Cheesecake Labs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of innovation and new business for a large university in South Brazil. We have 30,000 students in many knowledge areas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cheesecake Labs?

We were focusing on improving the customer experience for our students.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cheesecake Labs developed an application. They created a student journey map with their experiences, needs, and expectations. We initially provided official documentation about the institution, research about the students, and market research about our competitors.

What is the team composition?

We worked with five people, including a tech lead, a customer success manager, and a project management officer (PMO).

How did you come to work with Cheesecake Labs?

We used a hybrid system. We mainly searched online, but we also had two meetings here.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $18,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from February–May 2024.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had the opportunity to map the gaps in the student journey and improve some technologies and solutions for them.

How did Cheesecake Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Cheesecake Labs always respected the time and budget. They provided many status reports about the research and work schedule.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their work was excellent and very affordable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything was okay.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

No, I don’t have any advice for them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior engineering manager at a blockchain nonprofit. My team has built some products, including an anchor platform and a disbursement platform, which is part of our aid-assist project.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cheesecake Labs?

We needed help with custom software development. We partnered with the UN in a project to use our disbursement platform to send aid to Ukrainians.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cheesecake Labs has built our disbursement platform, which is used for global humanitarian aid to send disbursements or bulk payments to refugees and other beneficiaries. We initially provided them with technical resources, such as our corporate laptops, to handle secure connections. We also had meetings to help them understand how to use the tools. Additionally, we gave them some documentation and initial tasks to start working on the project. We then paired with them to help them ramp up.

The project primarily uses Go. We also use infrastructure as code like Terraform, CI/CD tooling and technology for deployment, and other infrastructure services like Apache Kafka. Cheesecake Labs has built some of our modules for this project, like authorization and event management for events being sent between different microservices. They work on a wide variety of backend and frontend engineering tasks.

What is the team composition?

We work with two senior engineers.

How did you come to work with Cheesecake Labs?

They were a referral. Cheesecake Labs had worked with other departments and companies related to our work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in July 2022, and our engagement is ongoing. We’ve just released the major version and are now focusing on improvements.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Cheesecake Labs has helped us save time because we had a very tight delivery schedule. They’ve been responsible for some major features, so they’ve helped us get our deliverables out on time, which has resulted in getting aid to beneficiaries. We’ve delivered over $2.2 million in assistance since the product has been in production.

Additionally, our product has received multiple awards. We got the Best Impact Blockchain award in 2023 and recently won the People’s Choice Award for best use of Web3 technology. Cheesecake Labs was pivotal in helping us reach those milestones. Working with them is always a pleasure; they feel like an extension of our team.

How did Cheesecake Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Cheesecake Labs reaches out when they’re blocked and really contributes to the project. Moreover, they’re available, proactive, and transparent about their work. They deliver on time and often take on more tasks because they finish their work ahead of schedule. We use an agile methodology, sprints, story points, and backlog grooming for project management.

The team is super productive and great to work with. We have clear, regular communication through Slack, design docs, and one-on-one meetings, including stand-up meetings twice a week. Overall, Cheesecake Labs works into our flow and helps us scope tasks, define stories, plan sprints, and execute those sprints.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Caio (Software Engineer) has stood out; he’s been on the project the longest. The project has undergone multiple phases; the initial version was on Python, and then we rewrote it in Go. In the initial version, Caio worked on some backend infrastructure components, and then he helped us write the core product for the second version.

Overall, he’s an amazing engineer. I definitely want to give him a shout-out.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They provide high-quality code and pay attention to unit and integration tests. Moreover, they’re good at handling ambiguity. If a task isn’t clearly defined, they’re very engaging and dedicated to flushing out all the details to use their problem-solving skills and develop a creative solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Cheesecake Labs consistently meets and often exceeds expectations; it’s hard to pinpoint any improvement areas.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear definition of your project goals, what skills and programming languages you need, and what the role of Cheesecake Labs’ engineers will be. You should set up for success by having a good onboarding plan and a good plan for managing and executing remote work, which includes regular communication, engagement, and solid engineering best practices.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Manager of (a/an) Consumer Products

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Consumer products manufacturer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Cheesecake Labs to accomplish?

