CodigoDelSur

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a mobile application product for consumers, and I’m the head of product for the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

We reached out to CodigoDelSur to rebuild mobile apps for us because we were working against very aggressive timelines.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with CodigoDelSur on rebuilding our mobile apps from scratch. First, we provided them with a brief and a list of requirements, and they collaborated closely with us as if they were part of our team to understand what would make a compelling product for our users. From there, they started with the development work, helping us identify areas of opportunity for our backend apps along the way.

CodigoDelSur’s scope has also included design and QA. Now, we’re close to releasing our product’s MVP, and moving forward, they’ll continue working with us on refining and improving our apps.

Among the apps’ functionalities are a signup system, a subscription management system, and other features unique to our business. As for its technology stack, we’ve used Swift and Swift UI for the iOS version, as well as Kotlin and Jetpack Compose for the Android version.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with around nine people from CodigoDelSur, including QA engineers and a product designer.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

I found them through a referral. We also interviewed other providers, but we felt that CodigoDelSur would be a true partner for us. So far, that has definitely been the case.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

The short deadlines we were facing were one of the biggest challenges we had. Thus, the fact that CodigoDelSur has been able to complete their work on time has been our success metrics and surpassed our expectations. Once we launch the app, we will measure other KPIs to track success.

How did CodigoDelSur perform from a project management standpoint?

CodigoDelSur has excelled at meeting deadlines and staying on budget. We have daily meetings and communicate primarily through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

CodigoDelSur’s communication is impressive, and every member of their team really cares about the success of projects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything they could improve on. Their team is always willing to receive feedback.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and transparent about what you’re looking for, and they’ll work hard with you to ensure your project’s success.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

COMPAS Global is a software startup based in the Bay area. We make software that helps growing technology companies plan and execute their global expansion. Our customers and our company are mainly business-to-business SaaS (Software-as-a-service) companies. They use our software as a planning tool to analyze their internal readiness for going global, as well as figuring out how to prioritize their geographies. Once they begin the planning and execution process, they use the software to help monitor their progress as they expand their global footprint.

What challenge were you trying to address with Codigo?

We originally started as a consulting company, and we helped companies create their global expansion plan using traditional consulting techniques. We’d create templates in Excel and PowerPoint and use those to help them analyze, visualize, and then share this type of data. It was very cumbersome to involve various members or present multiple functions across our client teams. We had to speak to 10-15 different folks, get their input on what they thought about the internal readiness, and get their input on what they thought was the assessment of different geographies. It created a lot of need to organize the data. Using the Excel models did the trick, but involved a less than ideal UX.

We had the idea to create a better way to aggregate, visualize, and share the data through a SaaS with a better interface than we could ever achieve with Excel. We started to sketch out ideas and hired Codigo to build us a frontend-only demo product. We wanted to use it to get input and see for ourselves what it would look like if our Excel sheet were to come alive and if it would make the process easier.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our own designers came up with the wireframes, and Codigo created the frontend that we could then click through without saving any data internally because there was no backend. It looked really nice, and it was initially also on the iPad platform, which made it easy for us, at a conference or a client meeting, to click through it to show them what it would potentially look like with some dummy data already inserted. I assume they used Swift.

Their role entailed changing things slightly or making a graph look cooler with different features. For instance, one of our best screens was a bubble chart that showed all the geographies with different market sizes. To make it come alive, they helped us evaluate a few different libraries so they wouldn’t have to make it from scratch. They ended up finding one that had a nice design with semi-transparent bubbles. Even if the bubbles overlapped, it didn’t look bad like it would in an Excel bubble chart. They did a good job with tweaking details like this.

What is the team dynamic?

There were 1-2 people working on our project. I mainly interacted with their project manager, Natalia [Head of Business Development, CodigoDelSur].

How did you come to work with Codigo?

I reached out to friends in the tech space and received a referral. We evaluated about 5 different shops. Most of them were in Latin America because I wanted someone close to my time zone. I came up with the plan of the use case, the background, and what we wanted to accomplish by when, and distributed it. We evaluated their budgets, processes, and plans. I was impressed with how organized and professional Codigo’s proposal was, and their price point was reasonable compared to other shops we evaluated in Colombia, Argentina, and Costa Rica. Codigo came out on top and we started working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent $50,000-$70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from the fall of 2014 until spring of 2015.

