from scratch. I was a one-person company at the time, so Capicua did everything for me. They helped me translate the idea into specifications and then did all the design and development.

The most challenging part was integrating APIs for Facebook and Instagram; the app also retrieves pictures and videos from cell phones directly. It has an additional feature for recreating trips based on geo-location information.

What is the team composition?

Their CEO helped me translate my idea into something technical they could build. Capicua then assigned me a designer and an iOS developer, and I was also in contact with their CTO.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

I live in San Francisco, but I’m from Uruguay, and I knew Capicua from a previous experience. I gave them a call to see if they’d be interested in helping me with my idea, and, luckily, they were.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost was around $35,000. Developing this kind of app could always be more affordable, but the quality was worth the money. I had less costly options, but I’d definitely work with Capicua again if I had another MVP to build.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Capicua in early 2018, and we finished the product in September of that year. They’ve also helped me build a website for a nonprofit.

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

I like the end-product in terms of both design and software performance. The scope and deadline were met — we made a plan, and Capicua respected it.

I was a solo founder, and they helped me with design, project management, and everything else I needed at the moment. I have my own team now — for strategic reasons — but Capicua was the perfect fit for me at the time.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

I don’t recall using any project management tools. They may have used something internally, but not with me. We communicated through email and had weekly meetings. Their CTO was always available when I was working with the developer, so we didn’t have any communication problems. The CTO was in charge, and that was very important.

Capicua was clear in terms of scope and development time. We took a few more weeks to finish the project than I expected, but it wasn’t just their fault. I requested changes, as normally happens with software development, and Capicua handled them well. It wasn’t a very large project, but Capicua delivered on time and with the quality I expected.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Some companies work on design and other companies work on development, but Capicua offers everything, which is awesome. They’re a one-stop-shop.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The cost could’ve been less. It was a lot of money for me at the moment, and it still is, but other than that there wasn’t much that could’ve gone wrong since it was a small project.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I like the extreme programming methodology, and Capicua worked that way, but I know that it’s not for everyone. It requires a lot of interaction from the client, and some people don’t have the time to do that.

Clients should determine what technologies are necessary to build the product and check whether the provider has the right resources.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a consulting agency. We work with agencies to develop technologies in the education space.

What challenge were you trying to address with Capicua?

I’m working with a client to develop an app, a mobile app for helping young people discover their gifts to get them to start meaningful careers.

We developed a minimum viable product last year and were testing it with some customers.  Now we’re in the process of refactoring the app and bringing it to market. We hired Capicua to help us refactor the user experience that we already developed into a world-class product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our MVP was developed for us in Android. The scope of the work with the team was to analyze what we had already done in terms of the context of the customer feedback we received from our initial test. We redesigned the entire mobile app over a two-month period with them.

For the technologies we used, we used InVision and Sketch. We also developed rapid prototypes that we tested with some customers during the process too.

What is the team composition?

We had four people work on it at various parts. The CEO worked well with us on strategy and branding work. We had a lead designer who worked with us fill time, a UX designer, and someone else working on project management.

How did you come to work with Capicua?

I think we found them on Clutch. I have a developer that I worked with, and they were doing some searching on UpWork too. We had a competitive process, and they really impressed me with their proposal. It really showed that they understood the problem, put the effort into how to solve it, and had a great portfolio. They also were the cheapest option.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s in the ballpark of $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2020.

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

We had a test group that tested our original app, and we went back to that test group with the new design. Our testing group was very positive about Capicua’s usability changes. They said the look and feel were amazing.

Our project sponsors were also very on board with the project. They’ve been very happy with the work. The board of directors was likewise wowed by the design.

How did Capicua perform from a project management standpoint?

They had fantastic communication and were very timely with deliverables. They promised to work quickly and they delivered what was promised.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Strategically, they really understood the problem. They approached everything from a place of understanding. They really understood our problem and the visual design was excellent since they were able to convey what we wanted from a brand perspective.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. It’s been a really positive experience.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do your homework upfront about what you want to accomplish, then give them the information so they can familiarize themselves with you and what your needs are.