Digihey

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder of Remarkably, a multifamily marketing intelligence solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digihey?

We needed to find a team of full stack engineers to help us deliver requested BI and analytics features for customers.

SOLUTION

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

We wanted to work with an agency who could ensure accountability for team performance and collaboration among leadership. The deciding factors were their image and reputation, leadership culture fit, team member quality, and competitive pricing model.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They provided 3 full stack developers who were focused on supporting and enhancing our agile process and delivering quality code with exceptional velocity. From design feedback through grooming and estimating, the Digihey team has been our go-to resource for key and complex features such as Channel Analysis.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We discussed our needs with the agency owner, who suggested some candidates. Those candidates were evaluated and tested by our CTO and the FTE team members, then the selected candidates were onboarded over several weeks. The agency owner checked in on the onboarding and fit multiple times to ensure a good fit.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

As a result of the engagement, we released Channel Analysis on schedule, increased our sprint transparency and velocity, and improved our estimating accuracy. Our agile improvements have led to us being well-positioned to offer project-based custom development opportunities to customers with confidence, boosting our revenue potential.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our development team is 100% remote, but we have efficient daily standups and weekly grooming sessions using Zoom with great participation by everyone. Non-Zoom-based communication is done almost exclusively via Slack and JIra with no major language or time zone issues.

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

Digihey has provided a top-notch team of developers who are smart, skilled, hardworking, reliable, and committed. They're also wonderful people and delightful team members. The quality of people from this agency is exceptional.

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

Early on, the agency could have communicated more effectively about project risks that emerged during early phases of Channel Analysis, but the communication and process improved rapidly after a brief discussion about learnings and adjustments needed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and head of engineering of Booster Fuels, an on-demand gas delivery company servicing California’s Bay Area and Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex in Texas. Our business is all about eliminating gas station errands.

Users are able to drive their cars to work, park, put a request into our app, open their fuel door, lock the car, and go into work while one of our mini-tankers services their vehicles. We’re the new favorite, corporate perk in Silicon Valley. We’ve been in business since December 2014, and we have people who haven’t gone to a gas station in over two years because they’ve used our services for that long.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digihey?

Booster is a high-capex venture, so it requires us to be very lean on the engineering front. Part of our strategy is offshoring a good part of our engineering team.

Our problem was trying to build the technologies to support our operation’s heavy venture without spending the amount of money needed to operate in Silicon Valley. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digihey’s primary focus is frontend development for web applications. The engineers built out all of our consumer-facing and internal web platforms, the first one being our internal operations hub. Due to being an on-demand business, there are a lot of different things that plug into that hub. Having a centralized tool that anybody in the company can login to, to interact with customers and view fuel requests, service locations, promotions, dispatches, and routing has resulted in a massive internal app that powers our operations and the rest of the business.

They’re also starting to build our client-facing web app. Booster was purely mobile in the past, but we wanted to build a web experience so that people could order gasoline online. This is something we started working on with their team late last year.

We’ve also used their services to bring on a full-time iOS developer who is working on our internal driver apps. We have consumer apps, internal web apps, power operations, and actual apps that our drivers use. One of those apps is built entirely through Digihey as well.

What is the team composition?

We have one technical lead who is a full-stack engineer and built the entire architecture for our internal dashboard product. He oversees their team and also does some backend work, so he understands how our microservice architecture comes together as well.

We also have two frontend engineers. One is more focused on the UI and layout but also contributes to the frontend architecture as well. We have a more senior frontend engineer who is working on the state and some of the more sophisticated interactions of the web app. We also have a full-stack backend developer who focuses on Node.js, MongoDB, microservices, etc. We have a developer who is working in native iOS with Swift.

How did you come to work with Digihey?

Finding the right partner was tough. I've experienced working with offshore teams in India, the Philippines, and Eastern Europe, but Davorin’s [Owner & CEO, Digihey] shop has consistently provided the best talent for our engineering team over the last two years.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $200,000–$999,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since January 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are different ways to look at velocity in the Agile world. We focus more on the Kanban approach (i.e., how quickly something gets done once the business identifies a need for one of the internal tools). Their velocity is amongst the best I’ve seen of engineers in California.

One way to track success is to measure how quickly they’re executing and how effectively they’re communicating with the rest of the team. When I hear from other members of my company that the people over there are very responsive and proactive, it proves that Digihey really supports us.

We also do code reviews to ensure quality. We apply the same testing methodologies that we do in California. Digihey is in Croatia, and code reviews happen bidirectionally between both teams.

We’ve also quantified the cost for us. In order for us to be successful, we need to keep our engineering costs as low as possible. Digihey has allowed us to save 65% on the cost of building a five-person team in comparison to U.S. prices, which adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars we’ve saved and can use for other parts of our business.

How did Digihey perform from a project management standpoint?

Digihey is a managed services company, not an agency. We don’t just tell them to do something when there’s work that needs finishing. Their engineers are as integral to my team as my engineers in California.

The project management is split between the two teams. We have a product manager in California, myself in engineering, and a team lead in their location. We run the same process with them that we do with the team in California, but it’s just in different time zones. Their project management is as good as what we have here. We pride ourselves on how quickly we can execute what’s important and impactful. I’ve been very pleased with the arrangement so far.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The thing that stands out over my previous experiences with other offshore development companies is that they’re more focused on people. At the end of the day, people are what build great products. Their human-centered approach to technology is rare and unique.

Every engineer and developer who joins their team is vetted through a series of phone screens, on-site interviews, video conference calls with stakeholders in California, and technical tests. Unlike some other companies that just have developers lying around, Digihey finds the right people for every project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to move into a bigger office to accommodate my expansion plan! I’ve given so many different offshore development agencies a chance, and this is the only one that’s worked out for my needs.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The people that want to approach Digihey should view technology as an investment in people and not just projects. It’s easy when looking to save money in offshore development initiatives to not care how it gets done. That’s one way to operate, but it’s not the best way. Look at Digihey as a technology partner instead of just a shop that pumps out projects.

If someone is looking for a technology partner who invests in people and will find the right resources for a project, then there's no better company out there that I've worked with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was Head of Product Development at a Series-A startup in the Washington, D.C. area.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digihey?

We needed a new marketing website that integrated with our application.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to communicate the brand, effectively highlight our value proposition, and funnel people into our sales pipeline.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had worked with the founder of Digihey in the past and knew the quality of their work, so I included them in the bidding process.

Describe the project in detail.

They designed, developed, and launched our new website.

What was the team composition?

The team has a technical lead and a few software developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What outcomes or results can you share that demonstrate progress and/or success?

The site increased our number of qualified marketing leads, and its brand marketing was well received by everyone involved.

How effective was the project management?

The project management was very effective. We mostly communicated through email, Google Sheets, and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The company has very impressive leadership, and they ask good questions to minimize back-and-forth communication. 

What tips or recommendations do you have?

Hire Digihey!