CarbonTeq

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a Fintech startup. We make disruptive software in the tax and mortgage industries.

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

We had a new product to develop, and needed to build a functional version that we could take to market in as short a time as possible. I hired CarbonTeq to create the application as a greenfield project.

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

I had worked with many of the people from CarbonTeq before, as CTO of another company. I knew they have a great drive to work, they think things through logically, and don't let speed bumps become brick walls.

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

They offered a flat-fee on a fixed scope, or a flexible time-based option that I ultimately chose. Working in 2-week and then 1-week sprints, they delivered releases on a regular schedule. We met daily, and there was always very visible progress from one day to the next.

This was an application built from scratch on NodeJS/ReactJS/MySQL, and deployed on a VM.

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

There were 5 people total:

• a shared project organizer / scrum master,
• a shared designer,
• two devs
• a QA person.

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

We shortened our timelines by about 30%, and we were still able to release on that accelerated schedule.

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

We communicated through Slack, Jira, and in daily meetings. CarbonTeq was always very clear on what they needed, and timeline risks associated with them not having certain materials available to them (security certificates from our side, 3rd parry integrations from our side, etc.). They took delivering something of value very seriously, and it was clear they felt great ownership in the product and process.

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

CarbonTeq can get things done quickly. Although we had intended this as a prototype, we are using it with clients.

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

Given the constraints we placed on them, it's hard to imagine they could have done better.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an edtech company. We support independent K-12 schools, colleges, and educational nonprofits.

What challenge were you trying to address with CarbonTeq?

Our lead developer was looking to refrain from supporting our daily development efforts, so we needed a team to handle those.

What was the scope of their involvement?

CarbonTeq aids our development projects, mainly performing UX- and integration-related tasks. They use Python and Node.js to execute different software solutions and rewrite existing codes. They’ve recently helped us refurbish a software product by improving its UX, building additional features, and integrating it into an online portal.

What is the team composition?

I have one point of contact from CarbonTeq’s team.

How did you come to work with CarbonTeq?

We were searching for potential providers that could handle this project and found CarbonTeq to be the most fitting candidate. Upon speaking with their team, we agreed to launch a trial period. We then furthered the engagement after being satisfied with their services.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in June 2021.

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

We’ve recently conducted a customer survey, and we’re pleased to receive positive feedback from our users. CarbonTeq deploys stable and responsive solutions that accurately meet our users’ needs.

Additionally, they quickly address any issues to prevent our team or users from experiencing delays or technical difficulties. Overall, they’re a reliable team with an impressive skill set.

How did CarbonTeq perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via weekly meetings and rely on Trello for project management. CarbonTeq works within our timeframes and budget and collaborates seamlessly with our team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The amount of dedication they put into their work makes our engagement seem more like a partnership rather than a customer-vendor deal. It’s not every day that we encounter a team that strives to bring reliable UX solutions to the table while maintaining a harmonious relationship with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything constructive to say about their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Leave ample room and time for exchanges of ideas and feedback.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a gaming app startup called Jindo, which is Bingo with a Beat! It's a fun new twist on an old school game that combines elements of name-that-tune with bingo.

For what projects/services did your company hire CarbonTeq?

We hired Carbonteq to handle the web and mobile app development for the host and player sides of Jindo.

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

I was referred to Carbonteq by a close friend who is also working with them.

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

They held our hand and guided us through the process from the very beginning. Using their experience to enlighten and inform us along the way. This is our first time working on a project of this scope and the helped us manage some hiccups and have been generous with their time and insights.

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

We've worked with a handful of people throughout the process and have leaned on their expertise.

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

The project is not 100% complete, but it is getting close. We are optimistic that it will be everything we aimed for.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They have been generous with their time and insights throughout the process. We have held daily standup meetings to track progress and address issues along the way.

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

The overall friendliness and kindness of the people working there. They have been understanding and forthright the whole time.

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

Perhaps they could have been more clear about some of the potential failures of design on our behalf as the project required a complete redesign halfway through because of our shortcomings.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Viral Solutions is a private ambulatory COVID-19 testing organization founded in the summer of 2020 to deal with the COVID-19 crisis and be part of the solution. As CIO I help to set and lead the technology strategy for the organisation and provide an interface between the business needs, user needs, and the information technology operations.

What challenge were you trying to address with CarbonTeq?

