Carnera

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of operations at a real estate, developer, contractor, and property management company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Carnera?

We needed a company that could help us maintain and keep our data stack up-to-date.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Carnera to help us with the continuous update of our data stack by handling our data engineering and analytics work. This involves creating new reports in our Looker and sometimes using DVT and Fivetran to ingest more data into our warehouse in Google BigQuery.

One of our most recent projects involved an overhaul of our executive dashboard. We have a proprietary database with information about all the residential parcels in the city of Los Angeles, and Carnera helped us update that. They also helped us pull, analyze, and create reports based on the data that we pulled from the City of LA's website to help us understand our place in the accessory dwelling unit market.

Aside from that, Carnera got up to speed on our business to understand our actual business model and our whole data stack in an effort to help with our reporting needs. They worked closely with us to translate our business information and develop reports based on that.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a data engineer and a data analyst from Carnera.

How did you come to work with Carnera?

Carnera reached out to us through a cold email.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere around $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Carnera created at least 25 reports or dashboards for us and updated information on 700,000 parcels. Additionally, as a result of their work, we tripled the amount of engagement on our team due to having more access to reporting and data.

How did Carnera perform from a project management standpoint?

Carnera has performed well in terms of project management. They’ve managed to stay on budget and meet deadlines.

We use Monday and Google Sheets for project management, and we primarily communicate through Slack and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of Carnera's main strengths is the vast resources of their team. When one of our engineers had to transition, Carnera was able to get someone new onboarded at a cost to them. By the time the engineer left, the new employee was already up to speed, so we didn't have any gaps in our workflow, and we were able to just continue handing off work to the new person.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would appreciate it if they could flag issues or roadblocks earlier.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to clearly define the project’s scope, have regular check-ins with the team, and require daily updates on work performed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of Riskcast Solutions, a construction technology platform designed for the self-performed labor market. We primarily operate in the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Carnera?

Our first enterprise client was looking to augment our system with a service ticketing module. Few construction management platforms feature a ticketing system, so they wanted us to add this module to our platform, which they had been using for about three years.

Our goal was to have this module built completely independently of our platform but also to have it working with it smoothly. Thus, we decided to hire a third-party developer to have this module built independently from our platform, allowing our client to manage the project to meet their needs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Carnera is helping us develop our service ticketing module. Our platform is hosted on AWS, and its architecture technology includes Angular and Node.js. Carnera uses that original database structure for this module, but they’re also using React Native. Additionally, their work also encompasses the module’s UI/UX design.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with Nick (Co-Founder & CEO).

How did you come to work with Carnera?

A lot of companies had offered us development services throughout the years, and Carnera was one of them. Their initial outreach made a lot of sense, their experience was in line with our potential needs, and their approach was a great fit for us.

When we were ready to start this project, Nick reached out to us and did a great job at communicating what they offered. We then checked their references and did some testing to see how they would cooperate with our customer. We asked them if they were willing to work on this project with two project managers, one from our side and one from our client’s side, and they seemed up to the challenge and willing to take on the responsibility.

How much have you invested with them?

We committed to a $60,000 budget, and we’re in line with it so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2021, and our engagement is ongoing. We will be releasing the module this month.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So far, our success is rather subjective and related to our end user; our most valuable metric is how well Carnera has conducted this engagement with them. Their approach has exceeded our expectations, and they seem to be using an extensive rigor that they wouldn’t usually use with regular clients.

How did Carnera perform from a project management standpoint?

Carnera’s project management meets the requirements that it would meet if they were working directly with us. They meet with our client every day and allow them to test the product’s pieces as they build them. We use Jira and Slack to communicate and manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Carnera is very responsive. This is our first time using an external team to take over a complete project, and it happens to be that the project is for one of our highest-maintenance clients in a good way. However, we’ve entrusted Carnera a lot to handle the project, and they’ve done a great job at that so far.

Additionally, Carnera’s responsiveness is great from both the business and engineering sides. They’re not only very communicative to me as the CEO but also to our CTO, and every response we get to our inquiries or concerns covers both the business and the technical aspects. This approach helps us have a very good dialog and keep everything moving forward.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. Considering that this is our first engagement and that there has been a learning curve, this has been a very good experience; they’ve done a great job across the board.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more details you can define upfront, the better the project will go. We’ve been building this module from the ground up, but if I had to do this project all over again, I would try to provide Carnera with more significant details and designs in advance.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a Management Consulting Firm, helping SMEs with Software Architecture and Full Stack Development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Carnera?

We had some immediate project requirements for which we were not able to hire locally. We were looking for talented professionals who could augment our teams till the end of the project. Need was for smart engineers who needed minimum oversight.

SOLUTION

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

Carnera came across as a very professional agency, right from the first call, to getting us relevant individuals who matched our requirements perfectly. Their model of on-demand resources was exactly what we needed and the quality of resources was at par with what we had locally.

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

They provided us with 2 React Engineers, 2 Python Engineers, and 1 Automation QA Lead. They were able to staff all resources within a month of us giving them the requirements.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

The first call was mostly introductions and us telling them what we needed. We saw the first batch of profiles come through within a week of sharing the Job Descriptions with them. While the first candidate or two were not up to the mark, they soon understood our expectations and knocked it out of the park with the following set of profiles. We were very happy.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On-time delivery, with resources that were very professional, great at communication, and proactive in providing technical suggestions. It was a breeze to work with Carnera. I would highly recommend them if you are looking for awesome resources to augment your team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were a charm. We usually interacted on Slack with a once-a-week standup. They just knew how it all works. The time difference was also not a problem.

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

Everything. Cost-effectiveness, professionalism, communication, ease of working, quality of resources, etc.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm CEO of a software startup in the construction industry. We build software that manages certain information workflows.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We are an early stage startup and needed to get our MVP built. Carnera came to us with serious experience and a great approach.

SOLUTION

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

We reviewed a number of vendors, and Carnera was able to provide a smart plan, meet our objectives, and include references.

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

The team architected the solution from our briefing. From that architecture, they created an AWS backend, a set of NLP algorithms to manage unstructured data our users will provide, and a full react-front end.

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

Four people regularly:

1. Business Lead
2. Front End engineer
3. Backend engineer
4. Designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product is not in market yet, but we were able to achieve our timelines and cost objectives. The team also worked with us when we changed some fundamental requirements to improve the product.

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

We met 2x week, leveraging Jira and Slack for asynchronous communication.

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

Very good to work with, very clear about what's going on, very good at following agreed upon directions.

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

Documentation is always an issue, especially for remote teams.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Technical Head at the company and manage everything Product

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Carnera?

We needed help with additional team members to accomplish our roadmap for the year. While hiring was a good option, we did not really have the bandwidth or the budgets for the same

SOLUTION

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

They reached out to us on LinkedIn. After the initial call, they shared profiles, and we liked the resources

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

Full-stack software development on React, and Python

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

After the initial call where we shared our requirements, they shared profiles of candidates that matched our needs. Our team spoke to the candidates and then we onboarded them

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to accomplish our roadmap with the team that seemed embedded. Communication was not a problem, and they worked as an extension to our team

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very good. They used all the modern project management/communication tools that we used and were well versed

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

They work as a seamless extension of our team - the talent of the resources and the quality of work.

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

None. They are good right from the get go