CimpleO

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an IT-Manager at Ophardt-Maritim, a modern German firm building high speed boats for military and police.

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

We needed an app for managing tasks in our production department. Our goal was to provide the concept to the agency and get the app done till the end of march 2021.

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

We chose CimpleO among other competitors because we really liked how the guys from CimpleO communicate with us, they also gave us all the needed information about the development. Of course we were inspired by other great feedbacks left for the CimpleO agency.

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

We created a UX-Design and concept and CimpleO fully implemented that, both frontend and backend. It's a React App, based on Boostrap UI Framework with Maria DB on the backend.

Many functions of the app are real time, it was very important for us - and the guys from CimpleO implemented that perfectly too. We first discussed how the project development will be executed, guys from CimpleO provided us with all the documentation and after it was confirmed, they started programming step by step.

Also the team used agile-management systems like Trello, which helped us to take a look at the whole development process. We discussed every major change, had several zoom meetings and in the end it was exactly the way we were imaging that.

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

We had a great manager Michael Kerov that was helping us with all the communication/development questions, also communicated with a guy that is responsible exactly for the technical part of the development from time to time when it came to technical questions.

Other developers were busy with frontend and backend part of the app.

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

Our general objective was to get our concept and UX-Design fully implemented by the agency, both backend and front-end sides. CimpleO not only successfully got this job done but also surprised us with additional features that they suggested and implemented witching our initial budget.

As for our time goals, we were hoping that the agency will be able to get the project done before March 2021 and it's exactly how it happened in the end.

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

As CimpleO suggested us, we used Mattermost for the communication and Trello for Agile-Management and Task-Overview. Zoom for Online-Meetings.

I found the communication very friendly, and also very understanding, because no matter if we talked about business processes needed to implemented in the app or just technical things- the manager from Cimple-O could always understand us perfectly.

I must also say that his English is just great. Circle-O were often available even after working hours which is highly appreciable.

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

The most unique thing about Circle-O is how fast they can implement things and how flexible they are about changes. I don't think that every other web-agency could follow our small changes that fast but Circle-O were really unique about that.

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

I think that Circle-O is the case where I can't add anything regarding any kind of improvements because I already find their job to be a "5 star" performance.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company invests in Digital Assets that we get developed and operate on behalf of our investors

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

We hired CimpleO to develop a custom web application to facilitate the collection of pricing and availability of goods and services in Trinidad and Tobago from businesses that typically do not have a strong eCommerce presence

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

We used Upwork.com to identify suitable contractors and applied a number of evaluation criteria to our short list of candidates. The evaluation criteria included :

• Project experience in the project size we estimated
• Rating on similar type and size of project (5 stars only)
• Number of 5 star ratings
• Technical capabilities
• Price Feedback on softer aspects (Communication, flexibility etc)

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

A detailed specification for the project was provided to CimpleO The project was written in PHP (Laravel) with a MariaDB database. The project included deliver of the whole web application, and it was custom developed. The project was broken into a number of milestones primarily related to each user view, and then some final integration aspects.

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

Our Primary contact was Michael, who acted as our account manager.

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

Cimpleo have done a fantastic job on our project. They read my specifications very carefully and also listened to what we wanted. When certain things didn't work in practice as we thought they would in theory, they came up with creative and practical solutions.

CimpleO also had an effective iterative development approach with internal QA to cross check against specification and do a first round of testing The quality of the resulting system is outstanding. It looks great, and works well.

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

The team was very easy to work with and communicate with. They involved me thorough out the process. Even the testing phase of the project went really well, with quick turnaround of changes and fixes. I would highly recommend CimpleO for your project!

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

They read the specifications in detail and understood them, listened very carefully to what we wanted and then produced a product that matched our vision. It was invaluable that Cimpleo listened carefully and delivered on what we asked them for, and that they didn't do what they thought the business situation needed.

Their input, which was always creative yet practical, was always offered as suggestions, and always with our agreement. This is an extremely valuable trait in a software development company.

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

Only to keep working on doing what they are doing better each time. No complaints at all.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder & CEO of SportsBusters. It’s a marketplace for sports services in Russia, connecting fitness clubs, sports clients, and coaches.

What challenge were you trying to address with CimpleO? 

We needed frontend developers to help build our visual conceptions for a platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We presented our vision for the screens to them. They made some good suggestions for changes, and then they did the coding.

What is the team composition?

There was a main point of contact, with another 1-2 people working on the project. 

How did you come to work with CimpleO?

We found them on a freelance site when they responded to our posting. We liked the ideas they showed us for our project and decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about 95,000 rubles (approximately $1,500 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–May 2020.

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

The app looks good, and feedback from our internal team has been positive. When we had urgent needs, they worked quickly. We have no problems with the work they did and are hoping to work with them on more projects in the future.

