Code & Pepper

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of a global, ubiquitous credit risk platform. We use open banking data to help businesses like lenders make better credit risk decisions.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

As a small company, we tend to get resource constraints from our software and product development teams pretty quickly.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We use Code & Pepper as an extra resource for our development projects. They also do a bit of project and product management layered on top. Some of the projects involve platform development, UX, or app development. The team does front-and backend development with C#, .NET, native iOS, and Android development.

What is the team composition?

We work with 12 people, ranging from account managers to software engineers.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

I was referred to them. They had a business development person in the UK who was easy to get in touch with. The team seemed to have a really solid approach to working with businesses. Offshore work can be difficult so we’ve always taken the approach of making our remote team as close to a local team as possible. Code & Pepper’s approach to working with us seemed really sensible.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around £500,000 (approximately $687,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

 We started working together 2–3 years ago, and our partnership is ongoing.

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

The team delivers high-quality code on time. They’re great at pulling out of the bag when they need to and putting in the extra effort.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Jira for project management. They work within our milestones and expectations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a good, solid team. Their reliability really stands out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they constantly take and address our feedback.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to understand what your expectations are. Establish those expectations upfront really clearly; it’ll alleviate a lot of the challenges you might come across.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a financial tech company. We primarily deal with foreign exchange and serve multiple customer types. Our customers range from high-value, low-frequency corporate treasury-type customers to low-value, high-frequency remittance customers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

Our objective was rapid expansion. We brought them on to be our augmented technology team that’d deliver on multiple projects as we accelerate the growth of our company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Code & Pepper team provides us with frontend engineers who helped develop the customer-facing website. There are also backend developers who help develop our core platforms and APIs. They’re also providing us with QA engineers who make sure the software delivery for the entire department is up to the standard that’s required or expected by our customers. The nature of the projects is our standard software delivery type projects.

Code & Pepper is as attributable or aligned with the delivery goals as our engineering staff. We have senior engineers who are involved in the architecture steering group. This means that they’re not only doing implementation based on what’s prescribed to them, but they’re also helping us with solution design. The technologies we use include React, Ruby on Rails, and Cypress for our geospatial testing framework.

What is the team composition?

We’re up to about 15 team members now.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

We worked with a couple of contracting companies historically, and I’ve never been very satisfied with the service or quality of work offered by that kind of relationship. I had an on-site contractor who highly recommended Code & Pepper.

Because I worked directly with this person, I decided to give Code & Pepper a go because I valued their opinion. We started out tentatively with Code & Pepper and subsequently, the relationship has grown and grown.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $1 million–$5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started around August 2019.

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

Consistently, we’ve been really pleased with the performance of the coding from the Code & Pepper engineers. Two of their engineers are contributing to our architecture sessions that weren’t initially part of the remit or what we were expecting them to do. They cared quite a lot about the codebase and were contributing over and above expectations so we added them to the architecture group.

Because the Code & Pepper engineers come from a variety of experiences, they’re able to help shape what the department looks like for us. We listen to their feedback about how we’re performing compared to previous results and suggestions they have for improvements. Typically, that’s resulted in very constructive improvements to our department overall.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication is great. We’ve had problems historically because of remote teams. However, the communication with the Code & Pepper team members is really good. The way they maintain communication through checking in is very good. They want to make sure their engineers are happy and as clients, we’re also happy.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The best thing about working with them is consistent reliability. I’ve never had to worry about people’s ability to perform a certain standard consistently. If I assign their engineers a task, it’s always delivered quickly, effectively, and to a standard that I’d expect. I don’t need to think about it. We solve that problem, and I can move on to the next thing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One thing they’ve improved upon is how they’ve listened to us more as a client. We were a startup and in the beginning, we were growing our own engineering team. There was an awful lot of work to do and not everything could be done straight away. We wanted to improve our own internal processes and infrastructure. However, we also wanted to make sure we’re still adding value and features. That was a little difficult, to begin with.

Even though Code & Pepper is coming in as contractors, the engineers expect a very high standard. This is great because they embody that standard but sometimes these changes take time. Initially, that caused a little bit of friction between us. However, having regular check-ins and conversations to make sure we’re working together to improve things and also getting them involved has helped improve the engagement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Fully augment them into your company and team. Don’t treat them as contractors who don’t care because that’s definitely not the impression I’ve had from them. Treat them like you would treat your internal staff. Code & Pepper cares about improving things at an organization and department level, not just writing half-decent code.

