Eastern Peak

Introduce your business and what you do there.

GreenIQ has developed an IoT device. I am the Chief Technology Officer of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak?

We had a development challenge, as well as a business one. We needed quality developers quickly, so we decided to approach Eastern Peak.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our platform's functionalities include integration with other platforms like the Nest Protect device, IFTTT, Amazon Alexa, and so on. We needed Eastern Peak to develop this for us, but they also contributed with some of the core code of our platform.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak?

We needed experience with several web technologies, specifically PHP and Scala. Developers for Scala are especially difficult to find. I knew Eastern Peak's principal from a previous company, so I had been familiar with their team for a while. We approached a few other agencies, but the developer that Eastern Peak provided us seemed to be the best fit for our company.

How much have you invested with Eastern Peak?

This is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Eastern Peak for almost one year. Our contract was recently ended.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We wouldn't have worked with Eastern Peak for a whole year if the results weren't excellent. Their developer became another one of our team members, and generally performed well.

How did Eastern Peak perform from a project management standpoint?

I handled the project management during our collaboration. We didn't have a typical outsourcing structure, by which I would give tasks to Eastern Peak and they'd work on them. The developer was a part of our team, just like any other member.

What did you find most impressive about Eastern Peak?

Before Eastern Peak, we worked with another outsourcing company. The quality of the development was a big issue to us, and we've been impressed with Eastern Peak.

Are there any areas Eastern Peak could improve?

I didn't have a lot of interaction with Eastern Peak as a company, just with our developer, so I have no complaints.

Please describe your organization.

We are a car accessory manufacturer. Our company has developed a GSM/GPS unit.

What is your position?

I am the Chief Technology Officer.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak?

We needed to develop an app which could connect to our product and retrieve information about the car.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Eastern Peak developed our application for iOS and Android.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak?

A department from our company got in touch with Eastern Peak and forwarded their information to me.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total cost of Eastern Peak's development was around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Eastern Peak 3 months ago. The work has been completed.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The app developed by Eastern Peak has performed well.

How did Eastern Peak perform from a project management standpoint?

The project took longer than expected to complete, but this is normal for software development, so I can't complain. We made some changes along the way. Eastern Peak stuck to the original budget.

Is there anything Eastern Peak could have improved or done differently?

They could improve things after getting feedback from the customer.

Please describe your organization.

FixitJoe is a company of professionals aimed at homeware repairs and work.

What is your position?

I am the Chief Executive Officer of the unit.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak?

We wanted to develop an app through which a customer can describe a problem in their house or office, give an address and credit card information, and expect a professional from our company in the same day. We wanted a customer-facing app and a professional-facing one. We have a transparent price list and employ only the best professionals. It took some time to decide between building an in-house development team and outsourcing.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Eastern Peak built four applications for us for the same purpose: two for professionals and two for customers, for iOS and Android respectively. We knew from the beginning that our app would be available on both platforms.

Eastern Peak gave us input on app development, but also on our general business model, which helped a lot. The whole process of working with Eastern Peak was easy and pleasant.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak?

A consultant gave us a recommendation for Eastern Peak. We met them and found that they were technologically knowledgeable and business-savvy. We decided to use Eastern Peak. They were professional and nice to work with.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I cannot share this information.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Eastern Peak in August 2015. The app was recently launched. It was supposed to come out sooner, but we delayed the process. Eastern Peak was very sleek in terms of work plans and timetables.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Right from the alpha and beta versions, we could see that the apps were being built efficiently and in a well-organized manner. We didn't experience any major bugs. We often received non-functional products from other developers, but this never happened with Eastern Peak.

Eastern Peak delivered versions of the app that fit the requirements of each development phase. The result of Eastern Peak's work is a high-end app, with up-to-date graphic design and a good user interface. Everything works smoothly and it looks well-built and professional.

How did Eastern Peak perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager from Eastern Peak was great. He was service-oriented and easy to talk to. We didn't have to rely on email or wait to be called. We had a direct correspondence channel open all the time. Eastern Peak never did anything without our approval.

