DataForest

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a software development company that provides people with a tool to help them discover trending products and services in the e-commerce space.

What challenge were you trying to address with DataForest?

We needed someone to provide us with custom software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

DataForest is helping us build and develop a custom software solution based on our designs. They utilize open-source software and other development tools such as Python and React.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager, QA specialist, front- and backend developers, two data engineers, a data scientist, and a DevOps engineer.

How did you come to work with DataForest?

I came across DataForest through Upwork and decided to hire them based on the services they were offering.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested about $460,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in August 2020.

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

In terms of development, they’ve been consistently building everything we’ve asked them to without any issues. If we experience any problems, they come back to us with good recommendations on how the project can be improved.

How did DataForest perform from a project management standpoint?

The team is highly efficient from a process and project management perspective, as they don’t waste a lot of our resources when it comes to resolving issues with minimal intervention from us.

For every tool we want to build, they send us an estimate and breakdown of all the tasks, and put them up on JIRA along with the timelines. Moreover, we typically communicate through Slack and weekly phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with how they’re able to utilize their resources to deliver all of our requests.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One thing they could improve on is their approach to communication. They could be more efficient but other than that, everything else is good.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

To get the most out of your engagement with DataForest, I would advise you to provide them with detailed information and requirements.

Introduce your business and what you do there? 

I’m a product manager at BikeClub, a children’s bike subscription provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with DataForest?

We wanted to migrate our platform to make it more compatible with other systems.

What was the scope of their involvement?

DataForest initially cleaned up our data storage to ensure that only an integral database would be processed. Upon accomplishing that phase, they migrated our existing React platform to Salesforce.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a data scientist, a data analyst, a product manager, and a tester.

How did you come to work with DataForest?

We posted a hiring ad via Upwork, which their team responded to. DataForest had the Salesforce knowledge and experience we were looking for, and they also offered their services at a reasonable price.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $12,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration ran from July–October 2021. 

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

Apart from successfully cleaning up all the data that we wanted to eliminate, DataForest curated our orders and subscriptions with an 85% accuracy rate.

How did DataForest perform from a project management perspective?

We communicated via Slack and periodic meetings. Despite DataForest's occupied schedule and our time zone differences, they collaborated effectively with us and completed the project on time.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

DataForest's Salesforce expertise was well reflected in their deliverables. They developed solutions that brought value to our business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We would've appreciated more frequent meetings to make more room for questions and clarifications.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set clear requirements, start the project on time, and trust DataForest's expertise.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of an automotive product manufacturer.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dataforest?

We needed their data management services for our marketing needs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dataforest has been helping us deploy our marketing efforts on data-reliant marketing platforms by conducting data mining services. Their team regularly monitors, extracts, and accumulates data that we can utilize across our campaigns. Once they submit their findings through an Excel file, I filter those according to our needs and edit the copyright details, product descriptions, and titles before integrating them into our Amazon account.

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is Vlad (Co-Owner).

How did you come to work with Dataforest?

I knew Vlad since he was still working as a freelancer and decided to keep engaging him and his team when he formed Dataforest.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent about $30,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?
Our ongoing engagement started in June 2014.

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

As with any data-centric engagement, my main success metric for Dataforest’s work is its accuracy. Our long-term partnership only proves that Vlad’s team is highly capable of delivering error-free and organized data lines, which enable us to acquire reliable product details for our Amazon platform.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Dataforest’s services are worth every penny — they deliver efficient results on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything that needs improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be communicative and transparent. Vlad’s team accommodates any requests and addresses issues professionally.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product for a company that monitors the consumer web to understand fraudulent behavior online. We help our customers make intelligent decisions from a cybersecurity perspective, returning a variety of score signals and additional data to help them decide whether they should allow people to authenticate and gain access to sensitive information.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dataforest?

We worked with Dataforest on the re-architecture of our platform that ingests high volumes of data every single day.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project entailed building a high-performance computing platform that could process large amounts and data, with machine learning to top it all off. Dataforest helped us build derivative values around features to inform our customers off of that and create an API that could handle and respond to requests within 100 milliseconds. 

The team also helped us meet our customers’ requirements, playing a very important role as our technology partner. They took ownership over most of the data engineering and solved a lot of challenges to be able to build our needed infrastructure.

What is the team composition?

There are people floating in and out of the project but I’d say there are 5–6 people who are consistently working with us. These people are CPython developers, data scientists, and infrastructure specialists. 

