Daylight

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of regulatory affairs at Carbon Solutions Group. We are an environmental commodities company that aggregates and trades solar renewable energy credit (SREC) and a few other renewable resources.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Daylight?

We brought in Daylight to develop a customer-facing web portal and backend software that could be connected to our applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was divided into a few phases. In the beginning, we walked them through how our business works and they collected information from our customers. Then they set up an initial timeline for our app and started development using Bootstrap.

It took six months for the product to be released, but once it was launched, they headed document collection efforts per various regulations. Recently, they’ve been working on an update that will ensure that everything is running smoothly and efficiently.

What is the team composition?

Our team consisted of two developers, a designer and a project manager.

How did you come to work with Daylight?

I wanted to use a local team, so I searched for 3–4 companies within my area. I then provided each company with basic information on the project and they each responded with a proposal. We started the onboarding process with Daylight and one other development company but eventually chose Daylight because they were the best fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested slightly over $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from February 2018– January 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We wouldn’t be able to manage the volume of customers we have now without the software they built for us, so they’ve had a huge impact on our business. I am really impressed with their ability to understand the technical aspects of our business and use that information to design a platform that was tailored specifically to our needs.

How did Daylight perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was really strong. We have bi-weekly in-person meetings with them and constantly are communicating through Slack. They also have an internal project management tool, but I haven’t interacted with it directly.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

The project went well because they took the time to understand the complicated parts of what we do.  

They became self-directed, and were able to address various problems because they knew how it would impact our business. They even read through state documents so they could grasp the 30-step process customers have to go through to register their system with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have wished we could have launched the product sooner, but I know that our company had just as much of an impact on that timeline as they did.  Most of the time things were completed on time, but they occasionally missed a deadline. However, we understand that this was a complicated project, they needed to meet many demands, and we instituted changes as they were building the product.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go through as many aspects of your business with them as you can. Once they understand it well, you should listen to their advice on how things should be structured.