Crafting Software Innovation

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm co-founder and CEO of RIOTS

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

We called CraftingSoftware to extend our product development team.

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

I knew and trusted the people in CraftingSoftware. I works previously with them.

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

We had a kick-meeting to establish the kind of expertise we needed and very quickly an expert in the feel was presented to us. We started very quickly after that.

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

2 Front-end developers.

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

They behaved like a team member and delivered valuable improvements.

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

Always updating or seeking on the work so you never need to chase for update. Very efficient communication.

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

The team is very professional. No non-sense. Just pure techs.

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

Nothing particular for us today.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Athena, an audiobook and book summary app. Users can install the app and read or listen to classics and nonfiction best sellers in 10–15 minutes. It’s basically like a modern CliffsNotes. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Crafting Software?

We needed help with web and mobile app development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We brought Crafting Software in from day one. They were involved in the conceptualization period up to the development of the app. Currently, it’s available on iOS and as a web app. It also works on iPad, and the team is now helping us bring it to Android. They’ve been like our in-house engineering department who’s handled all our front- and backend development. The app features over 200 book titles which are summarized to their most important insights.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of full stack developers, including Adrian (Co-Founder & Engineering Lead).

How did you come to work with Crafting Software?

Someone introduced me to Adrian. We then compared them to some other offshore developers, and Crafting Software was the best fit. They were really interested in our vision.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $100,000–$250,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in June 2019, and it’s ongoing.

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

The quality of their work is outstanding. Crafting Software really takes the time to understand our objectives, so they almost always deliver something accurate on the first iteration. They’re also quick to solve any major bugs we find. Finally, the team is excellent at estimating the levels of development that are required for each deliverable.

How did Crafting Software perform from a project management standpoint?

The team excels at project management. We’ve changed courses a few times, and the Crafting Software team has been willing to adjust to the number of resources we need. They’re also accommodating when it comes to communication and the tools we use, like Slack and Trello. Despite the time zone difference, they’re always available. Overall, they’ve been a great partner.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s easy to work with the Crafting Software team — they’re all very good people. They’re extremely and conscientious of their deliverables. Furthermore, the team is committed to being a good partner who understands our vision.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could do better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to define the project’s scope so the team can prepare the number of resources needed for each phase. Additionally, think of them as your in-house development team and share as much information as you can.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product at a software development startup focused on a vertically integrated CRM solution. Our services are specific to the multi-tenant real estate industry. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Crafting Software?

Crafting Software is one of our key outsourcing shops that facilitate software development, design, and general product assistance. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work with Crafting Software on a collaborative process, and outputs come from both sides. In some projects, we come to them after identifying a need in the market or from customers. We then tell them how we should build a product. Other times, in the process of building or testing the code, the Crafting Software team suggests better ideas on how we should build a product. In other words, they’re very much a part of our family even though they’re technically our vendor. They’ve been handling everything from creating initial designs to code development, QA testing, deployment, and production management. They even support us in the evenings during their work hours since they’re overseas, which has been convenient. They also help us during outages. 

Our CRM solution provides services for everything, including e-commerce websites, communication methods, contracts, screening, application, and many more. Crafting Software has dealt with those services, especially with e-commerce and various payment collection processes. The whole staff is involved in everything from taking credit card details for applications to collecting sensitive data like Social Security Numbers. 

They also work on the both front- and backend of our solution. The majority of the code is written in JavaScript, and we’ve integrated a bunch of key technologies on the backend. The core database is in PostgreSQL, but they’ve been using multiple cutting-edge data storage technologies. We’re also integrating with Rules Engine, specifically with Corticon. On top of that, we’re working with natural language processing and AI-type solutions, such as ROSS and a few other tools that tie into that. On the frontend, we deal with a group of technologies, including Native Node modules. We’re compiling these into packages that can be installed on iOS and Android, as well as Windows and other operating systems. 

What is the team composition?