What distinguishes Eastern Peak from other providers?

Eastern Peak assumed responsibility for their results and never tried to deflect it. They stood behind their promises and were very pragmatic. Discussions with Eastern Peak were always direct.

Is there anything Eastern Peak could have improved or done differently?

When going through a process spanning several months, it's hard to anticipate every detail. We learned that we needed to make some changes along the way, but Eastern Peak was very flexible. It was important for us to be able to work in this way.

Please describe your organization.

We are a platform that connects individuals who need manufacturing capacity with the providers of manufacturing capacity. An easy example would be a shop that currently is working under capacity and not utilizing all their machines. They can list some of that machine time on our platform, and then a buyer, in some cases not a machine shop and, in some cases, the same entrepreneur who is trying to build out their supply chains buys the said hours from the platform.

What is your position?

I am part of the founding team and CTO.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak Software?

It was trying to get experienced developers to work in a startup setting. Where we are, in Lexington, Kentucky, is not the software Mecca of the world. What we needed to do was find folks who were experienced specifically with startup schedules and lack of formalized specs and a willingness to shift on a dime. That select ability is something that developers in Eastern Europe do have because they are just so much different outsourcing efforts that come through them. Most of the people I've worked with have experience of five or six startups, and they're in their mid-20s. That's just something that, frankly, outside of Silicon Valley and a few places on the East Coast, is hard to find here.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The scope of the work was generally similar. We deploy to AWS [Amazon Web Services], and the stack is generally done with Postgres and Ruby on Rails. Later on, we added AngularJS on the front end. Initially, it was straight up Rails, so it renders service-side renders.

We were going with a pretty rough Rails-based MVP [minimum viable product] and then looking at the code base that we inherited from a couple of other attempts to get an MVP running, and then refactoring some of the existing code base and adding several key features on top of that. The initial engagement was about two months with a single developer, and then shifting up to a team of five with that said developer being the team lead.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak Software?

It was a friend of a friend of a friend. I don't even remember who recommended them, but I reached out to Eastern Peak, and then we spoke over Skype several times and then decided. Initially, the engagement was bringing a single developer and then transitioned to a full team.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The way that we did that was by development hours. If we were asking for overtime, then it would be our cost and a half. I don't remember off the top of my head the hours, but it was roughly, for an experienced Ruby back-end developer, $5,500 a month. Typically, the teams that we're dealing with there is also usually a back-end developer, a front-end HTML person, and QA [quality assurance] and HTML people are a lot cheaper – about half the price of the back-end developers.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November [2014]. They've completed the work. We worked with them until the end of May. This was essentially a way for us to build out an MVP, build out a little bit more features, and then transition to an in-house team that allowed me to have a window in which I could actually hire developers.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Quantitative metrics would be harder to share, just because we're still in startup mode, so a lot of things have shifted. In terms of deliveries, generally everything was done within the time period allotted. I've never had any issues with things not being on time. Also, on my end, I speak Russian, so I can kind of gauge a lot of things in interpersonal relationships, and sometimes press devs a little more or a little bit less. My experience might be slightly different from some of the other folks.

How did Eastern Peak Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Again, because I speak Russian, I can probably elicit more communication from them than most native English speakers would. They do provide a project manager, so initially I worked with a project manager for maybe a couple of weeks, until I kind of understood that I could take care of all the project management duties. I did that and a couple of more developing and design tasks.

Communication-wise, what we established was pretty much a daily meeting, and most of the communication would be through that or through GitHub, filling out issues and such. Probably for a native English speaker, some of the GitHub communication might be a tiny bit of a challenge, just because you have to hit a certain cadence of not too many words and not too few.

We've had a few English speaking developers completely flood GitHub with various different comments, and Eastern European developers going like, "OK, too much English." Just kind of dial it back to just declarative sentences, describing what's going on. I think that would honestly be a challenge, however all the developers are very proficient. They can and do communicate very well.