How did CimpleO perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a good job. When they lacked information, they communicated efficiently with us. We communicated via email and chat. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They manage the project well and produce high-quality products on time. I’m happy with their team, and the way they work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m not very technical, so it would be good if they had more open discussions with our development team, reducing my involvement.

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Journal of Commerce is a news and media website reporting on the transportation market, primarily maritime trade. We have reporters in the field and a host of other services, including data that supports that market. My position was project manager for that website, focusing on using the technology to provide a platform for the conveyance of news and data.

For what projects/services did your company hire CimpleO?

We were redeploying the website as a gated site, similar to the New York Times model. You get to view so many articles for free, then you need to subscribe to see additional content. There were a lot of things that needed to be done for the relaunched site, so I brought CimpleO on for additional staffing to help deliver the features that were required.

What were your goals for this project?

Had to be reliable well tested deliverables that met schedule and budget.

How did you select this vendor?

I found them through Upwork. I put out a general request for Drupal developers, then I interviewed CimpleO as well as half a dozen other firms through Skype. I already had Drupal developers onboard and working at the time, but I just needed more resources. I compared each firm’s capabilities, experience, and communication skills. I also considered their ability to deliver on time and follow specifications. I decided on CimpleO after that process.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

In total, CimpleO provided three or four resources. I had Andre himself, who worked on the site and overlooked the project, as well as two or three developers. It was a complete redesign from the ground up, built on Drupal 7. CimpleO the did frontend design as well as the backend.

The team from CimpleO also worked on a unique, stand-alone section of the site. The Journal of Commerce offers a bi-weekly magazine that has a self-standing section called “The Annual Review and Outlook.” This content shows the pulse of the market, and it is acquired by interviewing company CEOs to get their perspective. We needed a separate section to report on that annual review, which involved several new content types and sorting algorithms. CimpleO came up with a way for the content producers to input material and tag it appropriately.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of 2 to 3 developers plus Andre overlooking the entire effort

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

I don’t have metrics. We put the site up, and it was successful. The editors were able to publish their content on time. The section has been so successful that it still exists on the site, although we’ve since modified it so users can select a particular year they want to review. If it wasn’t successful, we would have taken it down. User feedback has been very good. It’s what the users expect to see from the Journal of Commerce on a daily and yearly basis.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They jumped through hoops to deliver on time. I put them through the wringer—I had a tight deadline, and it was a lot of work. They worked through the night on many occasions to deliver on time. There are sacrifices you make to deliver on time, and they fit within those sacrifices. We did follow-up work to mitigate those sacrifices for the long-term.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What impressed me with the team was their need to understand the requirements completely. If Andre didn’t understand something, he didn’t hesitate to ask. He offered suggestions on ways to do things. He got the requirements down up front to the point where both sides were comfortable in building forward.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The developers’ English skills could be improved. We ended up doing a lot of written communication, but we didn’t have a problem with that.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of our company and a classic car fan Originally I come from the marketing. For several years I worked for a classic advertising agency in Stuttgart.

In the last four years I worked for a premium magazine I the Project for the "Register for stolen classic cars" I am responsible for marketing and PR as well as social media, trade fairs, cooperations and charity.

For what projects/services did your company hire CimpleO?

Our company needed a flexible website, where customer can register and research stolen classic cars. We also needed an online shop with an integrated payment, for a new technology which makes it possible to identify a car via NFC independent from the vehicles identnumber.

What were your goals for this project?

To create a ne website, which makes the idea behind our project visible for our customers as this service is completly new - and the possibility to register a NFC chipped car in a database was realized for the first time worldwide.

How did you select this vendor?

We worked together with two German IT service providers and their developers recommended CimpleO for fast and faithful development in all kinds of solutions we needed. As w needed very high security standard, the database was realized in Drupal.

Describe the project in detail.

We had several mock-ups where we could decide soon the design and the usability of the mobile website. We realiszed a customers account with a personal Login, B2C and B2B Accounts and three product lines with several prices which are paid via payment function.

The heart of our database is the car database where cars can be described so exactly that thy can be identified even if the cars VIN is manipulated. Further there was a cryptical link created, which allows that every registration link can be safed on set of NFC tags, which can be hidden in the car itself.

For this case Cimpleo developed a Smartphone App as well, which is able to scan the Link from the customers NFC tag.

What was the team composition?