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

Given it was just a frontend product, we needed it to look nice, and it did. The end result had the wow effect we were looking for. They helped us reach our goals. After getting feedback, we decided to go ahead and build it out into a real software product, which we ended up launching in the fall of 2015. Codigo didn’t do the backend, but I was happy with what they did for us on the frontend. The company that built out the backend looked at the code that Codigo wrote for the frontend and validated their work saying it was good.

How did Codigo perform from a project management standpoint?

Natalia and I had a weekly update meeting. She’s always responsive over email. We worked in 2-week sprints. They gave me a new version every 2 weeks. I reviewed each version and provided feedback live to Natalia. With Codigo, I didn’t talk to the developers directly. If I were to do it again, I would look for more transparency so I wouldn’t have to go through a person in the middle. My experience since then has shown that shorter sprints brought quicker turnaround and feedback, and I like the rhythm of daily standup meetings better. Codigo could use tools like Trello to give more visibility into what they were working on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re happy with their work for the first phase.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had them scope out building the backend. Their proposal had a wide price range, and they weren’t able to narrow the level of effort and cost from our side. We understand building a new product from scratch involves certain risks, but they were the ones who built the frontend so they knew the product intimately. They had us shoulder all of the risk of overruns, but we would have preferred that they shoulder at least some of the risk since we wanted to build a longer-term partnership with them. We expected them to find a way to make it work, but they were very adamant about not doing that. Their management policy prompted us to pursue other shops.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a startup. We are currently working on a social discovery tool to help users find exciting places around them while they are out and about in the city.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

We were ultimately looking for some governance around the entire process of developing an app.  

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We’re building an iOS app using Swift. We have been using Sketch to do the design, then we’re taking those Sketch files and uploading them into InVision, and then using InSpec to get the code. For the frontend look and feel of the app, we are taking a lot of that from InVision.

On the backend, we have built all of our API using JavaScript, and they used Swift to call those APIs. For the most part, we built a lot of the backend, and they have been doing most of the frontend aspects. They take the backend requirements, which are essentially our user stories, and translate them into executable tasks. They take those tasks and knock them out, and keep us updated with the progress they are making.

What is the team dynamic?

We have one project manager and one developer assigned to our project.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

We reached out to a lot of firms that were considered the best. The talent was there from a coding perspective, but in terms of understanding the business vision, I felt like the other companies fell short. If I am paying someone to get the work done, I shouldn’t have to handle them along the way.

My father recommended I look in South America; in Argentina and Uruguay as we speak Spanish and the developers are good. We looked online, on Upwork, and other sites where you can locate these types of firms. We eventually found Codigo through Upwork. I looked at their reviews, their portfolio, and some of the companies they’ve worked with, who are incredible.

We gave them a 2-week project initially. After going through 2 or 3 other companies, Codigo is the one that felt right. We saw their deliverables and how well we worked together so we knew after 2 weeks that this was the partner we wanted to work with.

How much have you invested in them?

We spend $10,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2017 and the project is ongoing. 

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

First of all, the app works the way we want it to. We had very specific requirements and ideas, and they do a really good job of listening to what we want and providing us with feedback, which has been useful. If there is a UX [user experience] improvement we could make, they will run it by us with a mockup. 

They have been a godsend because the quality is good. The users that are testing the app are happy and can see what it should be able to do. When you see the quality and execution, you don’t have to worry about what they are doing. 

How did CodigoDelSur perform from a project management standpoint?

They use the Teamwork platform, in which they show all the activity, milestones, upcoming events, and release notes. It’s perfect because we can see what has been done, what is still outstanding, and what is slated to be done the following day. I was more familiar using Jira, but Teamwork gives me all the information I need. It has been really nice to have that visibility, as at the end of the day, you want to see how your money is being spent.

We have a daily standup meeting, which is a quick 15-minute call. We also have our own channel on Slack times they have questions or need clarification. We communicate a lot via Slack, and we also use Google Docs to share notes, requirements, and user stories.

Codigo moves so fast. They will give us a conservative estimate, and then always get things done with a day or two still to test and get any bugs fixed so that by the next sprint, we can work on some new features. I really appreciate their authentic and professional approach. They keep you updated on the progress and give you tools to see what has been done, and what they plan to do. They execute the work and have been able to satisfy all my requirements.

What did you find most impressive about them?

For me, it is their transparency and deliverables; the output is incredibly good. They are incredible, especially the speed at which they work. My team really meshes with them. They immediately understood our vision, and have always been very transparent with us, which led to a lot of trust. We have a very good development cycle, things are running a lot smoother than they had been running with other companies we have worked with in the past.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing bad to say about them. I like that there are guardrails in place, where if a developer isn’t doing what they are supposed to be doing, the management is going to be on top of them to make sure whatever is not working will get fixed. I appreciate that so much.