Additionally, make sure the projects you have for them are well-defined as reasonably as possible because they’re very quick and effective. If you give them a well-defined problem or project, they’ll execute that very well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of talent and people for Smart Pension. We’re a fintech business based in London with offices in the US and Poland.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

Our objective was to hire software engineers to build our products. We needed to hire a lot of developers but couldn’t find enough talent in the UK. So, we decided to reach out to nearshore teams to help us build an engineering squad in Poland.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Code & Pepper created hiring goals and worked to meet them the correct way. They built hiring processes and helped us go to market. Their team helped us build an engineering squad. In about a year and a half, they took us from zero resources to 35–40 software engineers. Our technology stack’s Ruby on Rails.

What is the team composition?

About 3–4 members of their team helped us with this project. We worked with the head of recruitment, a recruitment officer, one of their co-founders, and an account manager.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

We came across their company completely by accident. They had a person in the UK making sales pitches for them. He reached out to us at the time we decided to build a near-shore engineering team. We met with him and found that Code & Pepper was a scaling business like us. They were clear about wanting to work with us as a partner, which was appealing to us. We then flew to Poland and met with their team.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent over $150,000–$200,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between October 2018–September 2020.

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

It’s easy to measure the success of the project because it comes down to the number of engineers we hired. We went from zero engineers to 35–40 engineers in Poland over the course of our engagement. Each of those developers had to go through our hiring process, which was quite rigorous. Code & Pepper managed to get those people on board and working on our projects, which were substantial feats.

Code & Pepper understood what we wanted to achieve and worked with us to ensure we met our goals. They helped us hire high-quality individuals. Their team provided us with a consistent level of customer service and delivered.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

We literally had constant communication with the people at Code & Pepper. We had continuous conversations via email. There was also constant feedback from both sides, which helped us deliver the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It was a short period of time between our initial conversation and them starting the project. It was only about two months in total. It’s a testament to their work that Code & Pepper was able to quickly and effortlessly ramp up. As they’re a relatively small business, their team was agile and able to make decisions quickly. They were able to tailor a solution to the problems we faced, which made things an awful lot easier.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we thoroughly enjoyed working with Code & Pepper.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to Code & Pepper because they’re knowledgeable. Their team gives great advice on hiring engineers. For example, they can help with salary benchmarking and going to market.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product at a solutions company for online paperwork across the financial industry. We provide all kinds of solutions to help people complete and authenticate documents online.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

A high volume of paperwork in the financial system is still being processed offline. We wanted to solve this issue digitally.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave Code & Pepper our requirements and held a few discussions to work through the requirements and a basic sketch of the designs. They built the first version of our platform using React, .NET Core, and C#. 

Initially, we only asked them to handle the development side and created all the designs in-house. Halfway through the project, however, they came up with an alternative option. The new designs they demoed were excellent, so we used their idea instead.

What is the team composition? 

I interacted with one project manager and four developers.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

A company that worked in the same building as us recommended Code & Pepper.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–March 2019.

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

Code & Pepper did a very good job on our project. The fact that they gave us additional design work we hadn’t even asked for was especially valuable. 

The team saw an opportunity to make our designs even better and went for it. Even though design work was outside the original scope, they didn’t even charge us extra.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

Code & Pepper managed the project very effectively. I didn’t have to provide much of this work myself. We communicated through Slack, and they were very responsive.  Communication was always clear. They took on extra tasks and accommodated minor changes to the scope without any complaints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The redesign that Code & Pepper produced impressed me the most about our engagement.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I would suggest they improve.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO of a digital insurance company. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

We reached out to Code & Pepper for UI design and development services. We had been working with another vendor but weren't satisfied with the reliability of their work. We also wanted to scale quickly.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Code & Pepper worked on a monitoring app initially, providing some UI design based on wireframes and specifications provided. The app works as a monitoring solution for codes and policies for invoices, making them all viewable and accessible in one place.

They're now working on a larger project, implementing library components, providing UI design, and incorporating features such as tables, buttons, dropdown menus, etc. They're using technologies that include React Native, Node.js, Google Cloud, and others. 

What is the team composition? 

We work with a few developers, a designer, and a product manager. 