The team composition has fluctuated over the years. At the peak, we’ve had 25–30 teammates. Right now, we’re working with around 12 people, although we’re ramping up again. Overall, the number fluctuates based on our needs. 

Our main points of contact are Darius (Co-Founder & Software Developer), Adrian (Co-Founder & Engineering Lead), and Gabriel (Co-Founder & Product Designer). I talk to all of them on a regular basis. 

How did you come to work with Crafting Software?

We worked with most of their teammates in previous projects. We go back at least 10 years before they started Crafting Software. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started collaborating around January 2015, and the partnership is ongoing. Overall, we’ve been working with Crafting Software for six years.

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

I can qualitatively say that they’re better than other vendors. We’ve probably saved 40%–60% of what we’d have spent if we built a team in San Francisco, California. I’ve worked with plenty of teams over the last 20 years, and Crafting Software is top-notch. In other words, they’re as good as a local team but they’re substantially less costly. Part of that is because the cost of living in San Francisco is expensive. However, most of the savings we’ve had are due to their efficiency and efficacy. 

For instance, I can send them a poorly designed bug, and I’ll get a response from them within hours or even in the middle of their night. They tell me how they can fix it, what it’s going to take, and whether they’ve rolled it out into production. They’re very timely when it comes to such things.

I’ve also had a lot of deep conversations with their team about architecture. Frankly, two-thirds of the engineers I’ve worked with in my career wouldn’t have been able to keep up with that. That’s not to say that those are bad engineers; Crafting Software just has an insightful quality that I don’t often see when it comes to data architecture, and it’s not something most software engineers do. 

Overall, Crafting Software is qualitatively superior to other teams when it comes to dealing with day-to-day problems. They think not only about the work that we do but also about how it is done. They find ways to be better at doing their job, and I don’t see that quality in other teams — vendor or not.  

How did Crafting Software perform from a project management standpoint?

The Crafting Software team understands product design. They have teammates who can focus not only on UI/UX and visual design but also on figuring out how the tool or software solves the problems of the people involved. They empathize with pain points, which is a tricky skill set that doesn’t show up very often in other teams. It certainly helps in project management because they know what, how, and why things are prioritized. That speaks to their deeper understanding of the purpose behind a product beyond just doing what another person tells them to do. 

We communicate primarily through Zoom and Slack, but we also use phone calls. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve also gone out to Cluj, Romania to spend time with them face-to-face at least once a year. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their thoughtfulness distinguishes them from other providers. They think about second- and third-order problems of how they can do their jobs better and how they can impact their customers effectively in a real-world sense. That’s uncommon in my experience. On top of that, they clearly take pride in their work. I’ve never felt that anybody on their team has simply thrown something together merely because they need to get something done. They’re diligent; they’re the kind of people who will stay up late to make sure that a project is done right, and I can’t ask for more from anyone. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The area that they need to improve the most is marketing themselves and getting the word out that they’re good. They shouldn’t be too humble. Humility is good and we shouldn't be arrogant, but it can be taken too far especially when trying to sell services. Sometimes, they fall into that trap; they think they’re just doing their job, but they don’t realize how much better they do the job than most people.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be as transparent as possible about what you’re trying to accomplish, what you know, and most importantly, what you don’t know. Crafting Software will roll with the punches and change directions as needed. However, because they’re introspective and think about things more deeply, it behooves both parties in the engagement to be honest about what they’re going to try. 

Things may or may not work, and the customer may or may not like it, but transparency will set the context of the engagement. It will also allow you to make appropriate decisions about how much to invest and what must be done to run the experiment successfully. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of Localvore. We’re a consumer technology company that connects people to local businesses and supports local food systems.

What challenge were you trying to address with Crafting Software?

We were trying to address our struggles of finding an affordable and reliable technology team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started working with Crafting Software in 2018 to build a completely new product from scratch, which is now our core business and technology platform called Localvore Passport. It’s a mobile app that’s available for both iOS and Android. The app is a combination of a directory where you can search and discover local businesses, and get access to exclusive offers. It has a subscription and membership component, social and news feed, and Stripe integration.

