What was the scope of their involvement?
It has been a multifaceted engagement. The scope of their work has been multiple projects from the start.
One of the projects was for a plugin that sits on the computer using Outlook or Gmail. Essentially, whenever you have a meeting with someone, you send them a meeting invite as normal, and the plugin will trigger a set of processes on the backend. From there, it will basically plant a tree for the person you have a meeting with.
A set period before that meeting happens, the people you have invited will receive an email telling them that a tree has been planted on their behalf to mitigate the environmental impact of that meeting.
We had an MVP and it worked so we wanted to invest and develop it properly. They took what we had, reverse engineered it, understood how it had been put together, and built us a brand new one. They took the existing backend which was built from this terrible infrastructure and rebuilt the whole platform on AWS.
We now have a completely scalable solution rather than something that could potentially crash every single time someone downloads it. We then had them build two more plugins. One was for the Outlook web version and one for the Gmail web version. Out of those two, one of them is currently in user acceptance testing (UAT) and the other is now in the App Store.
They also took the website and rebuilt all of its functionality again, doing it primarily in Node.js on the AWS platform. They have basically been taking these bits of my old CRM, which had lots of projects that were built in it, and bit by bit they have taken it apart and are rebuilding it. Our server is using software like CodeIgniter, PHP 5.3, which is too old to be supported anymore.
Although they are going to rebuild it completely, at the moment, we are up to 1.2 which takes out all the heavy lifting. That means all the heavy processes like creating certificates, pictures, updating counters, and those things are being removed from our standard server and being rebuilt on AWS.
What is the team composition?
I deal with Sanjay (CEO) and I have the absolute pleasure of dealing with Anoop (CTO) who is their tech evangelist. They are my main contacts but Anoop is my primary contact day to day. They have two scrum masters, and then my team probably engages with 8–9 of their lead developers in Skype channels we’re all a part of.
How did you come to work with Emvigo Technologies Ltd?
When I realized that I was acquiring technical debt from the previous developer, I put an advert on Upwork and I got a phone call from Sanjay. At first, I felt he was being pushy because he was supposed to apply online, but it transpired he was in London and offered to come to Manchester and meet some of my team.
As I was looking to offshore the project because the costs are a lot less in India, I felt it was a no brainer to at least take the meeting since he was willing to come to meet us. We took the meeting and we liked what he said. My then CTO got on a call with Anoop, and again, Anoop sealed the deal because he is just so sharp.
How much have you invested in them?
When we first engaged with them, I think we had a £10,000 (approximately $13,000 USD) project, and last week I signed off about £100,000 (approximately $130,400 USD) of work with them over the next three months. We’ve probably already spent close to £70,000 (approximately $91,300 USD).
What is the status of this engagement?
I’d estimate we started working together around July 2019 and our engagement is ongoing.
The level of service, communication, and quality delivered from Emvigo Technologies Ltd has been impressive for the client, taking their product and technologies to the next level. They offer a great collaboration, bringing a great deal of expertise at a cost-conscious price.