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

They were recommended to us by another company. After working with them on a trial basis, we were impressed with their work and decided to continue the relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested over £5,000 (about $6,600 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since December 2018.

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

We don't have any measurable statistics to report, but they've successfully hit all of our milestones and been very thorough throughout the process. The quality and reliability of their code is a huge improvement compared to the previous vendor we'd been working with. 

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

They're great. We hold daily standup meetings, as well as biweekly meetings to go over other issues. Communication has been great overall. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm most impressed by their flexibility and desire to hit our targets. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The depth of their bench has some room for improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try their services first by giving them a trial project if possible–It benefited us a lot. 

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m CEO and co-founder of Pluto Service. We provide travel insurance for people who don't like insurance. We focus on making travel insurance more tailored, easy to understand, and generally hassle free.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper? 

We’re building a web application. In order to make a difference within our industry, we had to have a product that was different from everything else out there. The brand and the UI really need to shine. A good UX is absolutely key. Most importantly, it has to be slick and fast.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Code & Pepper is predominantly responsible for the entire frontend of our customer-facing web app for buying travel insurance. We’d created a style guide and design library of components before engaging them. They transformed those pieces into web React components that will get transported and reused across the web app. Then they put those components in real screens, put the flows together, and effectively built out all of the wireframes and customer journey.

They’re also involved with integration of APIs as the data flows into MongoDB on of the backend. The newest piece that hasn’t launched yet is a complex integration with a challenger bank in the U.K. For that; they’re doing a lot more backend work in Node.js. 

What is the team composition?

Adam (partner and CEO, Code & Pepper) is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper? 

They reached out to us when they saw we were active in the FinTech space. We’d already started the web app with other developers. Speaking to Adam, we quickly realized they’re the real deal. We spoke to other companies they work with and saw that the quality of work is really high.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started in October 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Our web app is listed on Trustpilot.com, and the vast majority of customer reviews comment on the frontend. Users compliment the design simplicity, speed, and ease of use. We can largely attribute that good feedback to Code & Pepper’s work. Internally, the team and I have nothing but positive words for the quality of their work. 

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint? 

Their team is very good. They’re so easy to work with and accommodating. We use tools such as Trello, Zeplin for designs, and GitHub for the code. They’re responsive and always available for a chat. We sometimes change direction quickly, and they manage those scope changes quite well. They get things done right the first time, which requires minimal feedback and makes our lives so much easier. 

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Code & Pepper’s ability to get up to speed with our project so quickly is amazing. They require very little explanation. They took on all of our requirements. Their team works independently. They don’t need a lot of feedback or input from us to deliver quality results. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

No, nothing springs to mind. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

Make sure you really understand what they’re good or not good at. They're pretty honest about the technologies they use. Look at their case studies and determine if it fits with your technology stack. Keep them apprised of where you want the product to go in the future, because that might change how they build things in its current state. We didn't do that and, as a result, we need to change things retrospectively. The process would have been smoother if we'd kept them in the loop with the overall product vision.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a digital agency specializing in content marketing, performance marketing, and platform design and development. I'm one of the co-founders of the company and responsible for platform design and build, including websites, web and native applications, and email marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

We wanted to find an external partner to work with for application development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They're 100-percent responsible for native app development for Android and iOS. We handle the UI and UX side of things and liaise with clients. Their team acts as a white label provider and appoints skillsets from lead development to project management and native app development.

They've helped us deploy a mobile app for a client, with functionalities including registration, login, user profiles, dashboards, social feed, gamification, and the ability to pull in data from a wearable and present it in a graphically pleasing way. It displays editorial content, tips, and videos within the app itself.

It uses the Laravel framework, but there are a few functionalities developed on the Android native stack for integration with a watch app that syncs with the mobile one. The two can talk to each other and facilitate data transfer.

We’ve also engaged them on other types of work, including WordPress support and full site builds.

What is the team dynamic?

Code & Pepper assigned three resources for our work, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

They approached us for design help on their website around 2 years ago. I was quite impressed with them, and even though we didn’t end up designing their website, I remembered the group. When I needed help, I called them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Code & Pepper in January 2017. We have an ongoing relationship regarding the two native apps currently in the marketplace.