I am not used to the Teamwork site, but I love the fact you can see the tasks and milestones. One thing I do miss from other platforms, whether it is Jira or Axosoft, is a burndown chart to track velocity. They have offered to do this, but I want to stay focused on getting the development work done.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Eventful Conferences conducts about 12 SAP [Systems, Applications & Products] conferences a year, with attendance ranging from 100–1,000 people. I am in digital marketing. Aside from handling all the emails and social media, I also work with Codigo on web design and UX [user experience]. I’m based in New York City, and we have another office in upstate New York, in Syracuse. We have about 20–30 employees.

What challenge were you trying to address with Codigo?

We needed someone to build our company website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We handed over a website that had been built by our previous providers, and they made lots of frontend enhancements. We worked exclusively in WordPress. They built a TV page and added Smart Slider, which is a dynamic way to display content. They did several bug fixes, font changes, and minor design things here and there.

What is the team dynamic?

They’ve assigned 2 project managers who manage the development internally. We use project management software, and we work with them on a sprint basis.

How did you come to work with Codigo?

I met Natalia [Head of Business Development, CodigoDelSur] at The Next Web Conference in New York City. We were in the market for some new web developers, and they seemed to fit our requirements.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $50,000–$200,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016, and the work is ongoing.

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

We’ve been happy with their work. Customers are saying that they really like the website, and it is getting much better engagement. Since Codigo moved us to a faster server, the website’s performance has improved.

How did Codigo perform from a project management standpoint?

I’ve dealt with a lot of web developers and this, by far, has been my favorite project management of all time. They hit all the deadlines and work in a dynamic way—no task is too big.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve had no problems with anything, which is rare. Their Agile project management has been second to none, and the customer service has been fantastic. Externally, their work has been really good and appreciated by our customers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

None at this stage.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of a company that’s currently working on developing a next-generation data science approach for integrating the Internet of Things—or the Internet of Everything depending on how you look at things. We have an approach that dramatically lowers the integration costs of systems that many companies are dealing with right now.

Companies that make acquisitions have the huge problem of having to deal with tens, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of systems which are provided by just as many vendors as they end up having to hire to more or less integrate all of it by hand.

We're trying to dramatically reduce those integration costs by as much as 80%, which usually take up the entire IT budget without providing any real core business value. It’s a really challenging and important area to be addressing in the word right now.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

We had them develop a large component of our minimally viable product for the core systems assisted integration tasks.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The system was basically the backend that enabled the discovery of solution components as well as provided the interfaces necessary for our proprietary software to properly integrate them. They implemented the prototype that provided the backend for the services that we offer.

You can think of it as a catalog—a combination of a system that looks like a service catalog type application. It contained a lot of components that were advertised through the web frontend and also included a number of APIs that allowed for the backend services to discover and self-organize those components on demand.

This application was entirely written in Node.js as the primary technology component. The rest of it was built using HTML5, MongoDB for the bulk data, JSON for keeping records, and a little bit of MySQL mixed in for the relational databases.

What is the team dynamic?

They assigned two full-time developers to this project—one for the backend and the other for the frontend.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

A startup called Weave recommended them without hesitation. In fact, we had the opportunity to work with Codigo on a project before hiring them to develop our initial prototype. They’d also been referred through another client and because of our prior experience with them, we decided to hire them again.

How much have you invested with them?

The estimated total cost ended up being around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship officially started 17th of April, 2014. It was a 6-month project.

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

They did a very effective job of taking a relatively complex piece of technology and developing it with minimal oversight. The firm is able to take an abstract idea and make it concrete, which is different than many of the other contracting firms out there. As of now, their work has allowed us to demonstrate our ideas and get our concept into the hands of several clients.

We successfully sold our concept, but as a business, we’re still struggling to find a profitable way forward. That’s not attributed to them, though.

How did CodigoDelSur perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Rally for Agile management, which is a tool that they had never used before but were able to pick it up and use it very effectively. At the time, they were mostly used to dealing with JIRA. They did a very good job of both meeting deadlines as well as working interactively with me and the rest of my team, helping us solve issues and find solutions.