How did you come to work with Dataforest?

We posted a listing in Upwork and looked for someone who had a familiarity and deep understanding of building the type of system we were after. Dataforest was one of the agencies that applied so we decided to work with them not just on the architectural aspect, but also on the modeling and data science aspect of the project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2021 and the partnership is still ongoing.

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

We wouldn’t have been able to build a system without Dataforest. Their team has come up with new approaches that I believe are patentable, and these have made a crucial impact on the success of our initial product launch last June 2021. We haven’t thought about replacing them and hiring new people as that will exponentially cost more and take a lot of time. 

How did Dataforest perform from a project management standpoint?

For the most part, Dataforest has exceeded our expectations. We’ve had a hiccup at one point in the project, but we’ve found a really good way to remediate it and it hasn’t occurred again since. Of the agencies that we’ve worked with, I would say that they are in the top percentile from a delivery perspective. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Through the years of outsourcing work, we’ve found that it costs a lot of time and resources to replace individuals or agencies that have become familiar with our system but suddenly disappear. Thus far, we’ve not encountered this problem with Dataforest. 

Even when they were impacted by COVID-19, they’ve provided backup resources who were just as adept with the system. It has helped us meet the deadlines. They’ve established a good internal overlap system that ensures their continued performance even when things happen within their company. 

Another interesting thing about them is that they have very intelligent people on their team — people that I would gladly hire and pay for myself if they were based in my country. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Even though there are some problems encountered, none of them are ongoing challenges and some can be mitigated with a bit of maintenance. This feedback is more for them and less about them —  since they are expanding their specialized IT services, we are pretty excited to see the direction that they’re headed in. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Web scraping, competitive analysis, and similar projects are very easy to tackle for Dataforest. They have a lot of resources for it. However, if you’re looking to work with them on a more challenging project, I would recommend that you set your goals and know exactly what you want. They’ll totally be able to innovate solutions for you.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner and founder of Little Giant Marketing. I help insurance agencies automate their business by implementing custom software that will increase production and efficiencies.

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

My clients' employees wasted too much time following up with the large volume of real-time internet leads. This created large overhead, lack of employee ROI, and lower employee morale because of time chasing leads.

Our other challenge was reporting. We needed all of our different software applications to speak to each other. Originally all reporting and accountability were handled manually. When managed manually, things can be noticed too late.

How did you select Dataforest and what were the deciding factors?

I respected their experience and after interviewing a few vendors, I felt the best rapport with Dataforest and excited about their extended services other than software development.

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

Our initial goal was to build an AI in amazon web services that could handle the intake of all of our leads.

We didn't know how this was going to be possible but after multiple brainstorm sessions, we found an efficient way to create our first lead BOT. AWS needed to integrate with our telelphony (Twilio) and with our CRM (Infusionsoft).

After a few months, we had a working BOT that was able to schedule calls and send request to the sales team. Now that the intake was handle, it was time to look at more advanced automation reporting for the Sales Teams.

How can we see sales trends, conversion rate trends, and a better way to sms prospects? Dataforest was able to design a very attractive AI for the sales reps. This created more productivity for the reps immediately as well as a better experience for our customers.

Next was designing our reporting hub, so we are making educated decisions based on real-time data across all our software: We integrated our customer portal so we can link the customer revenue with the sales rep. This helped us create extremely robust reporting in QuickSight within AWS.

Now, we continue to evolve integrations and most importantly, my clients reporting.

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

I had one main contact, Vlad Zinchenko.

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

All projects were delivered on time and continue to monitor to make sure any initial bugs were handled right away. I really appreciated the extra time Dataforest took to handle our last-minute requests, changes, and questions.

It was also extremely helpful Dataforest provided detailed documentation both for training and infrastructure reference.

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

It's never a concern to get in contact with Dataforest which made it easy to keep the ball rolling on all fronts. Their project management is extremely organized which is very important. I was giving multiple communication methods.

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

Their level of creativity stands out from any other development company. They require to know the business process and goal for every project. This shows their dedication to thinking thoroughly through ideas and solutions.

We also never ran into any roadblocks. We were able to put all of our ideas into action. This displayed the wide variety of skills the Dataforest team can provide.

