Dreamers Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Wuxn3D Marketplace designs, manufactures and sells 3D printers (FDM) and associated accessories and consumables (filament). My role is R&D Director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We were looking to customize an open source Slicer, reskin to conform to our colors and to simplify a few of the selection options within this open source Slicer software.

SOLUTION

How did you select Dreamers Inc., and what were the deciding factors?

We tried a number of Web base Business Search tools to find a software development company. Lots of hits, but very difficult to engage unless the requirements were nailed. We were not that good at software, let alone documenting at the level most of these guys needed. So we decided to "hire someone" for 3 months so we could "coach" them thru what we actually wanted, not we we wrote down on paper... :). To that end, we posted a number of "help wanted" adds in local schools, Craigslist, etc. Ariana from Dreamers saw my add and reached out... Thankfully

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

Reskin the appearance of the software to match our color schemes. Rename the various screens to reflect our Brand. Modify the "build environment" within the Slicer to reflect our Printer and finally add our customized material selections to the list of existing materials and filaments

How many people from the Dreamers Inc. team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Three total, a developer, our project manager, and a tester

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We hired Dreamers twice, initially to customize the Slicer as noted (about 3 weeks), then to add/modify the material list (2 days). Both jobs were performed "on time" (actually about a week late due to our errors) and exceed expectations related to performance, real time "software coaching" and lack of issues.

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

Dreamers read our poorly written requirements, helped us refine it, helped us understand: test, installers, certifications for Windows and Apple. Ariana provided an email update on Fridays related progress and issues. The project was not complicated enough to create a specific Project schedule or equivalent... We received candidate drops to evaluate and test, we provided feedback and on the 3rd or 4th drop, we called it good and moved forward. It got a little stressful at one point because one of our engineers was providing the wrong image format for a particular screen. Dreamers coached us related to what was probably wrong and we eventually discovered our error.

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

Great attitude, upbeat, good people. Precise in their communication. Very responsive. This particular Slicer software was new to Dreamers and has a steep learning curve (I've been told). Dreamers came up to speed very quickly and sent back a few Alpha versions for evaluation within the first week. We expected much longer...

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

Nothing about their behavior, but we learned a lot about the software development process thru their coaching.