Devsu

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of eFiscal Networks. We have been in existence for at least 15 years and we provide software solutions for different industries. We also offer several applications such as:

• Student Debt Solutions for student debt relief;
• Consumer Debt Counselors for credit counseling agencies; and
• Progressive Debt Relief to support debt settlement activities.

What challenge were you trying to address with Devsu?

We needed additional development resources who could work with us on a flexible schedule, so we hired Devsu. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Devsu has provided full stack and frontend software developers who cover the main focus of our development projects. They’ve also provided project management services along with those resources. 

We’re an agile development shop so we go through different sprints. We first define the software development requirements before relaying these to the Devsu development team. They would then determine how to best tackle the project within our own development environment. The team does the coding together with my on-site developers, so they’ve essentially augmented our internal team.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with as many as three people from Devsu, but we’re currently only working with two. We may require more resources but that remains to be seen as we have yet to figure out where we're going with our applications. 

How did you come to work with Devsu?

When I began looking for outsourced developers last year, we went to a couple of different companies including Devsu. At that point, we had already known about them because our headquarters are on the outskirts of Orlando where they’re located. We compared the skills, caliber, price, and availability of our options, and ended up working with Devsu.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership began in January 2021 and is still ongoing.

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

There are always some issues when developing software, but we haven't encountered a lot of those with Devsu. We see good quality results during routine product testing. There is no significant amount of work that needs to be done because Devsu has been able to implement our requirements proficiently and punctually. I haven't had problems with missed deadlines and we've been on target with our sprints. 

We've also found it very convenient that they operate in Central Standard Time since we’re able to communicate in real-time and work together fluently. Even though there's a language barrier between us, there have been no problems with their spoken or written communication either. They’re well able to expand and translate our requirements into code.

How did Devsu perform from a project management standpoint?

Though I don't have the statistics to demonstrate it, they've been really good at managing their team, the relationship, and the projects. They’re very easy to work with. 

We've been able to not only work with a team but also adjust our staffing as our needs change. If I’m in need of a specific skill set, I’m able to change or augment personnel from Devsu very easily. They're constantly available and are like regular members of my team.

We communicate over Slack on a regular basis. We also use Azure and Jira to build our requirements and assign responsibilities based on our sprints. I have calls with the account manager once a week and correspond multiple times a day with the development team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What I like about Devsu is that they have skilled people who operate at a very aggressive cost. What made us really go with their team is their skill set, their price, and their flexibility. They're willing to work with us to evolve the project and bring it from the development phase to the QA phase, and then to the release phase.

I didn't necessarily know all of my needs at the beginning of the project, but Devsu has worked with me without locking me into a long-term agreement, allowing for a level of flexibility as we collaborate. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I’ve been pretty pleased with their work and we’ve had no problems with the partnership at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It's critical to have regular communication with the team to keep everything on track. Every vendor-partner relationship could benefit from using the tools that we use to establish a good working relationship.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Spearpoint Solutions is creating a piece of software for personal injury law firms. My role as one of the co-founders was to help build the entity on the operations side. I’ve helped things set up so that we could go to market. At this point, I consider myself the operations manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Devsu?

We were looking to scale up our development team. Bringing on someone in-house would require quite a bit of money and potentially equity, so we opted to look for outsourced services. We wanted a partner who could provide development work while, at the same time, also allowing us to be price sensitive. 

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Devsu has been a key player in helping us deliver our MVP. It’s a solution that would allow personal injury law firms to manage their intake, help with marketing attribution, and create workflow automation tools to increase sign-up rates. The software is built on .NET Core, and the frontend is Angular 7. 

They provide us with both front- and backend developers who work with our CTO to build the app. It’s mostly web development. They’ve assisted with creating webhooks and endpoints so that we can have an open API, and they’ve also connected various applications that we were trying to integrate with. Finally, they’ve helped with some of our UI designs. 

What is the team composition? 

The people that we have on our team are very knowledgeable and capable of doing what we need them to do. We have a frontend developer, a backend developer, and a project manager. Anytime you’re doing software development, it’s always helpful to have a middleman who can bridge the back-and-forth. At one point, we had a designer come on for about 20 hours.  

How did you come to work with Devsu?

We explored software development options in Ukraine, India, Pakistan, and Russia. However, the issue with those locations is the time difference.

I then got a referral from a business owner for whom I have a lot of respect. He mentioned that Devsu operated out of Central America, so we vetted them and spoke with their clients. Devsu quickly got a solid understanding of our product, defined what our end goal would look like, and really helped us map out an MVP. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $100,000–$120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June of 2019, and the engagement is ongoing. We’ve scaled down a bit to just the frontend developer since most of the backend work was completed.

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

There were some initial concerns on our end. We didn’t know what we were going to get when working with a third-party. Our vision was essentially being created by someone we’d never see face-to-face.