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

There's nothing I can think of except maybe providing me with updated company services. I know Dataforest has a great resume but I hope I'm not missing out on any other services we could be working on together.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

At Sweetspot, our goal is to make data science affordable for all Marketers. We developed a segmentation platform for small–medium-sized agencies that enables them to leverage advanced segmentation schemes easily into Marketing campaigns for their end clients. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Dataforest?

As a former Data Science Executive, I have had access to many data scientists. However, Sweetspot is a bootstrap startup, and finding affordable data scientists in the U.S. was challenging even with my deep network.  We needed to do a lot of advanced programming and analytics but on a startup budget. It was NOT financially viable for us to build our platform using US-based data science and development talent so we began looking at offshore options.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially hired Dataforest to program algorithms and models for our platform.   The first couple of projects that Dataforest worked on was within this scope. They took in large amounts of data and used various analytic techniques to build models and produce consumable outputs for use in our platform.

Dataforest has done such a great job for us that they have now become a trusted resource and partner in pretty much all aspects of the data, technical and analytic functions of our business.   

Recently we also add Dataforest’s technical project management and process documentation capabilities to the list of projects that we retain them for.  As our business grows and our demand for these expertise increases, we are confident that they are the right resource for our longer-term success.

What is the team composition?

To date, we’ve worked with four team members, including Aleksandr and Vlad (Partners & Co-Owners, Dataforest) and two developers/programmers.

How did you come to work with Dataforest?

I looked at and interviewed multiple contractors and outsource companies, but when I interviewed Vlad at Dataforest it was evident that he knew exactly what I was needing and also was able to illustrate real examples of similar/relevant work that they had done to assure me that they were experts in the areas where I needed help. Vlad also offered up great ideas and recommendations that they felt would best serve our objectives.

How much have you invested with them?

To date, we have engaged in multiple projects as well as monthly retainer hours for ad-hoc work and project management.  We are on pace to engage in $40,000–$50,000 in project work over a 12-month window.  They have been very flexible with us and taken on projects that have lasted several months and as short as 1 week. They are also very flexible on billing and have allowed us to do both flat hourly rate work as well as project-based work.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work together began in November 2018, and it’s ongoing.   We now consider them a critical part of our business and look at them as our “Team in the Ukraine."

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

Our business would not be where it is right now if we hadn’t found Dataforest. Every step of the way, they’ve proven more and more competent; every time I push them, they step up and deliver. 

How did Dataforest perform from a project management standpoint?

When we have new projects, my team presents to them what we want to do, and Dataforest provides a quote and timeframe. They’re very dependable about timing, which has allowed me to sell future state software products to clients and beta clients. They not only hit their deadlines but also provide amazing customer service. They usually respond right away, despite the time difference.  We use their Project Management services and I believe this almost ensures that we are getting things done on time and on budget. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve hired and trained a lot of analysts, and Dataforest is as good as, if not better than most of the talent I have worked within the U.S.

They produce excellent quality of work and are proactive in addressing issues before they become problems. They communicate very well and are not afraid to ask clarifying questions before they spend time (and money).  We have had no rework situations with them in the past 13 months.

We were a little concerned before we started with them that the time difference might limit our access to the team, but I don’t think these guys sleep! They are exceptionally responsive and even overnight communications never go unanswered for more than a few hours. We use Slack to communicate and there have been no issues.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think the only potential challenge for somebody working with Dataforest is the same as with any offshore company. Using companies where employees' first language is not English does require you to be a bit more diligent about requirements and selective of the words you use.  In our experience with Dataforest the programmers we have worked with speak excellent English and are very easy to communicate with. In fact, many of them are multi-lingual and this recently enabled us to pick up work for a new client in Latin America because our analyst Iulia (Data Scientist, Dataforest) was able to understand the data fields that were in Spanish!  So the language difference has not been an issue for us.

Any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend Dataforest with two recommendations. First, have your project laid out in terms of what you want to accomplish... what is your end goal with some details on the specifics.  Second, don’t over-engineer the requirements. Dataforest’s team is really good at listening to what you’re trying to achieve. They’re really talented at problem-solving with advanced technology solutions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an e-commerce company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dataforest?

We wanted to get a competitive advantage over other companies in the e-commerce space.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dataforest created a reporting tool and web platform that lets us know when our supplier is selling items at a discount. We can take advantage of that information to get money from our supplier or to list products at reduced prices compared to our competitors. We no longer have to check these sources manually.

What is the team composition?

We have one point of contact with a team leader. I’m not sure how many people have been involved in our projects.

