Devfortress

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a Communications Advisor at a world class university, managing communications projects for a variety of topics and audiences, including student health and wellness.

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

Our on-campus clinic is limited in its offerings and can't meet the health and wellness needs of all our students. Since many come from other cities and countries, we needed a streamlined and simple way for our students to find off-campus health and wellness supports available to them, with detailed information and filters so they could easily filter results based on what their needs were, what their insurance covered, etc.

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

Not applicable

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

All aspects of building, hosting, and publishing an online map tool were handled, from domain creation to migration to creating/managing filters to building an administrative intervace. 

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

We worked only with one team member (the business owner). 

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

All project components were created and launched exactly as requested. Business owner was very accessible and communicative throughout the process. 

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

We had regular meetings to check in on the project, and frequent email communication to ensure our requests and needs were clear. 

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

They were always quick to deliver and respond and were extremely reliable and pleasant to work with. 

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

Not to my recollection. We had no complaints. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO and founder of Social Shopper Inc. Social Shopper enables friends and family to shop together online. By using a single CoCard, everyone can add a product, vote on what to buy, and make a purchase.

What challenge were you trying to address with Devfortress?

We needed someone to help improve our website’s search functionality and API integration.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our website was custom-made, but the team that I had previously worked with wasn’t able to complete its development. As a result, our search functionality was all over the place — the website would show completely unrelated results for every product search. 

Shao Hang (Software Consultant) stepped in to help me finish that specific aspect of the site with UX and user-friendliness in mind. The Devfortress team made improvements to the search feature’s keyword recognition feature and integrated APIs from Walmart and AWIN, since our revenue model comes from affiliate marketing.

What is the team composition?

There were multiple people that worked on the project, but Shao Hang was our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Devfortress?

I found them online by searching on Google and LinkedIn.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent under $5,000; Devfortress was very generous.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around February–March 2022. They have finished the first project, but I intend to continue working with them because I like their team.

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

Devfortress has understood what I wanted to accomplish in terms of functionality and design. They’ve done an awesome job at making our website more user-friendly.

How did Devfortress perform from a project management standpoint?

Our communications have been really excellent. I don’t have to wait very long every time I reach out to Devfortress — they respond very quickly. It also helps that they’re not overseas or in a different timezone.

We use Trello for project management and Slack for quick messaging. We also have bi-weekly Zoom meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Devfortress is very good when it comes to advising their clients on the development of the whole website. They are very trustworthy, and working with them has saved me a lot of money.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive feedback, but I really wish I had met them earlier. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I personally gained a lot from communicating with Devfortress over Zoom, so I think you will benefit a lot from doing the same. Those meetings have helped us understand each other’s needs more quickly as well as openly exchange advice.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a startup marketplace looking to support local economies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Devfortress?

We initially started developing our platform on a different code, but it wasn’t going very well. Thus, I hired Devfortress to redevelop the code and build a new structure for our platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Devfortress has helped us develop our platform’s MVP. It is coded in JavaScript and uses the React.js framework on the frontend, as well as MongoDB on the backend for the database. We’ve also used InDesign to create the UI.

Initially, we provided them with a wireframe structure so that they knew what pages and features they needed to build. We’ve tested the platform as they’ve been building it to provide feedback about what was working and what wasn’t. Currently, it has no bugs, and we’re almost done with the project.

The premise of our platform is to serve as a marketplace for local retailers. Instead of having enormous warehouses like the important e-commerce industry leaders, we would aggregate the inventory of local stores into one master inventory, allowing local businesses to compete with these big companies. The platform, based on location, aggregates local store inventories so that people looking for certain products can find who sells them in their community at the best price. It offers the same shopping experience as the big brands, so people can shop with the same level of comfort while supporting their local businesses.

What is the team composition?

Shao (Software Consultant) has been our main point of contact, acting as the project manager.

How did you come to work with Devfortress?

I met Devfortress on YCombinator, a startup accelerator that helps startups network with professionals. Initially, I was looking for a technical co-founder and found Shao. Although he didn’t become a co-founder, we decided to sign a service agreement with his company for the development project.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent around $17,000 CAD (approximately $13,500 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2021, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

So far, the project has gone really well. When I started working on this project, I had a very clear vision of the platform and the functionalities I wanted on it. So far, Devfortress has demonstrated a great ability to deliver on every single one of my requirements; that’s how I’ve measured success.

How did Devfortress perform from a project management standpoint?

Devfortress has stuck to budget wonderfully, and their communication is perfect. I communicate with Shao regularly, and he’s always available, returning my calls and emails within minutes and attending our weekly Google Meet meetings on time. In addition to calls and emails, we use GitHub as the repository, a Trello board to manage the project, and Slack to communicate.

Regarding scheduling, I first thought that the project would be faster. However, there have been a lot of iterations and corrections, so it has taken longer than expected. Still, this situation is normal in development projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Devfortress genuinely cares about their client’s projects. They’ve gone above and beyond for my project, doing things they’re not supposed to do. For example, they’ve actually helped me find the first customer who is going to test the platform. Shao proactively reached out to one of his friends who owns a couple of retail stores focused on locally sourced products and talked to them about being our beta tester once we deployed the platform. Additionally, although I already paid Shao the total amount for the development work, he still attends our weekly meetings to answer questions from our team and help them finalize certain functionalities.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be great if Devfortress’s communication with non-technical people were more detailed. Initially, I told them what I needed, they gave me an estimate, and we agreed on the price. However, what I requested included certain other elements in my mind.