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

I’ve heard complimentary remarks from colleagues. Customer feedback has also been good.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

After committing to a task, they deliver on time and have been responsive. We communicate through Google Hangouts, Slack, and Trello.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their work is in line with ours. Our lead developer has described them as a Polish version of our company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They start quite early and finish early. In regards with scheduling, the differences in time zones can be frustrating.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be clear about time expectations.

Please describe your organization.

The University of St. Gallen in Switzerland is running an online database project for industrial policy. We process policies which affect the international distribution of trade, services, investment and labor force migration.

What is your position?

I am a project manager for the university.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

We needed help in updating our database, not only in terms of structure but also with regard to the tools used by our team for feeding information into it and managing the presentation of that information on our front page.

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Our database management project is the only one in which we've worked with Code & Pepper. The work was divided into 4 stages. We first had to set up the new database structure; it had many more features, compared to our old system. The second stage was for front page design and UX [user experience] elements. We are currently deploying and testing the backend tools which will be used by my team.

The development was done using PHP. Drupal and other platforms were considered, but Code & Pepper proposed that we program the system from the bottom up. I think that the database technology is MySQL.

I maintained constant contact with 2 members of their team. I have seen emails from other colleagues of theirs, but I don't know what the actual team size and work distribution were.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

We found them through a reference from a colleague. We solicited bids for this project from around 9 shops (5 local and 4 offshore ones) with similar capabilities to Code & Pepper. They won the bid in the end.

We drew up a scope document before requesting offers from any company. Based on it, Code & Pepper was asked to submit an initial offer. We selected four teams in total with which we pursued further talks and got more details about the final form of the contract. The final draft was for a four-stage project with a fixed price.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total agreed-upon development cost was $65,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the work in November of 2015. We are within the last development phase and we plan to finish in July 2016.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We are testing the work provided by Code & Pepper. If anything happens to be inadequate for my users' needs, this is more my problem than Code & Pepper's. They've stuck to my specifications closely. I set up the documentation and we've had discussions about how it would ultimately look. Code & Pepper had many constructive criticisms and they've solved numerous problems for us. Anything missing at this point is more my fault than theirs.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

The first phases of our work were completed on time. The current stage is subject to conclude by the end of the month, which seems likely at this point.

We communicated through weekly emails and phone calls with one of my two contact persons at Code & Pepper in order to manage the work. The project was initially handled by one person, but as we went deeper into the development phase, I started talking to the lead developer at Code & Pepper as well. We agreed on what the next steps should be using email and nothing else. 

What distinguishes Code & Pepper from other providers?

My experience is not great in this field, but judging from our other bids, Code & Pepper stood out as a very involved group. Even though they had a short period of time for it, they put a lot of thought into the proposal. We could tell that Code & Pepper understood what we were about and had researched our existing site and the nature of its activity. Also, they had addressed the problems which we had with the original drafts of our contract in terms of timing and scope.

Early on, Code & Pepper made us understand the process and provided a workshop session during the last phase of the selection when they were one of two contestants left. UX design was offered as the first stage, which was not the case for some of their competition, who proposed developing the code first. Code & Pepper had a practical approach from the start, which is what made us choose them in the end. While discussing this topic with colleagues of mine who are knowledgeable of programming, I was told what I should look for in requirements. Code & Pepper ticked all the boxes.

Is there anything Code & Pepper could have improved or done differently?

At the moment, we are sailing smoothly. During another project which ran on my watch, we actually had to part ways with the supplier. They hadn't kept us in the loop and the communication was quite bad. Maybe because of the fact that we alerted Code & Pepper of our previous supplier change, they were more alert than normal. Whatever the case, we've had no issues so far. My working relationship with their two contacts is very good, and Code & Pepper has been very flexible. I don't know how often this comes up with a client, but we've had to adjust some database items in the beginning, making a compromise in order to reduce development time. They adapted perfectly and found a solution for us. We've always had discussions instead of conflicts.

Even though English is not their native language, this hasn't been an impediment in our work. There are occasional typos, but this hasn't been a problem.

Please describe your organization.

Our platform puts corporations and institutions that have training needs in touch with academics. We have created a marketplace for this area with the aim of alleviating the lack of transparency within it. We work remotely from Poland and Switzerland. Our business is based in Ireland and was started in October 2015.

What is your position?

I am a co-founder and the general manager of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

We needed to have our solution designed, developed, and launched. We don't have the technical skills here, so we were forced to partner with a development company.