Crafting Software is basically helping us build our entire backend database infrastructure, as well as our frontend user experience — we do everything with them from a product development standpoint.

We’ve rolled out multiple iterations of our app since 2018, and we’re currently fielding some social features to it so people can post content, and engage with local restaurants, communities, and businesses.

What is the team composition?

The two core people we’ve been working with are Adrian (Co-Founder & Engineering Lead) and Gabriel (Co-Founder & Product Designer). We’re also working with Darius (Co-Founder & Software Developer), Ionut (Software Developer), and Tamas (Software Developer).

How did you come to work with Crafting Software?

We went through a transition where we failed with our previous internal team who turned our financial situation upside down — as a result, we had to let a bunch of people go. Then, I talked to a local entrepreneur who recommended that we consider outsourcing overseas. We went through a lot of interviews with a consultant named Ron, who was familiar with Romania as a market for finding developers.

What we liked about Romania was that the language barrier was non-existent, and the time zones align well with ours. Ron then took us through an exercise where we scoped out what we were looking for, and helped us recruit our new team, Crafting Software.

How much have you invested with them?

Over the course of our engagement, we’ve invested around $750,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in July 2018.

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

I personally onboard our platform to restaurants for free. I then go out and market to consumers to subscribe to our app for $9.95 a month, and I can tell that the product is working if I’m not running into any problems in the market. If we do run into problems, Crafting Software fixes them. If we roll out a new feature and it doesn’t work, we iterate on it.

No MVP or product development process is perfect, especially if it’s constrained by money. With that in mind, I measure success by how quickly we can build a product, and launch it to our customers and merchant partners. I appreciate Crafting Software because we wouldn’t be here if we’d gone through another round of not having the right team.

There would be no business and we wouldn’t get any investment opportunities if Crafting Software didn’t work out for Localvore — straight up, there would be no Localvore.

How did Crafting Software perform from a project management standpoint?

From a project management standpoint, I would say they perform really well because they listen to us. We’re fully a part of the day-to-day process and my co-founder is really hands-on with them. Adrian is doing all the heavy lifting because he’s building the database in the backend and no one is really holding his hand. He’s doing a really great job with respect to that part of the project.

We use Sigma and Trello to manage the project, and Slack to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say that Crafting Software are great and calm communicators, and the most impressive thing to me is that they’re willing to go through the ups and downs of our ability to pay them consistently. Their patience, loyalty, and partnership are impressive because not only is it rewarding Localvore, it’s also rewarding them. Being an early-stage startup that has financial constraints and needing to grow revenue is awesome because Crafting Software also benefits from it. We’ve spent a significant amount of money with them, and I can tell they’re really enjoying the product because they believe in our social mission.

We’re currently in a development sprint with them to continue improving the app, and one thing I give them credit for is their flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and their ability to deliver on time. Even if it’s not a perfect MVP, we still have the product and user experience we’re asking for.

I am the CTO, Rezolve of Rezolve Ltd

Mobile Engagements and Commerce Platform

• Hire Competent Engineers
• Achieve Engineering Objectives to Build Quality Tech
• Fulfil business objectives to deliver world class products in market

Referral

Great culture fit, Good value for cost, Referred to me, Company values aligned

2-5 Employees

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

Development of Gateway and Designing of Customer Apps and Portals

• Velocity
• Quality
• Delivery

Good management of time and tickets and deliverables were very much in line with sprint goals and business expectations

Their professionalism and work ethos. Dedication and commitment to work. Deep understanding and experience of their domain knowledge

No

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Delivery Manager for FinTech

For what projects/services did your company hire Crafting Software?

We needed experienced Erlang engineers to manage financial products

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

Via our network we initiated talks and found a good working model

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Confidential

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

Confidential

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

We are looking forward working together for the next years, this is a clear indicator for a good working relationship that benefits all

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very

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

They are very focused on their people and technology

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

Not that i can think of