DeftBOX Solutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and manager of masernet, a private limited company in Germany. We provide cybersecurity and machine learning services, and we build products based on these technologies. We’re a startup with four employees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DeftBOX Solutions?

We needed help with natural language processing (NLP), a type of machine learning (ML).

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DeftBOX has taken over a lot of our NLP activities, and they also work on web development. The first part of the project is the development process. The product they’ve helped us create operates on NLP, and the team did most of the frontend and some of the backend development. The next component is data, where they’ve helped us put together a lot of information to create a search engine.

Our main focus is this product, but we also provide services to some larger customers in Germany. Hence, we work with DeftBOX on other AI projects, including a computer vision project.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with six developers from their team. We have a five-person team for the main project and one person for the computer vision project. 

How did you come to work with DeftBOX Solutions?

Dhaval (Founder) and I previously worked at the same company, but we never worked together directly. My co-founder told me about DeftBOX, so I asked a few of our former coworkers about Dhaval. It was a mix of fate, networking, and platforms like Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

The total spend so far is €20,000–€50,000 (approximately $34,000–$60,000).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with DeftBOX in December 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The engagement has gone very well so far. They’ve delivered everything we’ve asked for, especially in the ML project. 

How did DeftBOX Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m fully satisfied with our working relationship. The tools we use are Jira, Bitbucket, and Confluence. We track tasks in Jira, but we’re also doing a lot of experimenting — we don’t follow the traditional agile method. Everything is documented, and DeftBOX follows our processes without any issues.

Initially, they had some difficulty understanding the project scope; however, we ended up on the same page after a bit of communication. That was the best thing that could’ve happened because we ended up understanding each other better.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The communication is impressive. I’ve been in IT for 20 years, so I've worked with people from all over the world — communication is usually my biggest issue with foreign companies. However, DeftBOX’s communication skills are exceptional. It was easy to get to know each other and make things work.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve had some issues on the frontend side, but it was minor. I’ve had an outstanding experience with them, which is why I’m giving this feedback.