Where they lose in native English skills, they probably gain in overall communication abilities. I've never encountered a stereotypical developer with no communication skills and all computer skills. I've never encountered that with any of the subcontractors for Eastern Peak.

What distinguishes Eastern Peak Software from other providers?

For me, it was a price and communication consideration kind of thing. But communication is, again, easier for myself. In terms of what they deliver, I think they're pretty much in keeping with several of their contemporaries from Kiev and similar areas. These guys have a good reputation, and so do another five or six companies there. I just got very lucky to work with them.

Is there anything Eastern Peak Software could have improved or done differently?

I think maybe just consistency, but that's a tough one because their job market is volatile, just like everywhere else. There are a lot of good developers, so it's just a matter of hiring enough people fast and not compromising on quality. Again, I was able to control that. The great thing is that Eastern Peak Software allows you to interview all the developers who they're onboarding. They don't just throw you anyone, and you get to say you're satisfied with their particular skill set or not. In that sense, I think if the customer does their due diligence, I think they're getting an incredible deal and incredible work.

Please describe your organization.

We operate in Russia, Finland, and Estonia, providing digital marketing services to our clients.

What is your position?

I am the CEO of the company. Also, I am a serial entrepreneur, and I start new information technology startups where sometimes I subcontract some of the development work to companies like Eastern Peak.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak Software?

It was a startup that I was involved in, and I had to get a ready-made product inside of a one month, from start to finish, so that we could continue with our go-to-market plan. That was the biggest challenge – one month, whole product, start to finish.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The scope was design, front end, and back-end implementation of a web service aimed at jobseekers.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak Software?

I actually know Eastern Peak's CEO from previous business engagements in Moscow.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was somewhere around $20,000 to $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them about one and a half years ago, and the relationship is ongoing.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The results were good. They provided a good team that I personally led as a team leader, in terms of project development. Because I speak Russian and the personnel there speaks Russian, too, I was able to mold the team into processes that I was comfortable with, and we worked closely at a level that outsourcing companies rarely work. I lead the team as if they were my in-house employees.

How did Eastern Peak Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We led the project ourselves, and we managed all the aspects of scheduling and all that happened from our end. In those terms, it's hard to judge their project management, estimations and all those skills since we did all of that.

What distinguishes Eastern Peak Software from other providers?

I guess the best thing would be to say that they are flexible. I wanted to break away from all the processes they had, and they were OK with that. Also, I was able to negotiate with them a deal that I was comfortable with in terms of payments and so on. The best part for me was that I was able to get the guys for the things that I needed, and I was able to make them part of my organization, which is rare in the outsourcing world.

You always feel that they're part of the outsourcing company, and not your company. I was able to make Eastern Peak Software feel as if they were my guys, working with my processes, with our quality standards, and so forth. I continued to work with the same group later on, and they were able to free up the same group of people for me for the next project. That's why I didn't have to do the whole learning process and processes again with a new team, but I was able to get my guys, so to speak, for the next project.

Is there anything Eastern Peak Software could have improved or done differently?

I think what they could improve on is some sort of unified quality, management, communication, and so forth. It's more of a body shopping kind of business. They rent out resources, but they don't necessarily give you a certain process. When you want to develop a Ruby on Rails application, they don't have their own way of doing it. They'd rather have a Ruby developer who is good, but it's more up to you how you do things and so forth. That's good for people like me, but maybe not necessarily so good where the client is not technically savvy.

Please describe your organization.

The company provides a platform to manage quality assurance processes and themes. Let's say you're a company and you develop some mobile apps or a website, we provide you a platform to manage the entire QA process and your own themes. In addition, we have crowd-testing solutions. We have thousands of testers around the world with devices who can help the customer test their app or website in real-life conditions, with a real-life device, to do manual testing. The result of that testing will be featured in the same management platform that we offer.

What is your position?

I am the co-founder and CEO of the company. I started everything from the beginning. From the beginning, I used Eastern Peak as my software and platform developer.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak Software?