• Create the app for an app-enabled consumer product

SOLUTION

How did you find Cheesecake Labs?

Online Search

Why did you select Cheesecake Labs over others?

• High ratings
• Other

What was the size of Cheesecake Labs’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

Review product specifications and confirm app communication protocols needed to control the product. Design and develop a UX that is best in class for the product category. Integrate with our existing systems and databases for a seamless customer experience. Provide ongoing support for bug fixes and app update launches. Advise on future hardware improvements based on technology trends and experience.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Functional app on iOS and Android
• Stable connection with the product
• Intuitive UX based on product testers' ability to understand

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

They met initial timelines and advised an any changes of scope found during discovery. They were proactive in their communication and reacted with urgency when issues were raised.

What was your primary form of communication with Cheesecake Labs?

Virtual Meeting

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

They understood our goals and provided an app design that met our needs with a clear UI/UX design expertise. They provided us with the resources to showcase this expertise during the bidding processes, making vendor selection and approval clear and easy for our internal stakeholders.

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

We had some initial lack of clarity of what we could provide to accelerate and facilitate our discovery phase. Communication could have been more proactive to identify this need before it affected our initial design timeline.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the VP of Product and Engineering for a Layer 1 blockchain. We develop open source products, platforms, and web3 applications. Our platform is focused on financial services use cases- mobile wallets, payments, digital assets, and cash disbursement platforms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I hired Cheesecake Labs to augment for multiple engineering projects, both client and server side. Cheesecake both served as staff augmentation for existing projects, and in the case of our digital assets business, they were the sole engineering team handling a variety of prototypes, proof of concepts, and new software development- working in conjunction with some of the largest financial institutions in Brazil and Latin America.

SOLUTION

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

Cheesecake was recommended to me by a colleague who had worked with them before. They demonstrated a high aptitude in working independently, being dynamic and flexible around staffing needs, and provided a good bench of engineers who had excellent communication, architectural and software development skills. They were able to spin up a blockchain vertical within their organization rapidly, and picked up core blockchain development practices around the Stellar network with ease. Also, their location in Brazil worked well with our timezones in PST and EST.

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

Stellar Aid Cheesecake provided an architect and principle engineer to help develop a cash out reconciliation and reporting feature in a piece of software we had customers run on-site. This feature included postgres schema development, financial transaction consistency modeling, and development in Go within a mature code base. The feature was delivered on-time, and was mission critical for our release.

Tier 1 Assets Cheesecake acted as the engineering vertical for a digital assets business in SDF. They worked closely with product managers and business development representatives to create new software products, digital asset securitization models, and asset issuance platforms. They also represented engineering in multiple CBDC challenges with major banks in Latin America.

They provided a full stack delivery model with a Stellar Architect, engineering, and product/project representatives Vibrant Engineering Vibrant is a mobile wallet developed in react native and GO.

We used CKL as staff augmentation to cover the GO backend, which was a piece of middleware that had an API layer and postgres database to store customer information, implement microservices like multisig, and integrated with our crypto payments protocols. Bridge UI CKL built a web3 front end for asset swaps using a bridging design that allowed for trustless, escrowed value exchange across different blockchains. This particular implementation interacted with an ETH smart contract into Stellar

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

There were 10-12 engineers. I primarily worked with the CEO and the Stellar achitect

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

CKL delivered projects on time, with a great deal of independence and creativity. They were able to look for reusable components in the services they built, and provide valuable architecture and software suggestions that helped with the overall technical strategy at SDF. The products they built were mission critical, and helped advance the business needs of the org.

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

We had weekly project management meetings, and projects always had a project manager assigned to review goals, dates, and status. Resourcing was well documented within spreadsheets, and it was clear how headcount was allocated, and what they were working on

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

I am impressed at the enthusiasm, genuine care for the customer, and strategic thinking of the team. CKL is not your typical offshoring agency, in that they provide much value added services above and beyond delivering code. They were very helpful with providing insight, feedback, and a customer perspective on the products they were developing

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

None!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of operations at FINN, an auto subscription company. We subscribe vehicles to customers based in Munich, Germany and New York City.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cheesecake Labs?

