DivNotes Inc.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at HomeStars, a home services marketplace.

What challenge were you trying to address with DivNotes Inc.?

We needed custom software development services. Our overall objective was to transform the marketplace to better match the supply and demand of service professionals.

What was the scope of their involvement?

DivNotes has helped us on a few critical initiatives. For example, they’ve helped us with custom software development for our platform’s distribution engine. This functionality helps us put the information in, find the right service professionals, and distribute the offering to those service professionals.

Additionally, we’ve relied on them to become experts in our messaging framework within the application, organizing the different services in our ecosystem. They’ve also implemented a ledger-based tracking system into our platform to track the leads sent.

Recently, DivNotes helped us build a proper development environment to ensure that our people had everything they needed within their reach. For this part of the project, they took a very manual process and completely automated it. The technology stack for this development includes Ruby on Rails for the backend and React for the frontend, and it is hosted in an AWS environment.

DivNotes continues to help us with ongoing maintenance, and they constantly improve our platform.

What is the team composition?

We currently work with two senior software developers.

How did you come to work with DivNotes Inc.?

DivNotes was recommended to me.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000 CAD (approximately $396,00 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

Thanks to DivNotes’ involvement, our deployment time for new developments has gone from a week to less than a day — those time savings are great! Additionally, our conversion rates and leads have improved as well.

Overall, I’m highly satisfied with them, and they’ve exceeded my expectations. When I brought them on, I didn’t expect to get nearly the level of expertise that I got. They’ve been absolutely invaluable and demonstrated great technical expertise.

How did DivNotes Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?

DivNotes’ project management is excellent; they’ve been phenomenal in this regard. We communicate via Zoom calls, emails, and Slack messaging, and we track the project through Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

DivNotes cares a lot about teamwork and the technology we use. They’ve made recommendations for how we can improve our process, which will help us long after they’re gone.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our planning and organization could be a lot smoother. However, we work in close collaboration, and I wouldn’t make them accountable for that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ensure that they understand what you want them to accomplish, and provide them with your reasons. They can provide better-suited advice and recommendations when they have the full context.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a publishing platform.

For what projects/services did your company hire DivNotes Inc., and what were your goals?

Divnotes is our full stack developer

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

Divnotes was introduced us and were originally a sub contractor.

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

Divnotes was originally hired to clean up code and work on a large scale project to fix our platform.

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

3-4 People from Divnotes work with us regularly.

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

Divnotes has helped us to build a scalable solution and migrate the platform from legacy state to where it is currently

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

Their management of project done by Steven Robyn is detailed, focused and value add. We work with the latest tools to track and communicate regularly

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

The company stands behind their work. They took full responsibility for their development and programming.

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

They continue to get better at managing me, the client. My mind is always moving, but the have done a great job adjusting to my way of thinking to make projects go smoother.