We needed very flexible custom web app technology and reliable backend solutions. The solution needed to be HIPAA compliant, with the specific focus on dealing with obtaining patient data, streamlining the workflow and process throughout our testing sites, and most importantly, delivering results in a fast and tech-savvy manner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

CarbonTeq helped us develop a process that would allow patients to sign up for COVID-19 tests both in advance or at our sites. The system served as a way for us to very quickly get information utilizing Google OCR image capture. We integrated with third-party software packages that we used as our electronic health record management utilizing APIs.

Once results hit our database, we ran certain services that facilitated SMS notification with links to custom portals that our patients could log in to and retrieve their results or view their history. They spun up a complex service from scratch that was custom built for Viral Solutions, and they iterated on that until it was flawless. It's been the backbone of how we were able to scale so quickly and cope with the volume. We have since gone on to build out additional tech products that are very impressive.

What is the team composition?

We work with 4–5 members of the CarbonTeq team.

How did you come to work with CarbonTeq?

I had a colleague who worked for a startup in New York City. We both were running operations for different tech start-ups, and he introduced me to the stand-in CEO of CarbonTeq. I had heard very good reviews about their work for about two years prior to engaging with them. Ever since engaging with them, I have been extremely impressed with how agile, flexible, and out of the box they are.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent around $25,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement began in September 2020

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

We got hit with a tsunami of demand for COVID-19 testing from Thanksgiving through Christmas and New Years'. Without CarbonTeq, I think it's safe to say that the organization would have been crushed.

We processed roughly 65,000 results through the platform in an automated fashion. We would have had to hire endless people in order to communicate those results to patients. Their service has saved us a tremendous amount of time and money based on the sheer volume, and it was done in a smart, secure, and HIPAA compliant fashion of communication.

How did CarbonTeq perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly use Slack, Google Meet, and Jira to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

CarbonTeq has a unique way of thinking and holds its team to a high standard. They have a tremendous team element that I like a lot. There is unity, and the leadership is very solid.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have been very impressed with the quality of the work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear and transparent about the scope and think whether you want to go with a project-based approach or are looking to build a team that you hold on retainer. I think it is important to understand the difference. 

Before engaging with them, understand whether you know that answer and if not, CarbonTeq is very flexible and will help you figure it out. In our case they suggested we start out on a project basis as we had a clearly defined scope, and through that project, you learn whether an ongoing engagement that is monthly or quarterly is more suited or whether the project approach is actually right for your organization.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company is a crowdfunding platform for small businesses, and it's called Miventure.

What challenge were you trying to address with CarbonTeq?

CarbonTeq helped us build a mobile app that’s a marketplace for small businesses to connect with advocates and investors around the country. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We built the app with CarbonTeq from the very beginning. We wireframed it last year and then built the internal tools and the platform itself on iOS and Android. They helped us choose the tech stack. They built the app as a crowdfunding portal, letting people sign up, make investments, and collect payments. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, two frontend developers, and two backend developers. 

How did you come to work with CarbonTeq?

I worked with CarbonTeq briefly on a project at a franchise housing company, and I enjoyed my experience with them. As a result, when I built my own project, I decided to work with them again. 

How much have you invested with them?

For the MVP, we spent around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We collaborated on this project from February–October 2020. We still do some ongoing work from time to time.

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

At present, the platform is working extremely well. It has little downtime and scales well, allowing for a lot of concurrent users. It's very stable. The general user feedback has been positive, and people like its smoothness and workflow.

How did CarbonTeq perform from a project management standpoint?

Our communication was great. We had daily stand-ups, so there was always constant communication. They were very honest about the scope, and they didn't take a project on until they fully scoped it.

In terms of costs, they didn’t just throw a low number and increased it as they did the project. That was great. The team made sure they understood the product requirements before they started. They were realistic about timelines and challenges and were open to reprioritization. The overall experience was great. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They cared about the projects that they worked on. They looked for tasks that were technically challenging and interesting for them. As a result, they got really invested in their projects. I’ve been really happy, and I would use them again.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We did a lot of the design work ourselves, so I don’t know how they would do on that. I’m not saying they’d do poorly on design, but that was the only part of the application where we didn’t use them. That was because we already had a good designer. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a daily meeting, and take a proactive role in the Agile product development process. Try to give the CarbonTeq team as much visibility as you can into the roadmap of the app. They’ll help with the prioritization of tasks if they have that kind of visibility. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a sneaker vendor. It’s a service that helps brokers who sell sneakers, and hopefully other merchandise, price against the market a little better and automate their selling strategies. I wear many hats but I mainly focus on the operations side.