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Code & Pepper have developed a web-based PHP application for my company. We are currently discussing whether or not to port it to another platform, like Ruby on Rails, in order to create a commercial version of it. They put together a custom test version of my application in the course of three months.

Their team consisted of a project manager, one developer, and one UI/UX [user interface/user experience] designer who was replaced during the project because of poor performance. We communicate mostly using Slack.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

I found them through a friend who was in touch with entrepreneurs at the university where he worked. One of those had evaluated a few different Polish developers for his start-up. He met with 12 companies and went through a request for proposal process. I asked him about a provider that I could use and he mentioned Code & Pepper. I researched them out of curiosity and, when the need arose, I got in touch with them. The first screening and quality check was done by someone whose advice I took.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total cost for our prototype was around $11,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first phase of the project was completed in March 2016. I am going through a funding phase at the end of which I will decide whether to continue my work with Code & Pepper or not. I would like to work with them in the future.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

In general, their output quality was good. The only area in which there were delays was design. I wouldn't judge them very hard in this respect because this is typical for the Polish market. The design of a product also varies by country, depending on its target audience. In our case, it was initially lacking in creativity. The second designer who worked on our project was much better. He gave us a bit of a delay, but it wasn't significant. Code & Pepper was quick on suggesting a new person for us. Their designer was an outside collaborator in any case.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

We've discussed cost limits and received a detailed hourly sheet. Their productivity was broken down into individual resources and the tasks on which they worked. We have reached a maximum cost at the moment, but we will be discussing upcoming development phases.

Communication was done through Slack. It allowed us to drop notes in real time on our progress and receive responses within minutes. We didn't see the need for any heavier project management tools.

What distinguishes Code & Pepper from other providers?

I liked the fact that their two founders are very different people. One of them [Adam Pogorzelski] is in charge of business development. He knows how to convert the input I give to him from a business point of view to more technical requirements for his partner [Lukasz Korol]. Code & Pepper would not function as well without the complementary skills held by their principals. The communication and follow-ups flow very well between us. The company is small enough to pay attention to us.

Is there anything Code & Pepper could have improved or done differently?

In my opinion, the Slack communication worked well, and I liked the technical part of our collaboration. If we decide to move ahead with the next phase using them, the design part of the effort will need to be improved, though. The United States will be a big market for us, so we need to make sure that the app has the right feel. The issue is more cultural than technical. Overall, Code & Pepper has been very responsive to us. They're always just a phone call away. Even though they're only a 10- to 12-person team, I believe that they have the ability to grow.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of Aspen, a fintech company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Code & Pepper?

We needed their team to develop our web application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Code & Pepper developed and designed our web app from scratch. The platform was intended to serve as an investment guide for our financial advisors and their clients.

We relayed our requirements and provided the necessary documents that Code & Pepper could refer to during our discovery process, and their team then finalized the tech stack. They specifically utilized AWS to develop backend solutions and relied on Figma and Adobe XD for the app’s frontend design. The content was mainly devised by our team — we forwarded this to Code & Pepper and had it integrated into our platform.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a QA manager, a web designer, and front- and backend developers.

How did you come to work with Code & Pepper?

Code & Pepper’s team was recommended to me by an acquaintance who used their services in the past. I reached out to them through an introductory call and chose them for being a professional company with an impressive portfolio. They were also UK-based, which was one of our major requirements.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about £100,000 (approximately $136,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from January–July 2021.

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

We’ve only recently launched the product, so there are no quantitative metrics to share yet. However, I could confirm that Code & Pepper took our design and functionality preferences to heart by creating a web app that mirrored our company’s branding. Our financial advisors had started using the platform, and we heard nothing but positive feedback from them.

How did Code & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicated via Slack. Code & Pepper was an accommodating partner — they remained attentive to our needs and transparent in sharing each deliverable they accomplished throughout the engagement. Additionally, they had an orderly approach and remained committed to our timeline and budget.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were most impressed with their team’s organized workflow — everything was just perfect in that regard.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could benefit from a more refined design process. We encountered minor issues with the quality of the initial design they submitted, but it was nothing that both parties couldn’t resolve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communicate your needs concisely, especially in terms of design. Code & Pepper will deliver desirable results if you relay your expectations with full transparency.