I think they enjoyed working with us because we were also software engineers on our end, not just marketing people. We were trying to get things built right instead of doing the work as quickly as possible.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're able to quickly turnaround and implement things such as ideas, concepts, and prototypes. In some cases, we were able to develop requirements for the user interface, have it prototyped, and then have it implemented and partially functioning within 4 – 5 days from a high-level concept. That’s an impressive time for implementing concepts.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are primarily a Spanish-speaking firm and we’re a highly-technical firm on our end, so a bit was lost in translation. Occasionally, some work had to be done to help bridge the language gap, but it’s not necessarily an issue on their end since it’s more of a cultural thing.

Translating some of the concepts was probably the biggest challenge of working with them, but they were very good at interactively working through those issues, especially in areas where there was some ambiguity on what was being communicated versus what was understood. However, all those problems that popped up were resolved pretty quickly. They've done quite a bit of work since then to improve on that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Fraud Fighter is a company that provides fraud prevention solutions to all sorts of clients like financial services, retail, and government. We’ve been in business for almost 18 years and have over 40% of the S&P 500 as clients. I’m the chief operating officer.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

We partner with some companies for their licensed technology from certain providers. One of our vendors had recently released a mobile version of their identity document authentication solution, which uses the camera on a smart device to capture images of an I.D. document like a driver’s license or a passport. Then submits it to a cloud database that uses those images to compare the document being tested against the database of templates that we have. Then comes back with a positive or negative result. The vendor made this technology available through and STK [Systems Tool Kit]. We needed CodigoDelSur to take the STK and core technology and build it into a demonstration app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We used CodigoDelSur to take the STK and the core technology and build it into a demonstration app that we could use to send around to clients so that they could download it to their mobile device, test it, and see how mobile authentication could potentially work for their business. We took an existing technology and built our brand around it. It wasn’t core development from scratch on the technology. They built a user interface and an application flow for us.

Our original project was completed. There are periodic updates and enhancements that occur to the core STK. When that happens, we go back in and revise the version that we have out there. I do continue to work with them.

What is the team dynamic?

I communicated with a project manager but I don’t know how many developers they put on it.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

I searched for them on Elance. It turned out that they had done development on the same STK before for the actual company that built the STK. Reading through their profile, I saw that they had done a project for this vendor of ours. That seemed automatically the right thing to do is go with somebody that already had used this STK and was familiar with it.

How much have you invested with them?

Around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2016 and the work is ongoing.

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

They did a fine job. They were responsive and turned things around quickly.

How did CodigoDelSur perform from a project management standpoint?

Most of the communication was done through email. We did the occasional video conference call. They’re in a Spanish speaking country, but I had absolutely no problem communicating with them in English. It wasn’t a complex project. There wasn’t a need for a project management tool. Once they gave me a schedule, they hit it. My only negative comment on the scheduling was getting them to schedule me on some of the follow-up work. Once they said they’d have it done by a certain date, they hit it pretty much every time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It went smoothly. I didn’t have any problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There have been a few times when I needed to have one of these updates done and it took them a little bit longer than I had hoped for them to be able to flip it around. I can’t expect them to be sitting and wand waiting for me to call them. They have a workload. When a new project comes in, they fit it in as well as they can. That’s not a criticism, but more of an observation. It took them a little bit longer to get some follow-up work done than I would have hoped for. My hope may have been unreasonable.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I haven’t formed a corporation yet. I’m still thinking about the work still. I’m trying to get some investors so I can start the project.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

I had an idea for a booking app for the beauty industry that I needed to be developed.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They made a prototype for me and they gave me an estimate for the work. It’s similar to StyleSeat and Vagaro. It’s like a booking app for beauty professionals. Customers can make appointments for their hair stylist or any type of service related to salon service. It’s going to be a native app for iOS, Android, and website. It took about a month to have the prototype completed.

What is the team dynamic?

There was one main guy, Jorge [Project Manager, CodigoDelSur] and three others.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

We found CodigoDelSur through Clutch. I went through the list and saw they’re one of the Latin American companies.

How much have you invested with them?

$10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

Their work is really good. The team was great, as was the person who contacted me, Natalia [Head of Business Development, CodigoDelSur]. I had an idea and they created everything for me as I expected. They did the designing part. Now it’s just the matter of the next step. I need to come up with the money. They’re a good company.

How did Codigo perform from a project management standpoint?

They worked through one of their Teamwork sites. Every day I saw how much work they’ve done. We had a conversation every day for 30-60 minutes. It worked well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I told them my ideas. I’m not a technical person. They came up with a lot of new designs and showed me their ideas and how we could do it differently.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they did a perfect job. I’m happy with their work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a game development and production studio. I’m the managing director and founder. We’re a 10-person operation.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

We needed a gaming mobile app developed.