What challenge were you trying to address with CarbonTeq?

We wanted to make this market a little bit more dynamic and hands-off. If I wanted to sell sneakers for a certain price, we’ll let the price fluctuate according to the trends of the market.

What was the scope of their involvement?

CarbonTeq developed an MVP plugin. We are very new to this so it was more of a discovery phase. We delivered them mockups and they saw the vision we were trying to achieve. So, they immediately came to us with some ideas of how to structure the build and the type of iterations we needed to make the MVP. They also set us up with AWS and found us a rep that works with us according to our needs.

What is the team composition?

I worked with about five people including two main points of contact and a project manager.

How did you come to work with CarbonTeq?

I had a peripheral experience with them, seeing some friends work with them in previous roles. I believe our product manager worked with them on previous projects as well. We did still shop around and go to other vendors to decide if Carbonteq was the right company for us. A couple of things brought us to that. They got what we were trying to do and it made sense to them. We also loved that they wanted to set up daily and weekly briefings to be as transparent as possible. Other companies did that, but Carbonteq promoted it when it wasn’t something we originally asked for. The other point was the pricing was fair for what they wanted to do. They explained to us that they could work with our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $6,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in August 2020 and ended that October.

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

They were able to meet all of the deliverables and all of the functionalities work. We were able to buy with the intention to sell through our platform and be a little bit more hands-off and not have to adjust the price every day. It has worked fantastic so far and that is why we’re going to go back to them to expand the project.

How did CarbonTeq perform from a project management standpoint?

We had daily cadences and every morning our product manager got on the phone with them to see what CarbonTeq was planning and what they accomplished the day before. At the end of every week, we went over the week’s updates and added them to Slack because we’re on the same channel. We really talked consistently about the deliverables and features we wanted and if there was a bug in any feature, they fixed it right away. 

Deadlines were set in the very beginning and were sometimes met and sometimes a little behind; however, we didn’t count anything as being late or overdue because we knew in advance what was being extended because of our daily and weekly meetings with the entire team. This is not the first thing I’ve built and they were probably the most communicative group of people I’ve ever worked with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their professionalism was probably the most impressive. We joked and became friends along the way, but they reached out for all business-related matters in a timely manner. There was no pushing with invoicing whenever we had to pay; it was set up in a reasonable way. They built exactly what we needed, what we planned, and what we designed with them. If there was anything we needed to be changed, even little things, they did it with no questions asked.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re great with building your vision, so come with your vision. If you’re looking for someone to just get the work done and not involve you in it, I wouldn’t go with CarbonTeq because that’s not their style.

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Product of Honeycomb Credit

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Regulation crowdfunding portal

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

• Launch new platform
• Add highly valuable features
• Manage technology

How did you find CarbonTeq?

Referral

Why did you select CarbonTeq over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing first our budget
• Referred to me

What was the size of CarbonTeq’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

Launch crowdfunding platform and create new features to add value to investors and small business owners.

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

• Features delivered
• Customer feedback
• Revenue

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

Carbonteq is very responsive to our needs and consistently delivers high-value features on schedule.

What was your primary form of communication with CarbonTeq?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Willingness to do whatever it takes, availability of the engineering team, and leadership. They are easy to work with.

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

None at this time.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the cofounder of MoonRock Property Management. We are a company that makes the landlord-tenant relationship easy, as it should be.

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

We wanted to develop a mobile app that would be user friendly and easy to use for our customers.

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

We saw CarbonTeq previous work and we wanted them to work on our application. After talking with them, we also saw how nice and genuine they were. That want made us go with them.

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

When we started, we had a outline of how everything will go. We scheduled meetings twice a week every Tuesday and Thursday to see the progress.

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

It was 3 man individuals that we spoke to twice a week. They all was developers and managers.

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

Within 8 weeks we had a product built. Nice work!! We are currently testing it out and they are extremely helpful and listening to our concerns.

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

They listened very well and took our opinion into consideration.

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

They mobile app was developed is a very timely manner. And the team was very nice.

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

So far everything is going well. I’m really impressed!