How did you come to work with Dataforest?

I found Dataforest on Upwork. They responded quickly to our job posting, and after a quick interview, I felt that they were in the best position to help me with my project. Since then, Dataforest exceeded my expectations. We've been working ever since. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration started in August 2018 and is ongoing.

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

In 2019, we earned an extra $150,000 in profit from the information Dataforest’s work provides us. I really enjoy working with Dataforest and the products they’ve delivered. They’ve allowed us to grow our business exponentially, and I now consider them a long-term strategic partner in my business.

How did Dataforest perform from a project management standpoint?

Dataforest is highly responsive to all our requests and executes them within our budget and timelines. We’re very impressed with their work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Dataforest’s technical knowledge is unparalleled. They come up with creative working solutions to some of the most challenging issues we face in the business. Their honesty, transparency, and response time to our business needs also impress me. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would say that Dataforest needs to improve their project management in terms of communication. Otherwise, I’m happy with their work and hope to continue working with them for a long time.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you know exactly what you want from Dataforest. Have a clear plan in place, and make sure you follow it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Home decor e-tailer.

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

We hired them several times. Once to create API connections between certain marketplaces and our inventory and shipping software. Again later to automate some internal processes that involve Google Sheets and our shipping software. And we have plans for another internal automation.

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

We found Alex on Upwork.com. We believed him to be the most professional of the candidates we met there, and his pricing, while not the least expensive, seemed fair.

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

If I knew the technologies used, I'd have done it myself. This is outside my ability to answer.

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

I believe three, though I only dealt with Alex. Alex seems to serve as Project Manager, and we had at least one developer working on our job.

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

The end result is that the integrations worked to save us a lot of time. It added up to a somewhat large amount of money to have it all done, but ultimately after less than a year, it will have paid for itself in time saved. I was on the verge of needing another full-time employee to keep up with data entry, and the APIs and scripts he nd his team wrote eliminated that need.

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

Considering there's like a 10 hour time difference from the East Coast of America to the Ukraine, communication was surprisingly easy. We mostly used the Upwork texting system, plus Zoom calls with screen-share as needed. For the most part, I found the timeliness of his delivery to be on point.

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

Probably the communication. I never felt like I was being strung along, unable to reach someone quickly to report issues.

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

Nothing worth mentioning.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm executive chairman of Intellidex. We have operations in South Africa, UK and USA providing research and consulting services in financial services and capital markets.

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

We wanted to develop a customer-facing app that allows for analysis of vast amounts of data about banks. The goal was to create a MVP that we could take out to the market that demonstrated value in the data analytics.

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

We found them through UpWork and after some initial discussions and reviewing previous work we were confident they could handle the assignment.

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

We wanted a web-native app that scraped data and then allowed users to develop time series from the data and run various operations to present it graphically or download. The project went through a few iterations and testing rounds for the interface and engine.

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

We dealt primarily with one member of the team.

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

While we are just at the start of taking the result to market, we are comfortable that we have a good product that will get traction.

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

They were on time and turned around requests quickly. In our project it was us that cause delays rather than Dataforest.

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

They've had a quick grasp of what we are trying to do and delivered to our spec without a fuss.

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

There were early iterations that missed some of the features that we wanted, but this was addressed quickly in subsequent iterations.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Columb Auto Trade provides access to US auto auctions with its exclusive dealer level access. We will provide registration and broker services to foreign brokers to Copart, IAA, Manheim, Adesa and other auctions. Columb Auto Trade specializes in international auto and machinery shipping using containerized and Flat Rack delivery.

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

We had no integration with our main data providers so Dataforst made several integrations, create platform for in-house data management and on top of that built web and mobile platforms for our wholesale and retail clients.

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

They were advised to us. The main factors were speed of development , delivery quality and commitment from the vendor side

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

Initially we had requirements only for software integration services , however after another developer can’t deliver B2B portal we asked Dataforest to help us with that development. After we increase scope for mobile application and ultimately we asked for another B2B portal for our side business.

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

There were around 6 people on Dataforest side , data engineer ,several frontend and backend developer , project manager . Also big part of business analysis were done by Aleksandr - company Managing Partner who advise a lot and make development process more efficient.

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

We are happy for what the Dataforest developed for us.

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

They use an agile approach and have a significant level of communication. Meet timelines

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

We are impressed with the expertise level and speed of development.

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

We are good with the process we are having now.