We’ve done previous game development for PC and have counseled other developers. We usually partner or outsource the work and act as more of a publisher, even though we do some development in-house.

Looking for a developer for mobile games specifically was new for us. Our objective was to stay within budget and to get a clear plan of how to deliver this type game, since we haven’t worked in that arena before.

What was the scope of their involvement?

CodigoDelSur developed the multiplayer mobile gaming app using SpriteKit. They designed original creative content and artwork when necessary.

What is the team dynamic?

We had 1 designer and 2 developers working on the project, one working on the frontend and iOS implementation, and one working on the backend.

There were more team members doing support in the background. They assigned multiple people to a task when we needed them to.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

I called several people I knew in the gaming industry, but that came up surprisingly shallow. After a couple conversations, we weren’t too impressed with those referrals. They either didn’t have experience in the right area or they were way over budget or off-base in understanding our goals.

We met CodigoDelSur through a site called VenturePact that refers developers based on the project type. We talked to 3 different studios through them. We had lengthy discussions with 2, including CodigoDelSur.

We chose CodigoDelSur because they were much more amiable about contract discussions. I always felt that they really wanted this to work and were confident that they could accomplish it. When we sat down with them and a lawyer with our agreement, they made sure we were comfortable with it. They didn’t want us to feel like they were pushing us around on the terms. This proved to be a recurring theme with them. We were able to get the document signed much faster than we would’ve with the other developer.

As a manager, that’s indicative to me of how things will go over the course of the project. If coming to terms with a simple operating agreement is difficult, finishing on the agreed timeline won’t be likely. CodigoDelSur stuck out to us because of that experience.

They were willing to work with us and tenacious in pursuing us. They followed up with me often, but not to the point of being bothersome. They displayed a lot of determination to get a relationship going with us. I appreciated that.

How much have you invested with them?

$107,880.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

I can’t give concrete numbers on the app because we just launched it. We’re still in review with the App Store process.

CodigoDelSur was incredibly flexible with us. We got to the last month of the project and our budget was stretched. At the same time, we realized that our feature set meant a larger project than we had set out to build. It was no fault of theirs, but we needed a bit more money and time but still wanted to get the app to market. We explained things and asked what they could do to work with us.

Based on previous experiences, I was expecting a difficult conversation with Nicolas [CEO/Founder, CodigoDelSur] and the business dev rep, Natalia [Head of Business Development, CodigoDelSur]. But before we had really gotten started, they told me how much they believed in the project and were willing to work together to get it out. They laid out a plan to meet us halfway on the remaining work and did free design work for the last leg.

The fact that I didn’t have to fight them for that means a tremendous amount to me. There’s a huge amount of integrity involved in keeping their word to finish the project. I didn’t expect that of them, and I’ve never seen anything like it before.

That’s the reason I would recommend them to anyone. Not only do they operate with a tremendous amount of integrity, but they do a great job on top of it. We got the results we wanted and for the budget we had set. I don’t think that would’ve happened with another studio.

How did CodigoDelSur perform from a project management standpoint?

We used a site called Teamwork. There was a bit of a learning curve, but I liked it. It accomplished what we needed it to.

Our project manager, Jorge [Project Manager, CodigoDelSur], is excellent. He always gets to the questions I post quickly; he’s faster than I am at getting back to him.

One of the things we worried about in choosing an overseas developer was the language barrier. I’ve worked with Ukrainian developers before, and there are always slight miscommunications. I felt none of that with CodigoDelSur.

Our project manager has a very solid grasp on everything that I say. I was surprised that he understood things well enough to creatively iterate based on suggestions of mine that weren’t completely fleshed out. I’m happy with their creative license 99% of the time, which shows how well they grasp things outside of their native language. There is no friction there and I’m very happy with my project manager.

They have a lot of resource support there when we need it. I always appreciate that. It feels like we’re getting more for our money.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They made getting our app to market an easy experience. I’ve never had a vendor take such an active interest without having equity in the project. When there were pieces that didn’t work in the exact way we expected, they took the adjustments on themselves. That should’ve fallen just on me.

They clearly care about this project more than just receiving the payment for the work. Multiple team members have offered suggestions they thought of after they had clocked out. The team doesn’t act like an outsource team. They act like an in-house team that’s as invested in the project as we are.