We were looking to scale up our engineering team with a provider based in the same time zone as the US’s East Coast. The goal was to scale our US operations as quickly as possible.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cheesecake Labs provides us with development services, mainly for our backend. They’ve helped us with internal tooling and database building. Most of the projects we’ve done with them have been built from scratch. The team uses TypeScript, though they’ve also used no-code tools like Integromat and Retool for a sizable portion of their work. 

The team has built a compound integration that allows a compound partner to relay us data live. From there, we ingest that data and make business decisions. Cheesecake Labs has also built our customer care tooling, which allows our customer care team to make changes to orders and deliveries. The Cheesecake Labs team has also rolled out our internal customer portal, enabling customers to make changes to their payment method or delivery address without calling in. 

What is the team composition?

My team has interacted with around 10 Cheesecake Labs teammates throughout the engagement. Currently, we’re working with five team members. 

How did you come to work with Cheesecake Labs?

My CTO found them; I believe they canvassed various potential partners before finding Cheesecake Labs. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $1.1 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2022, and the engagement is ongoing. The project’s end date is in March 2023. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We wouldn't be able to operate as efficiently as we do without Cheesecake Labs. From a business perspective, one of our metrics is transactions processed per full-time equivalent (FTE), which refers to headcount per transaction. Thanks to Cheesecake Labs, we're scaling our team much more efficiently in the US than in our Germany office. Additionally, the customer care tooling they've built enables our customer care team to do their job more efficiently. 

How did Cheesecake Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

I would give them a high score for project management. We use Slack and Jira for communication and project management. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cheesecake Labs operates very well within their abilities and ultimately delivers what we're looking for.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There's variability in the quality of Cheesecake Labs' engineers, just like with any other company. Certain engineers have been better at English or specific coding languages. However, this has never been an inhibitor to getting work done. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the co-founders of an NFT marketplace. We’re a ten-person team in New York City.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cheesecake Labs?

We needed additional support to develop the frontend of our web application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cheesecake Labs primarily focused on frontend development for our React, Next.js, and Typescript application. They worked on revamping the new pages to a real-time data flow. They took those things from end to end on the frontend side.

What is the team composition?

We worked with around five people. For the most part, we were in contact with a product owner, a tech lead, two engineers, and someone on QA.

How did you come to work with Cheesecake Labs?

We found them online.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We brought them in for four months, from May–September 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The completion was our success metric. We still have 1–2 more items left, but Cheesecake Labs has delivered their part.

How did Cheesecake Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

We met every morning at 11:00 a.m. and were connected on a Slack channel. Also, we used Jira for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their range of expertise and ability to come up with solutions for each problem were outstanding. When we were onboarding, they brought in a technical person to address how they’d come up with solutions and fully disclosed each team member's background. Also, the cost was reasonable considering the people they provide.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. We had a great experience.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is essential. You should understand where things are going and give them a heads-up so they can plan accordingly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of execution of a privately held mortgage company. We have a couple of main offices in Omaha, Nebraska; San Diego, California; and Lombard, Illinois.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cheesecake Labs?

We were looking to create a mortgage application that would get into home search and combine some pieces into one.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged with Cheesecake Labs and laid out what we were looking to accomplish. They picked up our concepts quickly and gave us an extensive overview and presentation of their plan to ensure we’d meet our goals. We wanted to do some fine pieces that we hadn’t seen in the industry, and they created them.

One of those pieces was a rewards program. They took the idea and ran with it, helping us to look at other companies to find ideas we could incorporate into the app. Initially, we provided some basic questions to help them create our mortgage flow and what the app should look like. Additionally, we suggested applications we liked, although they weren’t mimicked. They did some research and looked at the apps we suggested to incorporate those references and create our own version.

They did a proof of concept of our point of sale with the system that we’d plug into the application; they only did the design. However, Cheesecake Labs tested all the APIs to ensure everything was working. They also integrated other ideas and did the wireframes from scratch.

What is the team composition?

Four people participated consistently in our weekly meetings. We also met the company’s president and had a client engagement manager, a project manager, a chief product officer, and a UX/UI designer. They were the team members we worked the closest with. Beyond that, a bigger team would sit in with us every once in a while.