I’ve read that it is a common mistake for non-technical people to expect an MVP with a lot more functionality than what an MVP actually has, which is just the core of the product. Thus, Devfortress could improve their communication when setting expectations for other non-technical clients, detailing what their project would encompass and what would be unnecessary to develop at that point.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Devfortress is very engaging, so have a collaborative relationship with them and ask for what you want in detail. The more detailed you are with your requirements, the better you can align your expectations with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a custom software development company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Devfortress?

Our company was contracted to develop web-based custom software. The solution was to handle remittances from employers purchasing health and welfare benefits and retirement funds for their employees. Devfortress came in to help with development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Devfortress is helping us with extra development and adding features to the software. They’ve provided us with more resources to speed up the development work. I’m in charge of the project, supervising them, assigning them tasks, and reviewing their work.

We’re using Bootstrap and Vue.js for the frontend and some server-side templates such as Thymeleaf. On the backend, we’re using the Spring Framework and Hibernate. Meanwhile, we use PostgreSQL for the database, and the whole product runs on Tomcat. 

The Devfortress team has helped build screens to calculate remittances and configure work agreements and employer and employee settings. They’ve also worked on integrating the product with Microsoft Dynamics 365’s CRM software. They contacted the CRM team developing the third-party product, learned the API, and wrote a bridging piece that can listen for remittances coming from the product and send them to the CRM system. 

Another company has taken over development, and Devfortress is still contracted to supply development work for the product.

What is the team composition?

Shao (Software Consultant) is our main point of contact. At first, he did most of the development work himself, and now he’s acting as a manager and offloading the work to several junior positions.

How did you come to work with Devfortress?

Devfortress got the contract directly from our customer. Although I wasn’t part of the interview process,  I was asked to provide input on their credentials. 

How much have you invested with them?

So far, the project has cost under $200,000. They invoice the customer directly.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2019. I’m phasing out of the project, and another developer has taken over the contract. However, Devfortress’ involvement in the project is ongoing.

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

Devfortress generally delivers on time or within reasonable time expectations. Their biggest forte is that they can work independently; they learned the library and existing code well. Whenever there’s new technology involved or something they’ve never done before, I’m confident they can figure out a way to make it work. For example, they worked independently on the CRM integration and learned to use Vue.js. 

Since there’s a lot of R&D involved, it’s hard to calculate metrics on their performance. However, they’re very good at finding solutions, though they might not always be the best solutions. I’m ever a perfectionist, so I’m 90% satisfied with their work overall. Ultimately, Devfortress has exceeded my expectations; I’m very impressed by how independent they are and their low overhead. 

How did Devfortress perform from a project management standpoint?

They meet our expectations in terms of project management. We have a Slack channel and use video conferencing for communication and meetings every two weeks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Devfortress is very resourceful and can tackle challenges with very low overhead from a management perspective. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve from a communication perspective. Although they’ve gotten better at it, they should give more frequent updates. This is a downside of their independence because they sometimes make decisions when they should ask for guidance.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to establish the rules straight away. Devfortress sticks to the agreement to the letter, and they don’t necessarily give a lot of leeway beyond it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Co-Founder, COO, and former Co-CEO of a software solutions company. We provide brands and retailers with a sales-boosting solution for sales associates to improve their in-store sales.

What challenge were you trying to address with Devfortress?

We were in the early stages of building a marketing and storytelling website. We were building this site on Webflow because it enabled us to implement drag and drop customization. However, we wanted to build the site further to improve and evolve our program, for which we required web developers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Devfortress helped us improve our website by adding blogs and new pages, incorporating some of our marketing and storytelling features into it, building a great automation process, and helping us with our dual language setup. In general terms, they worked with us on several frontend development projects to help this Webflow project become a highly functional website.

Among other changes that Devfortress made to our website were adding carousels to help with logos and our value proposition storytelling. These carousels were implemented one on our retailers’ page, another one on our brand page, and two different ones on our home page. They also restructured the website so that it had a better flow and added different effects to the buttons and dropdown menus. Additionally, they provided us with maintenance services for a little while afterward.

What is the team composition?

Shao (Founder) was our main point of contact, and he had a team of 2–3 people behind him working on the project.

How did you come to work with Devfortress?

I posted a job offer on a Facebook technology startup community group, asking for web designers and developers, and Shao responded very quickly. We connected, met for a coffee, and took it from there. What made me decide to work with them was that Shao was very responsive.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent less than $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–September 2018.

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

Devfortress delivered on time and within budget, helping us launch when we wanted to launch; that was how we measured their success. Initially, we went into the project thinking that they would help us with small Webflow changes, but ultimately, they helped us improve our site more than we thought. We were very satisfied with their work, and they exceeded our expectations.

