Divelement Web Services

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Operations at Rugged Coastal - a design-centric creative agency. My job is to oversee our internal workflows, staffing and ensuring projects are delivered with quality, on-time and on-budget.

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

We hired Divelement to build the frontend interface of our SaaS project: The Gateway. This was a hard task with a tight deadline, demanding client and very complex technical needs. Divelement stepped in with confidence and quickly begin delivering both technical expertise and guidance to help us achieve our goals.

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

I met and talked with Eddie Hudson, the CEO, and was quickly sold that they were the right team for us. They had the technical abilities to feel confident in any scenario. Plus, they shared our company's desire for excellent design, and making sure the user's best interests is always in mind.

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

Our project had a 6 month timeline with 5 development sprints intermixed. The project is a React/Gatsby static application on the front end. The backend is an Express/NodeJS service that the front end interacts with through REST endpoints.

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

There were 2 frontend developers, plus network admin and project management support.

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

The project has been an outstanding successes. From working with Divelement, to the client's happiness level, we've had a wonderful project and excellent outcome.

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

Divelement is very communicative and timely. They don't make promises that they cannot deliver on. Our teams worked very well together in that regard.

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

Their technical knowledge and drive to keep on the forefront of the industry are impressive. They aren't stuck in their ways, and are always learning new methods to improve the products they build.

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

I am very happy with the overall results and look forward to our next project. No need for improvements at this point.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CMO of Zyda, a saas company providing restaurants with their own online ordering system.

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

Our goal was to revamp Zyda's website in a very short period. We hired Divelement to develop using gatsby/sanity frameworks.

How did you select Divelement Web Services and what were the deciding factors?

Divelement is a top rated agency with a 100% success rate in a fair amount of jobs done via upwork.

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

Scope was to fully own the development of the new website after we provided the required (not so simple) UI designs. they managed to develop it swiftly and accurately. And they managed to successfully migrate the old's website needed functionalities to save time and achieve the goal of launching in January.

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

Mostly 3 Engeneers with Eddie as a manager and Eduardo as an engineers lead and Moises.

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

The project was handled with a great sense of ownership and responsibility from Divelement's side and they worked in full capacity to deliver on time.

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

First phase was some kind of waterfall where the guys finished the base UI/UX and then we worked using trello in kanban style to nail down the rest. Their communication was the highlight as they are one of the most responsive teams I've ever worked with via Slack & Zoom.

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

The knowledge, fast development & high responsiveness.

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

They had to develop and ship as fast as possible so there were tiny bugs that could've been avoided if they had more time to QA.

Please describe your company and your position there.

COO - Kanataplay, CEO TrueNorth.bet, Director - Nation2Nation network.

For what projects/services did your company hire Divelement Web Services, and what were your goals?

We hired Divelement to revamp and redesign some websites in our digital portfolio. The sites were inherited when we purchased the company and initially the project scope was just to redesign the websites.

After Divelement performed a code audit we realized that an out-dated back-end coupled with 10+ years of code meant that sites were in need of not just a redesign but a thorough update and patching.

How did you select Divelement Web Services and what were the deciding factors?

We searched online for agencies that fit the profile that we were looking for. Divelopment immediately stood out from the pool with quick communication and understanding of our systems. They asked all the right questions. After a couple of video calls it was an easy decision.

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

The majority of our sites are built on a Laravel backend, but a couple of the sites still use an old version of Codeigniter. The backend API that we use from one of our providers is badly outdated and still returns data in XML format! There are a few Node services as well, and due to gaming regulations in Canada, everything still runs on a bare metal server.

The initial scope of the work was to redesign the sites, but each site contained 10s of thousands of lines of bad code, so we had to work with Divelement to identify the bad code and remove it while not affecting the underlying functionality of the site. T

hey also helped us to modernize the stack, and make it as stable as possible despite all of the conditions. They helped us map the current architecture of the sites and backend, as well as helping us to identify any pain points we may find in the future.

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

We primarily worked with two people from the Divelement team. We worked directly with the owner, as well as with one of their senior full-stack developers. They also had a couple people working behind the scenes, namely their COO and project manager, but we mostly interacted with the owner and the developer.

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

The redesigns of the sites were completed and they did an excellent job. Divelopment removed all the bad code, and future-proofed the sites by using modular components so that we could reuse them when scaling.

They also fixed a lot of bugs and other issues and were communicative throughout the process. The sites are now working optimally and are stable. We haven’t experienced any major issues with any of the sites since the completion of work.

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

We primarily communicate with the Divelement team through Slack, though they are always open to jumping on a call or into a Zoom meeting. I would say their PM style is Agile focused.

They managed the project using JIRA and were always clear about timelines and estimates. We use GitLab for version control, and the deploy pipelines are set up using Ansible to the server. Great communication and PM work.

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

Their experience and depth of knowledge were outstanding. Second is outstanding responsiveness - a member of their team is almost always available, especially for emergencies.

Even after hours and weekends, if we had an issue all we had to do was reach out to them in Slack and they'd looked into the issue within minutes. Third, is their pride in work and genuine understanding of our business. They took time to understand the use-cases and anticipated potential pitfalls. More than a vendor, Development is now a partner.

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

Documentation and logging.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and art director of Chroma Souls, a full-service design agency. We do animation, logo creation, brand identity, strategy, and more.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divelement Web Services, LLC?

Before Divelement, if my client needed a website, I was using Wix as a platform. The capabilities of that weren’t enough, so I hired Divelement. The team provides us with the ability to fully develop websites and apps.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Together with Divelement we’ve created a range of websites for several different clients together. We’ve worked on everything from e-commerce platforms to small exercise studio websites, to algorithms for a personality quiz. 

The team also created an app for a hop growing company, developing an algorithm for hop variety profiles that had never been created before. They also dove into our own website. 

They're using React and Gatsby.

What is the team composition?

It depends on the project. Usually I just talk with Eddie (CEO & Founder) directly, but if it’s a larger project, he’ll bring two or three other resources on.

How did you come to work with Divelement Web Services, LLC?

I found Eddie on UpWork, before Divelement was started, and his team grew with our partnership. I originally chose him because of all the interviews I took with the other candidates, he stood out as the best, most passionate, and easiest to work with. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $80,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since October 2019.

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

It’s been an absolute breeze working with Divelement. It’s been really cool to grow with them as a company and discover new development projects that we can do together. We’re both very passionate, and watching how far Eddie and his team have come has been awesome. 

We get a lot of projects that are a little out there and very different from each other, and it’s great to see that Divelement has such a broad skill set. No matter what the project, everything we’ve created together has exceeded our client’s expectations quite a bit. We’ve gotten nothing but positive reviews from everyone.

How did Divelement Web Services, LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication has been extremely open and prompt on all ends, all the time. A lot of my clients actually go directly to the team for questions, and they always write me back immediately to tell me how kind and personable they are. It’s been great.

We’ve only ever missed one deadline, and it was completely understandable. Other than that, Divelement has been more than on time: they finish projects early and respond very quickly. They do an amazing job of keeping track of everything.

In terms of tools, we started off using Jira, then briefly used Asana before landing on Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication is absolutely tremendous. I’m also impressed with their skill set. I’ve only worked with one other developer, but Divelement blows that developer out of the water. 

I really look forward to working every single project with Divelement. Our partnership has been fun, it’s been easy, and it’s been inspiring. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. They’ve taken care of every issue.