We worked togehter with a small team of Drupal developers, who changed sometimes during the last 2.5 years. Our Mail-Partner was CimpleOs CEO who almost every Email answered in less than an hour, even a night or during holidays - the speed of communication is really impressive

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

We achieved in only six month after go live an impressive number of customers and visitors of our website. As it is a completly new and unknown service, that is really awesome. We had a very high pretension of the design and the easy usability of our website and all our expectations were fulfilled or even more.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We didn´t use tools to manage teh workflow, this was not necessary as we could communcate via email so fast that every change requests or bugfixing was realized within only a few days, so we could focus on testing and the development of new issues.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

You can reach the CEO almost around the clock via email, we guess he never sleeps ;-) Even on Sundays if any questions occur - we write a few lines, and sometimes it lasts only seconds to get an answer. I can´t remember an important email, which was not answered within 12 hours.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can´t remember something wchich went really wrong

Please describe your company and your position there.

Fashion & Jewelry Brand. My position: Creative Director

For what projects/services did your company hire CimpleO?

Building a full eCommerce site in Drupal for managing tens of thousands of unique products.

What were your goals for this project?

Complete website build, custom front-end and back-end development.

How did you select this vendor?

Referral/Recommendation

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

CimpleO over-delivered on what we expected. After multiple rounds of working with other developers, we were extremely happy to have found CimpleO and have Andrey helping us for our website build.

They stayed on board beyond initial build and provided us with a whole range of ongoing dev needs which was a huge help. Highly highly recommended!

What was the team composition?

Andrey as the leader and multiple other devs that he directed.

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

Major impact on our business.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Single point person that we communicated with who then directed tasks through to his team. Highly effective.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Communication, speed of turnaround, and quality of work

Are there any areas for improvement?

After working with many devs, I consider them one of the best.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a global aggregator of macroeconomic information. We operate in several regions. We have offices all over the world. Our expertise is to collect and compile macroeconomics time series from primary sources.

For what projects/services did your company hire CimpleO?

We had a project to improve our main site. It was important for us to make sure that we had the most capable expertise on Drupal so we could implement the site properly.

What were your goals for this project?

To improve our site reliability and performance.

How did you select this vendor?

We had already worked together on the initial launch of our website.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We needed to fine tune our Drupal configuration and settings, as well as the integration with our internal services.

What was the team composition?

CimpleO provided engineering expertise, development time and project coordination.

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

It has helped improve our site stability and allow us to expand content.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We collaborated closely with CimpleO.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are always available, knowledgeable and eager to help.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing comes to mind.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a global aggregator of microeconomic information. We operate in several regions. We have offices all over the world. Our expertise is to collect and compile time serious information of macroeconomics from primary sources.

What challenge were you trying to address with CimpleO?

We had a project to revamp our main site. It was important for us to make sure that we had the most capable expertise on Drupal so we could implement the site properly.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to roll out a new design and new platforms with additional capabilities using Drupal. As part of that revamp, we introduced a new way for customers to directly subscribe to our services by being able to pay online for such subscriptions. They also added the aspect of supporting multiple languages given the global nature of our customer base. There were challenges associated to that. We decided to integrate an in-house application built on Node.js. We needed to make the two parts appear as if it’s a single application and part of the website. There was a lot of work done in integrating Drupal with this Node.js application.

They helped with some site map creation for Google indexing and they helped with implementing Google Task Manager.

What is the team dynamic?

I discussed the team structure with the person who managed CimpleO. We agreed on the team that was required. We started working with one of his senior developers/project managers. There were some other developers on the team.

How did you come to work with CimpleO?

I initially contacted them through Upwork. We were looking for expert Drupal developers. They replied to one of our project postings. They were very quick on understanding what our needs were. They quickly reviewed the status of our system at that time and identified where there were major areas of issues and potential for improvements were. It was clear from the beginning that they could jump on the project quickly and were capable to deliver the results.

How much have you invested with them?

$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016 until the site launch in January 2017.

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

We’ve seen a significant increase in traffic. We’ve started our new e-commerce web subscription. We are pleased with the results. It can be clearly attributed to the product. We’ve had positive feedback about the site. It’s very different from what we had before. People reacted well to it.

How did CimpleO perform from a project management standpoint?

They did well. They are very resourceful team. They’re technically capable. It was a very small team and they were on point. One of the challenges was the time zone. They made an effort to work around that difference.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a good company to work with.

What kind of advice would you give to someone considering using CimpleO?

If they already know what platform they want to use, I would say finding someone that knows the platform is extremely helpful. They can recommend the best way to structure inside so that it meets your current goals and allows the site to grow. It makes it easier for future improvements.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital marketing director of a chain of urgent care medical clinics. We provide urgent care, primary care, sports medicine, occupational medicine, and any type of non-life threatening medical care. 

What challenge were you trying to address with CimpleO?

