What was the scope of their involvement?
Danavero Inc. was pretty much our development team. We had frontend developers in the office that worked with them, but Danavero Inc. did the most demanding work on many projects. They have a solid background with different technologies such as PHP, the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP), and .NET. I worked with them on a lot of PHP projects, Drupal websites, and some mobile applications.
One project involved a website for an incubator that promotes young entrepreneurs trying to start a business. Those entrepreneurs would come and submit their ideas through the website. The incubator would then select 10 participants from all the entries. Those participants went to the incubator's office for three months, where they would work together to help entrepreneurs build their startup. The incubator then picked one winner at the end.
It was a very challenging website because we had to integrate with the client’s learning system. We worked with Danavero Inc. on different approaches to the set-up and the plan for success. The client also wanted to be involved, so we built each feature in an agile way so we could show them as they were ready. This workflow gave our client confidence before we launched on a quick turnaround. Finally, the website involved a lot of different integrations. We ended up launching it as well—a sign of the project’s success.
The biggest project we ended up working on with Danavero Inc. was for St. Jude’s, a pediatric hospital. They came to us looking for a website to help fight pediatric cancer. We approached the project with the audience in mind and the desire to give users a journey. Danavero Inc. helped us come up with different ways to accomplish things. The team was involved in the whole approach—including a critical UX component that they understood well—and getting everything up to speed.
Our projects together covered a massive range of website types. Danavero Inc.’s team members were sharp, versatile, and had a broad skill set. However, if they didn’t necessarily have the skill on the team I was working with, they brought in other people. We appreciated their versatility.
What is the team composition?
Danavero Inc. initially set us up with a project manager. However, with the way we work as a team, we felt we didn’t need a project manager on their side. They were an extension of our team, and we worked with them directly.
How did you come to work with Danavero Inc.?
We started with a few different offshore companies with very mixed results. These firms often wanted to be very accommodating in order to get our business. As a result, they always said yes to our projects no matter how difficult the task was, so they often couldn't accomplish the job on time or on budget. We wouldn’t find out until the end when we couldn’t meet our client’s deadline. While that makes you feel good as a client, it isn’t good for business.
We decided to look for a different company. Some people that I had previously collaborated with were familiar with Alex (CEO, Danavero Inc.), who’d worked with those people in the past. We started to work with Danavero Inc., and we immediately noticed an improvement in our results. They weren’t just an outsourcing company where we assigned them work and left them to do it. They integrated into our team, and we treated them as such. When I came to them with work, issues, and challenges, they analyzed the work and the goals I was trying to accomplish. If something I said didn’t make sense, they would come to me with different solutions. Their suggestions gave me so much confidence in their skills that I would invite them to some of our customer meetings. I didn’t do that with past vendors.
How much have you invested in them?
We spent around $500,000 during that time.
What is the status of this engagement?
I worked with them from 2016–2017.
Danavero Inc. successfully migrated the platform on deadline. Praise for their work included their emphasis on quality and attention to detail. They're also effective communicators.