But, we’ve been blown away by their work ethic. They’re fantastic. Not only do they do the things that we ask them to do, but they also provide other insights into how we can solve business problems. That’s what I’ve been most pleased with.

For example, they might explain to us why a certain approach won’t work because they can see that we’re going to run into scaling issues once we onboard more than 10 clients. It’s those little things that allow us to gain a better understanding of what we don’t know yet.

How did Devsu perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed well. Looking back, I don’t think we leveraged our project manager in the way that we should have. There are potentially some opportunities for improvement there, however, I put that more on myself. I’ve learned a lot more about how to work with them effectively through their project manager.

As for their style, they’re obviously very familiar with agile methodologies. We use Kanban boards and Microsoft Visual Studio. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were initially trying to get someone to complete user stories and add features to our web app. What we actually got was someone who could bring in new ideas to improve our software.

Additionally, we were very happy with the cost of services for a vendor within our time zone. We were locked into a six-month commitment in the beginning, but it allowed us to get two developers for the price of a resource in the US.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

It might be beneficial if they increased their selection of candidates. We only saw a few resumes, which ended up working out well for us. But, I would’ve liked to have seen 20 resumes instead of three. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

In software development, there’s always going to be scope creep as you change what you’re creating. It’s a natural part of the process. However, for companies like Devsu to be successful, you have to have a solid vision of what the end product is. That includes a well-defined MVP with specific deliverables.

You wouldn’t bring on a development team like Devsu to create something as you go. Rather, you need a clear vision that’s based on a true business plan. I’d also establish metrics and deadlines to hold the developers accountable.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the founders of a B2B SaaS platform called Sightx, a market research and data analytics platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Devsu?

We’ve partnered with Devsu since the conception of our company as our main development team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We rely on Devsu for both front- and backend work. Our platform is pretty robust in terms of its data analysis capabilities, and our unique value proposition to our client has been that it’s an end-to-end solution where users can utilize a variety of different tools in one place.

They’ve essentially provided us with both the tool’s UX/UI design components but also its statistically-driven, sophisticated analysis functionalities.

We emit everything from data capture, aggregation, and organization. Our platform not only manages data in that way, but analyzes it in real time — from descriptive stats to inferential or predictive patterns of statistics. Not only does it analyze quantitative metrics, but also qualitative test responses, piled from data sources like consumer reviews. It also performs data visualizations.

Our tech stack is generally Node.js on the frontend and Microservices on the backend. That includes everything from Python to Google Go and some other services for text analytics.  

What is the team composition?

We initially had only one developer, but we’ve grown the team to 8 engineers over the last few years. We’ve looking to continue expanding the team in the near future.

How did you come to work with Devsu?

My co-founder and I had worked with local engineers in New York City to build our MVP. We were an early-stage startup looking for cost-effective engineering solutions to continue our development.

Upon reaching out on LinkedIn, we found Devsu and worked with one individual on a single-project basis. We couldn’t find any other options and were pleased with their high-quality output, so we decided to continue scaling alongside them.

How much have you invested with them?

We've probably spent somewhere around $2,000,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership started in September of 2016 and is ongoing.

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

They’ve been a great partner to us from the very beginning, and they’ve produced an awesome product. The people on our team have come to think of and treat them like an extension of our staff, which is probably a result of the dedication we’ve received from them. That dynamic gives us confidence in them and in ourselves, as we consider them as one of our own.

How did Devsu perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. We rely on them for the whole project lifestyle. That includes but isn’t limited to project management, QA, and deployment.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have an extremely efficient workflow. They’re a dedicated, full-time team, and in the absence of cumbersome project managers or middlemen, we’ve had direct access to their developers. Their excellent communication style has helped ensure the successful execution of a complex build. We’ve really appreciated our high level of interaction with them and how diligent and agile they are.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really, we’ve had great experiences with them. Every time we need something, we communicate that to them, and they’re able to work with us to address the need or issue.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re definitely a partner that I can personally recommend. They’re a partner that can work with you to meet your unique needs.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Digital Production at Doner LA, a full service advertising agency in Los Angeles

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

Devsu provided web development services for an interactive site to support the launch of a new Netflix show call Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.

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

I worked with them at a previous agency on a large ecommerce site for Volkswagen and knew they had great development capabilities.

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

Devsu created a digital interactive website experience that lived on Netflix's platform. It was built in 3 weeks using React + Next.js on the Google Cloud service.

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

I worked with their Senior Project Manager and one lead developer.

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

I can't, this is confidential information.

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

Devsu's project manager Marco S. is very professional and well versed in technologies. For the most part we used Slack and Jira to project manage the site.

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

Their website development expertise is top-notch and they are one of the most capable development vendors I've worked with.

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

I've never had a problem with Devsu.