We have custom Drupal modules for our site that needed to integrate with scheduling software, which is also customized. For that, we needed to make sure we had people that were experts in Drupal. The site had been set up about two years prior and hadn’t been maintained or looked over at all. I wanted to have website updates done, additional customizations implemented, and I wanted the website moved to a better, faster hosting environment. Finally, there was a patient scheduling tool we needed help with after the person who created it left.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The initial work was with Andrey [CEO, CimpleO]. He helped with the big picture stuff: the website updates, the move to Digital Ocean, and with customization and minor website tweaks. The move improved security as they pointed out things that weren’t secure and things that could be upgraded or updated. They also updated Drupal. There was a backlog of project ideas and things that needed to be improved upon and fixed.

We’ve also been working with Anton [CTO, CimpleO] and he’s helped with our scheduling module. We’re developing additional modules to expand the website’s functionality. One is for scheduling appointments, one is specifically for primary care, and one for immigration physicals. We’re now in control of the site and are looking and questioning if we can do certain things with it.

How did you come to work with CimpleO?

I found them on Upwork. I went through about 50 profiles and narrowed it down to three or four. CimpleO was the only one that was responsive, got back to me, and understood exactly what I was talking about. They had also worked with a lot of Drupal sites and had a lot of clients globally. I felt they’d bring some knowledge about trends and different ideas that people are using all around the world, in contrast to local companies that are cookie cutter styles of programming and website development.

We were nervous about working with somebody that we can’t meet with in person so we started slowly by asking questions and giving them small tasks. We told them if it all worked out fine then they would be our go to source for Drupal and custom modules.

How much have you invested with them?

We do both project-based work and hourly. For the website, it’s $50/hour. With projects, we pay half up front and the rest upon completion. With a lot of the U.S. developers and programmers that we’ve worked with, they’ll spec something out and charge for those hours even if it took less time. CimpleO is very honest. They will speculate the amount of time, but will only charge us for what it took. Not only do they charge middle of the road pricing, but they work quickly, so it's been very affordable. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2017 and the work is ongoing.

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

The speed of the site instantly improved with the updates to Drupal and the server that they recommended. The ability to back up, secure, take snapshots of the site, and do testing has been a lot better. In general, when we launched the new site, employees quickly started noticing drastic speed improvements and our SEO was a lot better. We were also happy with the security measures. 

How did CimpleO perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform great. The only problem that I’ve had is they often wait for us. The problem with working over different time zones can be an issue, but we use Trello and we track projects. We try and keep enough work in the queue so it’s cost effective for them to allocate a certain amount of time for us every day or a couple of times a week. 

The lines of communication are open. There’s very rarely any miscommunications. We try to be thorough when we’re explaining things so it usually works out great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very responsive. We’d had a hard time getting vendors on Upwork to respond. There’s always been somebody at CimpleO to respond to us and help us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only complaints are related to the time zone issue, and that’s not something anybody can fix. 

It’d be great to go back and forth faster sometimes if the communication is via email. We try to get all the projects in a queue so they’re all listed out for people, and that way we don’t have to send an email one day, get an answer overnight and then respond the next day. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder & CEO of Ophardt Maritim (ZeroDark), modern company from Germany building boats for military and police.

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

We hired CimpleO for 2 projects: we needed a task and project management tool (web-app) for our company as well as a mobile solution for that. We developed the concept and UX-Design and looked for someone who can fully implement that from the technical side.

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

We had several interviews with similar app-agencies, however we were positively surprised how competent, friendly and understanding were the managers from CimpleO. They understood our goals perfectly and were always ready to communicate the most difficult parts of development, so we decided to make a choice for CimpleO.

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

We wanted both web and mobiles app to be written with React.js framework. Also it was important that backend uses some real-time features. Another important part was that we wanted all the databases to be located on German servers.

The specialists from CimpleO have always been working with React and other technologies needed for our project, so we had no doubts that it's the right choice to work with CimpleO. The deliverables were about 3-4 months for the web app and later on, after some tests 1 month for mobile app.

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

We worked at least with 2 IT-Managers, that provided all the needed information for us and have been always available for communication.

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

We were very happy to know that all deadlines were fully respected and met. The mobile app was even developed faster than we expected and both apps were uploaded on the safe German hosting. CimpleO seems for us to be a very professional team that knows how to develop, what to develop and when.

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

As for the project management, we used Trello where we could see all the information from Backlog, all the information regarding tasks that are being developed or has been already developed. We reviewed every task after it's fully complete. This kind of agile management was very comfortable for us.

We also used mattermost.com for the communication and we must say that there was no single day when we wouldn't be able to communicate with CimpleO.

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

We like the way CimpleO communicate with their clients, even when it comes to very complicated development processes, guys from CimpleO tries to find the most optimal solution that works both for us and both for the factors regarding deadlines that the agency has.

Also the quality of their code has a very high standard which one notices when testing the product: everything works fast, optimized. It's not easy to find an agency that would work the way CimpleO does and we are happy to be CimpleO's clients.

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

From our side, we don't think CimpleO needs any improvement but we are looking forward to work with them again!