How did you come to work with Cheesecake Labs?

They were a referral, but we also did our due diligence. They designed and developed another home search for a company we’d worked with, and we liked their work. However, we looked around to see if they would fit us best.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2021, and they completed the project in April 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have the Figma files of everything they created for us. Moreover, they were willing to present to the larger organization in our place several times, which wasn’t part of our contract. They did it out of the goodness of their heart. Overall, they were fantastic to work with, and their communication was outstanding. They listened to our ideas and made them a reality. 

How did Cheesecake Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

We paid what they quoted us initially. We had weekly meetings, sometimes even more than once a week if we wanted to get something done. In general, the team was on point and pushed the project along. They always seemed to accomplish more than we thought was possible. Moreover, it felt like a collaboration; they didn’t force any ideas on us.

They gave us access to their Slack account so we could see the daily progress. Also, we used Google Meetings and back-and-forth emails for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication skills, speed of development, and cost were incredible. They were a great company. Seeing them taking our ideas and making them a reality was amazing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only bummer was that we couldn’t use them for development due to some of our internal regulations. They were located in Brazil, and our company doesn’t allow us to work with vendors in that country. We would’ve loved the opportunity to build the application with them. It was on our company, not on them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Use Cheesecake Labs. They’re fantastic. On your part, you just have to make sure that you complete the tasks they ask you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of e-commerce at ACG Brands Inc., a consumer products company that creates a lot of different types of consumer products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cheesecake Labs?

We’re creating a brand new product category: Bluetooth-enabled, smart heating devices. The goal was to develop a mobile application to connect and control those Bluetooth devices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cheesecake Labs is doing mobile app development for us. We started with a discovery phase and came up with the scope of work and service agreement. They then developed and launched our mobile app for iOS and Android using Bluetooth and Flutter technologies.

What is the team composition?

We've worked with a project manager, a tech lead, a product manager, a QA manager, and a designer.

How did you come to work with Cheesecake Labs?

We found them on Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent $360,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app works; we've tested it, and the feedback has all been positive. Also, they work rapidly to fix any bugs we find.

How did Cheesecake Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager has been phenomenal and very communicative. Throughout the project, we've had weekly meetings to ensure the project is successful and to keep everything on track and within budget. Regarding tools, we use Jira, email, and Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their biggest strength is their ability to be flexible; their team meets us where we were at and adapts to the tools we use. In addition, they're excellent at teaching us about certain things and best practices since we're new to app development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They're doing a great job, and the only potential constructive feedback would be that the project manager was a bit disorganized initially. Nonetheless, they fixed that very quickly, got a new project manager, and turned it around.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to their suggestions and expertise; they're professional at app development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the head of product management for an aging wellness company in New York City. We have a studio location where we perform medical services, including cosmetic dermatology, hormone replacement, and more. We have a website that allows our customers to experience telehealth visits with clinical staff within the same category.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cheesecake Labs?

We had a specific project around an assessment for our customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cheesecake Labs built a particular part of our website; it was an assessment that our customers will go through. They worked with us on frontend and backend development and project management. They used React for the frontend.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a product manager, two project managers, 3–4 frontend engineers, and two backend engineers.

How did you come to work with Cheesecake Labs?

They came through a recommendation from our CEO.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $50,000–$100,000, maybe more.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–April 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s not live yet; we’re still working on things that we have to do ourselves. However, from a success perspective, we had a parallel program to give feedback, and our developers were able to read their code. We had issues, but they weren’t more than usual, and Cheesecake Labs hoped to solve them as we reported them. Also, their team did QA to ensure that the fewest number of bugs possible made it to our team.

How did Cheesecake Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

It was a tight project with a quick ramp-up time, and Cheesecake Labs delivered what we needed on time. Also, they were very communicative with us about the project’s progress.

We used Jira and communicated via Google Meet and Slack. We had a shared Slack channel to raise issues and talk asynchronously.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication and ability to ramp up quickly on a complicated project were their strongest points. They were able to hit the ground running.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It was challenging to work across time zones, but it was the nature of the development process. Although we had an impact on speed and delays, it was nothing material.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give detailed specifications of what you’re trying to accomplish so they can run with it.