Cloud(X);

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the head of engagement at DePalma Studios, a boutique UX/UI shop.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cloud(X);?

We partnered with Cloud(X); for development opportunities on behalf of a barge transportation customer of ours. The primary challenge was designing and developing an app that barge captains would accept and use. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cloud(X); provided us development services for our web app. I worked closely with their team over three months to discover the gaps in our customer’s user interface. We delved into the user flows and information architecture. 

We then developed a solution to bring down my customer’s delivery cost, determining how much a barge could carry and then optimizing how much more each barge could carry. We also added a real-time barge tracking functionality. 

My team built the wireframing for the applications and Cloud(X); used Angular for the framework — Cloud(X); handled all the engineering and technical architecture. Currently, my team takes care of the frontend activity, and our customer works on the backend. However, Cloud(X); continues to provide maintenance.  

What is the team composition?

We began the project with five engineers but have since dropped down to three — one teammate serves as their project manager. 

How did you come to work with Cloud(X);?

Cloud(X); was a partner when I first joined DePalma Studios in January 2019. However, I decided to continue the relationship on this project. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $2–$3 million with Cloud(X);.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We began this project in November 2017 and it is ongoing. 

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

The product launched at the end of 2018. Our customer has given us excellent feedback — it has been a game-changing project for us. We’ve adapted to the standard approaches that we’ve implemented for our transportation customer. We will use this same approach for the next several years. 

The new web app has 100% impacted our customer’s business — they’re now able to relay the transportation processes through the web application instead of using excel sheets and emails. 

How did Cloud(X); perform from a project management standpoint?

We handled the project management in-house. Our project manager oversaw the processes and managed our external and internal teammates — the whole process was organized and transparent because one teammate had all the information about the project. 

We worked in agile sprints, and Cloud(X);’s technical architect was in constant communication with our team. We handled our customer communication directly and brought on Cloud(X); developers as needed. 

We primarily communicated via Slack and used Zoom for video calls. In case of emergency, they contacted us via Slack and emailed our customer as needed. All of our design work was on a Miro board, where we tagged developers to validate solutions. We also utilized Asana and Jira. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cloud(X); did an excellent job and was very reliable — whenever we needed them, they were there to help. Cloud(X); was professional and displayed excellence in development and implementation. They were great at tackling the challenges we faced. 

Cloud(X); was flexible and understanding: they understood problems well. It was much easier to work with them than any other agency because they already understand our processes — we have a great rapport. We are 100% content with their work. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were some communication issues, and we had to ensure that someone from their US brand was always on our calls so nothing got lost in translation.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key: customers need to follow up with Cloud(X) regularly; to ensure that they understand what the customer is asking for. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of DePalma Studios. A custom software development company specializing in digital product design.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cloud(X);?

We needed an offshore engineering partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cloud(X); supports our software development efforts and other client design projects by delivering code engineering solutions. One of our most recent projects is a React Native application that relies on an Azure cloud-based Microsoft architecture, which is desktop- and mobile-friendly. We’re collaborating with Cloud(X);’s team to optimize its existing system and build a new UX to ensure its seamless integration before its go-live next week.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of 8–9 resources, including five developers, two QA engineers, one business analyst, and one scrum master.

How did you come to work with Cloud(X);?

I used to work with their owner in Deloitte and heard that he built an offshore company in Argentina. I was happy to engage his team for further development and coding work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $2 million in four years.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Cloud(X); started in February 2018.

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

Our main KPIs for Cloud(X);’s performance include team participation, velocity, and client feedback. From my perspective, their team meets all of our metrics with their client-oriented approach and engineering skills. The reason why we keep engaging Cloud(X); in the first place is because of their productive contributions to our agile product projects’ success.

How did Cloud(X); perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Slack and weekly meetings and rely on Jira for project management. Cloud(X); communicates effectively with our team, which has allowed us to establish a transparent working relationship with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re most impressed with Cloud(X);’s adaptability — they customize their expertise and work approach and are willing to staff up and down to meet our changing needs. More importantly, they have talented resources who deliver cost-effective and robust solutions that meet our team and clients’ standards.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything constructive to say about their work — they’ve been a reliable partner to us ever since.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Apart from hiring Cloud(X);, the only thing you’ll need to do to make for a successful engagement is to come up with a manageable plan and a reliable engineering model.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a technology consulting firm based in London. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Cloud(X)?

We hired Cloud(X) for several projects.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our contracts with Cloud(X) aren’t for a specific deliverable but rather for working on our projects as a whole. We usually hire them on a long-term basis and ask for certain skills and resources. From time to time, they do some specific consulting, but 90% of what we do with them is staff augmentation. They assign teams that work together with our consultants.