They did the development of the platform for me, but also the whole product. They are my outsourcing company, and I used them to develop everything.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They provided me with the technologies I needed. They gave me the required know-how in Python, PHP, and Ruby on Rails, all those development languages that I needed, and I had no team to do it. They gave me the knowledge, expertise, and experience in those types of programming languages.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak Software?

It was a good reference. I got the reference from a friend of a friend, who used to use them in the past. It was word of mouth basically.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

That's confidential. I can say it was cost effective for me, and it was very fair pricing. I did a comparison, I didn't just go with them. I had a benchmark in the beginning, and their prices came somewhere in the middle. They weren't the cheapest ones and definitely not the most expensive ones.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working them about two and a half years ago, and I'm working with them on an ongoing basis.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We had a timeline of 10 months to launch everything from the beginning. Once we did the spec writing of the product, all the way to the end until we launch it, they delivered a month before. They met the deadline of the delivery. Once we launched the product, it was obvious that they did good QA because we had very little bugs in the product. I had very few comments from users to tell me that something was wrong with either the app or the website. The first thing is that they were very good in terms of delivery.

How did Eastern Peak Software perform from a project management standpoint?

The second thing that I can say about them is excellent project management. I have a direct line with the CEO of the company, and whenever I had something that needed the involvement of somebody in Eastern Peak, I have a direct line, either by phone or by e-mail, to the CEO of Eastern Peak, and immediately it was resolved. This is one of the things I like the most, the fact that I have someone to talk to when I have a problem or something is not in line with what I expected.

What distinguishes Eastern Peak Software from other providers?

First of all, Eastern Peak Software is very flexible. At certain periods, I need more people or less people, and they are very flexible and easy to change. At a certain point, I needed only two people, one back-end and one front end. At another time, I needed seven people because I had to go deep into the iOS and Android in addition to the back-end and front end. They were very flexible. It was very easy to move from two to seven developers with one phone call.

Knowledge-wise, the project manager was very experienced with the platform. I had a lot of excellent feedback, and the project manager was almost like a product architect for me. He gave me a lot of advice and a lot of valuable information about future features. He was almost like a development partner, but also with great ideas on the technology and architecture of the product. That's something I really appreciated. They weren't just a bunch of people working in a room developing. They were like a partner in terms of thinking and creating new concepts, new features, and new ideas.

Is there anything Eastern Peak Software could have improved or done differently?

I was quite happy with the result, so I can't think of anything right now. I keep working with them, so I guess it means that they did a good job for me. I can't think of something that needs to be improved at the moment.

Please describe your organization.

Maximum Education is a test prep educational company that operates in the Russian Federation.

What is your position?

I am the CEO.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak Software?

We needed them to build, quite rapidly, a learning management system and a variety of instruments to engage our students online. We are sort of a hybrid company, we teach both in class and online settings. Two years ago, we were a startup company, and we engaged Eastern Peak in this project of rapidly developing the first and second iteration of the learning management system as well as some marketing tools that come along, like the website and different things that accompany our business. Eastern Peak helped build the LMS, a couple of websites, and connect us into one system that helps market and deploy our services.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

It would be hard for me to go deep into the technologies they used because that is a question for a more technical person. In general, the work they did for us is from conceptualizing the tasks at hand, understanding what needs to be done. They provided all sources of writing, technical documents and product specification, product plan, and then managing the development process.

The whole thing was outsourced. It was only a product manager on our side who was overseeing the process. They created the first version of the product outline, the product specifications, and then deployed a team that created all of the materials we use. It's hard for me to say exactly what technologies they used.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak Software?

We found them through references from people I know.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I can't say what it is exactly, but it varies based on the complexity of the task.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project is still ongoing. We started working with them about two and a half years ago, more or less, with different levels of intensity. Some were very intense, and some were less, such as when we had the offseason in terms of development.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The most important thing for us was moving fast, and achieving our business goals. It helped us go to market fast. We were able to create an online presence in record time.

How did Eastern Peak Software perform from a project management standpoint?