How did Devfortress perform from a project management standpoint?

Devfortress was prompt, affordable, communicative, honest, and timely. Throughout the project, we had regular phone calls and occasional meetings. Additionally, we communicated via email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Devfortress was impressively responsive and adaptive. They had never worked with Webflow before, although they knew the basics. Still, they were very keen to learn it and quickly adapt to our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only challenge we faced was the language barrier. We had issues with our communication, but they didn’t cause problems when working together. The challenge was that we didn’t understand clearly during our phone calls, but we resolved it by switching to sending emails to have everything written down.

I’ve known that Devfortress’ English domain has improved drastically over the last couple of years; it would have been great if they had improved their English back then.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Meet with them and ensure that your requirements are clearly laid down. Devfortress does a great job at following instructions, so they’ll definitely help you build what you need.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the president of an organization whose goal was to market and develop software that could help lawyers manage their transactions. I coordinated with the sales and marketing teams to sign clients. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Devfortress?

Devfortress helped us build our legal software. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Devfortress team helped us with everything tech-related. They developed the web app and created our web page, working on both the front- and backend of everything. They mainly used Java and HTML to do these. We had input in everything they did for the project, including the colors and shades of the app and website. The team simply executed ideas for us.

In terms of core functionalities, the app helped users track their deadlines and make them transparent. We knew that lawyers would use a lot of agenda tools to keep track of their transactions. They’d had a period of negotiation, a period for drafting documents, a period for finalizing documents, a period for transferring funds, and more. As a result, we wanted to streamline that process and give everyone involved in the deal the same view of the timeline. We wanted to give them whatever could help them visualize the dates and objectives of the transaction. 

What is the team composition?

Our main points of contact were Tom (COO) and Shao (Software Consultant). We met with them 4–5 times throughout the project to keep track of what had been accomplished and what we still needed to do. Tom and Shao also liaised between us and the developers, helping us know what was and wasn’t possible in the project. There were also 2–3 other teammates working on the project almost full-time. 

How did you come to work with Devfortress?

I met Shao back in the university while I was studying economics a long time ago. He had since been in my network, and he was a truly straightforward person. He worked well, so when I came up with the idea of this web app, I called him. One thing led to another, and we started working together. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $20,000–$50,000 CAD (approximately $16,000–$40,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from September 2018–February 2019.

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

Unfortunately, the project was discontinued. In any case, our co-founders — including me — were happy with what Devfortress delivered to us. There was never any issue with our budget or timing, and we were truly satisfied with the quality of their work. 

In fact, we used the beta version of the software to do demonstrations in our network. We asked people to criticize it and give us ideas on what we could do better. Yet, everyone was surprised with the time that Devfortress took to deliver such great results. Overall, the app did everything we asked for, and all functionalities we requested were working. 

How did Devfortress perform from a project management standpoint?

We spent nights together to go over the project so we could explain to Devfortress how lawyers worked. The team was truly receptive to our comments, and they responded well. For instance,  we told them that many lawyers weren’t tech-savvy, so the app shouldn’t take more than a minute to understand; it should be self-explanatory. Given that, they created the app in a straightforward way. There’s weren’t many useless buttons. Overall, they adapted quickly to our needs, and we were truly happy about that. 

To communicate, we used essentially everything. We exchanged emails and had a Facebook group chat at some point. As a result, we ensured that everyone was on the same page. We also used phone calls and text messages, where Shao and I bounced ideas off of each other. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The closeness and transparency of the engagement were impressive. Every step of the way, we knew exactly what to expect. Other developers would confidently take our project, but they’d come back 1–2 months later with something completely different from what we wanted. By contrast, Devfortress continuously followed up with us to ensure that what they were doing was essential to us. They understood the task perfectly, and that was their most important quality. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there weren’t any. Everything they did was good; the project was discontinued for business reasons that had nothing to do with the web app. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open about your needs and explain them to the Devfortress team continually. Needs evolve, so you should talk to developers regularly and give them feedback. If you don’t give them feedback, they won’t know if they’re in the right direction or not. It takes two to tango — in order for them to do a good job, you must give them specific instructions all the time. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a professor at McGill University and I direct funded research projects.

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

DevFortress assisted with the development of an intelligent tutoring system, Bioworld. The system is used to teach medical students clinical reasoning. DevFortress assisted with ongging appropriate student actions, linking online library search tracking, administrator user dashboards.

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

Recommended by professors and companies he worked with prior to joining our lab.

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

Worked with the ATLAS lab https://www.mcgill.ca/atlas-lab/ in stabilizing BioWorld, an ITS. He worked with a programmer and 6 graduate students to ensure the system bugs were remedied. DevFortress assisted in logging appropriate student actions, linking online library searches to student models, tracking, administrator user dashboards, implementing dynamic surveys.

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

One, Shao Hang He. He is the president of the company and lead programmer.

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

DevFortress accomplished all of the deliverables in a timely manner. The software ran efficiently and didn't crash.

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

Excellent communicator, always punctual, proactive in reaching other team members when he needed further information to complete the project. Excellent team player and got the jobs down in a timely manner.

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

They got the job done accurately and efficiently.

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

no.