We usually pick people with expertise in different fields and provide them with direction. They have senior-level experts on their teams as well, so when we need to decide on something that requires a very specific skill requirement, they are able to help on that front. 

We do QA with them as well, including manual and automated testing. Every project has different needs but we’ve also had their testers on several occasions. They work remotely with us from Argentina.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a range of 30–60 people for the duration of our engagement. 

How did you come to work with Cloud(X)?

I’ve known their founder for about 12–15 years. When my company started, I reached out to him because we needed resources. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably invested between $6–7 million in their services so far. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2018 and we’re still working together.

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

Cloud(X) has helped us solve complex technical problems, which has boosted our volume of business. They’ve been very good at identifying the technical complexity of things and finding alternative solutions we could pursue. They’ve also consistently detected potential risks or issues that might cause delays in a project. 

Their contribution has probably resulted in a growth of $67 million over the period of three years that we’ve been working with them. We’ve also measured the impact of our products on the final user, and the results over the past few years have been really good.

How did Cloud(X) perform from a project management standpoint?

Cloud(X) is really good. That’s why we’ve been working with them for so long. Their team resolves all issues quickly, even though problems don’t arise very frequently. They get into action fast and quickly find a resolution by getting another consultant on board. 

We use an Agile methodology for all of our projects, splitting tasks into small pieces of work that get prioritized every two weeks. At the end of those two weeks, we decide on what we’re going to do next and incrementally build the product. For communication, we use Google Hangouts, Zoom, Slack, and email. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cloud(X) has senior-level people on board with a lot of experience in their areas of expertise. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything specific at the top of my head. To be honest, our relationship has been very positive and any feedback has always been very tactical.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open-minded in terms of establishing a partnership with Cloud(X) and not necessarily using them as a vendor. The more you work on building a partnership where your teams work together alongside Cloud(X), the more value you can get out of them. 

Putting up barriers and creating bureaucracy in order to manage the relationship will only make it difficult to have a constructive dynamic. The project will become inefficient. Start building your relationship from day one and have both sides work together towards accomplishing the objectives.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is Kinetik Finance, and we work out of the KinetiKwealth.com website, creating custom portfolios for customers’ 401(k) or 403(b) plans, either on a direct-to-customer basis or through enterprise providers. We integrate with 401(k) providers and feature our portfolios on their websites. I’m the CEO and president of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cloud(X);?

We’re a startup, and I’d created a proof of concept (POC) on my own in 2017. I create algorithms, but I’m not a website developer, so once I raised angel capital, I hired Cloud(X); to do my web apps, APIs, integrations, etc.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We developed everything from scratch, moving from POC to go-to-market. The web applications were built in AngularJS, and Cloud(X); developed a connection to our database through AWS. Customer information is imported to my portal, and then the algorithm takes over to build a portfolio for them.

On the business side, we have API endpoints through which 401(k) providers collect and send information on their participants. We send risk assessments and portfolios to them to display on their websites and execute transactions. We also have an integration with Yodlee, which is a 401(k) data provider, and Stripe, for payments.

Cloud(X); also developed Android and iOS apps, but we don’t see much attraction to those on the market. The apps are still available, but we’re not putting money into maintaining them. Our customers seem to be utilizing the service mainly through our website and those of our partners.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a designer and a project manager initially, and the technology team came in after that. The project manager was part-time. She identified any hiccups and worked to correct them. There were three people working consistently on the project for a six-month period. We released the product in late-2018 or early-2019, and I’ve had one Cloud(X); member work for me since then, as needed.

How did you come to work with Cloud(X);?

I was working with a local Chicago company on the initial POC development. It was going alright, but I wasn’t too enthused about it, so I started looking for other people while gathering funds.

I was referred to the CEO of Cloud(X);, and what attracted me to them was that they had only senior engineers on their team. Someone would need a minimum of 10 years of experience to work at Cloud(X);. I knew they would be able to execute my vision without me having to micromanage them.

They were also close to my time zone. The other company had operations in Ukraine and Asia, which was okay, but Cloud(X); had offices in the US and Argentina.

Lastly, they were able to expand and contract the team size on one week’s notice. I could ask them to pause the work for 2–3 weeks until I got market validation and then get the full team back after that.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I closed my funding in December 2017, and the collaboration started in January or February 2018. The majority of the work happened in 2018, but I still go to Cloud(X); for integrations with new partners and new feature development.