What's good is the flexibility they provide with different types of knowledge, different types of developers, the ability to scale up quickly, and the ability to scale down when needed. When you know what you want to do, they are a good partner to execute that. They are flexible in terms of their approach and their skills.

What distinguishes Eastern Peak Software from other providers?

It's hard for me to say since I don't have a lot of experience with other companies. I think if I had to estimate this based on what I know and what I hear, mainly, it is Eastern Peak's flexible approach, their ability to meet deadlines. They will deploy a correct solution to reach your goals. They're not as bureaucratized as the large IT [information technology] shops. It feels like you can beat the deadlines with them, and that is very valuable.

Is there anything Eastern Peak Software could have improved or done differently?

The flexibility has its own downside. When you're flexible and you're modeled like that, then you're not as structured as other companies. It seems to me that they are growing, that they will go that way as they become bigger. You have to have more processes at hand. The key is to keep that flexibility while growing and have more structured processes.

Please describe your organization.

Currently, I am a freelancer. I am a project manager, I have some clients from the U.S. and Europe. In the past, I worked for a cloud engines company, and developed some cloud-based storage. In my position at both cloud engines as well as a freelancer, I was working with Eastern Peak Software. From my point of view, working with Eastern Peak is a very good solution. They provide end-to-end solutions to the client –design requirements, development, testing – everything that I need to provide a good product to my client.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Eastern Peak Software?

It was a sales challenge, and it's a challenge every time I work with Eastern Peak because I work remotely. It's kind of difficult to manage people remotely, but we found solutions. We used to work with agile scrum methodology to manage the projects. Instead of stand-up meetings, we had stand-up calls every morning. This way, I have the control of what they're doing.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

I will give you a couple of examples. For instance, in cloud engines, they developed some storage cloud-based solution, and they have web clients and mobile clients. We used Eastern Peak to develop part of the iOS application, just to back up our local software development. The guys from Eastern Peak were like members of our team. They worked closely with R&D [research and development] in Israel, and I was managing them.

As a freelancer, I was managing some projects for a U.S. customer that required the development of an end-to-end solution. It's was a website, iOS application, and Android application. We had a team of nine engineers from Eastern Peak who worked on this project, and I managed them. It was back-end development, front-end development, iOS, Android development, and UI/UX [user interface/user experience] design.

How did you come to work with Eastern Peak Software?

The owner of Eastern Peak is a friend of mine. We had to work together with some companies before.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The price range is flexible, and it depends on the project and the position that you need. If you want some senior developer or you want a team lead, the prices are flexible. They have two models of pricing – monthly-based payment and per-hour. It also depends on the duration of the project. If you have a commitment of at least three months, their rates will be on a monthly basis. If you don't have a commitment for three months, the rates will be on an hourly basis. It's hard to say. It depends on each project and its duration.

What is the status of this engagement?

I've been working with them for about three years, and the relationship is still ongoing.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

If the projects hadn't been successful, I wouldn't have continued working with them. I always need to deliver the project to my clients on time. If the project isn't delivered on time, I wouldn't continue working with them, but that's never happened with Eastern Peak.

How did Eastern Peak Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They're familiar with a lot of project management methodologies: waterfall and agile scrum. For me, because the projects are dynamic and the team is remote, it's more effective to use an agile scrum methodology. They're familiar with all the popular project management tools, like JIRA, YouTrack, Trello, and Redmine. The guys are using all of those tools.

What distinguishes Eastern Peak Software from other providers?

I think what is important for Eastern Peak Software is customer satisfaction. I used to work in a company that worked with another offshore development team, and I see the difference between that one and Eastern Peak. It's about commitment. They're very committed, and they care about your satisfaction. Eastern Peak Software also cares about their employees. They have some weekly courses for the employees to improve their English. They have some sport courses. I know they're doing a lot to make both their customers and their employees satisfied.

Is there anything Eastern Peak Software could have improved or done differently?

They have a lot of projects from the U.S., and I think they need to have more English speakers in the company, but they are already working on this, as I said. They put customer-facing people who can speak English fluently.