Figuring out the right balance of features for completely new IT like this is challenging, so their level of engagement is a tremendous boon. That was especially unexpected since I’m not sitting in the office with them every day. When considering a New York-based studio, we had thought they would be more emotionally involved than an overseas company. That turned out not to be the case. I don’t think we could’ve asked for a more invested partner. They went above and beyond in the creative process to make this a fun game rather than just delivering what fit our specs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m largely satisfied with the work that they did.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of mobile engineering for a company that provides a platform for fitness instructors and creators. We handle their tech stacks and pricing.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

We needed to be able to give our customers mobile experiences for them to offer to their students. As a startup, we wanted to hit the ground running and needed more engineers on hand to help us build fast.

What was the scope of their involvement?

As we had technical expertise on our team, we pursued a staff augmentation route with Codigo. We started with one embedded engineer from their team and after two months, we added a second iOS engineer. They helped us build our iOS app from scratch. We recently submitted and released our product in the App Store.

The platform gives fitness instructors and creators a mobile experience to offer to their students. Users can create their brand, colors, and upload all their content to the app.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two engineers from Codigo.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

I talked with agencies based in New York but most of them were expensive and catered towards full-service models. One of the agencies in New York recommended Codigo based on our budget. I chatted with one of their sales representatives, and their services aligned with our needs. I also thought it would be nice to be in a similar time zone. When interviewing one of their engineers, I asked the same questions I would if I were hiring a full-time candidate. They were knowledgeable.

How much have you invested with them?

They charged us $65 an hour and provided 40 hours of work per week.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in September 2020, and we launched the app in March 2021. We only ended the partnership because we hired internally.

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

We launched the platfor in the App Store in six months. It took about three months to build the app and then another three months to test and launch it. I was happy with our timeline. I have an engineering background and during reviews, I was happy with the quality of Codigo's code.

How did CodigoDelSur perform from a project management standpoint?

Our company ran the project management in this case. It was easy to communicate with them, so there weren’t barriers between us. Codigo was also flexible rather than assertive about a specific way for the project to unfold. The engineer assigned to our project had a great attitude.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their code and their flexibility were two stand-out qualities of the partnership. There was a two-week trial period, meaning it was low risk. When our needs changed, it was easy to ramp down to one iOS engineer again.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only consideration is price. It was a lot less expensive than hiring an agency based in New York City. However, Codigo was more expensive than companies based in other regions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a digital style company. Our goal is to change our relationship with style and fashion.

What challenge were you trying to address with CodigoDelSur?

We’re building a personal styling application for iOS. Users will be able to use the app to automatically generate outfit recommendations on a daily basis by adding all of the items in their closet to the platform.  We needed to make sure the design and UX are high-caliber because fashion is so visual, so we hired CodigoDelSur.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before this project, we didn’t have anything on the frontend, but we did have a complete UX/UI designs ready to go. We initially tried to develop the app in Flutter, and it wasn’t working. It wasn’t advanced enough for us to develop the UI and features we wanted.

CodigoDelSur assessed the designs and ensured that it would be feasible to develop the app. Now they’re building the app based on our designs.  

What is the team composition?

We started with two people –the developer and her project manager. Then we brought on another developer for two weeks temporarily.

How did you come to work with CodigoDelSur?

They were recommended to me by a friend of mine. I didn’t speak with any other development companies because I knew I could trust his recommendations.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started with CodigoDelSu back in January 2020 and the project is ongoing.

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

My experience has been incredible. I’m super pleased. They’ve over-delivered on every single sprint we’ve had so far.

At this point, we’ve been through 5–6 sprints and I do all of the QA. There has only been one major bug that I notified them about. It was just an oversight too — they needed to add a text field over a keyboard so when users tap on it, they can see what they’re typing. It was impacting the UX. Otherwise, there have been no glaring issues and everything has functioned as expected. Consequentially, we’re always able to move forward onto the next task.

How did CodigoDelSur perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very structured and are good at clarifying what they’re doing and setting expectations. They’re patient and understanding. We actually had some timing issues with backend development and that put some strain on the frontend, but they’ve gone the extra mile to work around that and patch things up.

When our backend developer was unavailable, they scaled and helped us by bringing on a fantastic Python developer. It really helped us move forward.

Everything is meticulously documented. We review priorities and the backlog properly. They’re constantly making sure everything is up to date. We’re all on the same page. They’re so excellent that I’ve implemented some of their tactics in my own team.

Even though they’re an overseas team, there have been no communication issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been impressed by how well they’ve been able to manage the project. They do everything to make sure that we’re organized and on track.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any criticisms.