FarShore

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing executive for Vanguard Pro Shop, a golf shop platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FarShore?

We hired them to be the developer for all aspects of our online golf shop solution. They’re our go-to for everything involving our online stores.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handle everything, a good amount of frontend work, and everything on the backend. They use PHP and Magento. Anything about speed, servers, distributing servers across the different sites we run, integrating technological upgrades — they handle all of that.

How did you come to work with FarShore?

I actually inherited this partnership. We were a minority partner in a group that purchased Vanguard outright. They’re from Chicago and Vanguard is a Chicago company. However, they’ve been great and we’ve never felt a need to change.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend $60,000–$85,000 a year, but fees change depending on what we need to be done.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together beginning in December 2014, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The main metric I use is whether we’re doing well. We’re not metric focused — we’re team focused. As long as we keep growing and my team tells me things are still working, I’m a big fan.

Anecdotally, we like to push the technological edge and they responded and worked with us. A poor partner would show their reluctance, but they’ve done an outstanding job engaging with us. We’ve been very successful because we have a great partner in FarShore helping us grow sustainably and creatively.

How did FarShore perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a great job communicating. We submit 8–12 tickets a day. Considering how small we are, there’s a robust amount of communication. They’re relatively good at meeting deadlines, and we have a great dialog so if there’s a priority they jump to it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re the only team I’ve ever worked with a team spread out across countries. They’ve done a fantastic job of being responsive and keeping the workflow moving. They’ve done an outstanding job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have reasons to look for another partner. We’ve struggled on upgrading older platforms, and perhaps they could’ve done a better job. It wasn’t bad, but it might’ve been better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s a lot about communication and being open about where your project is going. The more you engage, the more they’re able to support your objectives.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of a company that uses remote sensing and machine learning to help reduce wildfires from powerlines and increase the power grid’s up time.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with FarShore?

A lot of what we do is really highly specialized and it's very difficult to find talent. So all of our resources dedicated to talent have been focused on the esoteric stuff that we do. And that means there is no real room for us to do other development projects. We partnered with FarShore to handle that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work very closely with them for a number of years, and they’ve worked on a number of projects including Web development, backend development, and database development.

The implementation planning and granular design of how we built the backend came down to a discussion between our need and their expertise. They have such a deep bench, that whatever we need to work on, they have experts on how to get it done.

What is the team composition?

We usually interface with six people.

How did you come to work with FarShore?

I happen to know the founder from personal connections. We considered a few other firms, but they were the best to work with, so we chose them for all of our contract work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2015 and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve become more and more dependent on them over the years.   Some of the things that we asked them to do hadn’t been done before, but they always figured it out and delivered the functionalities we needed.

How did FarShore perform from a project management standpoint?

It took about three months at about 4,000 man-hours. That’s what they projected, and they delivered on time. They're usually really good about hitting that stuff.

Our project was unique, so we took on more of a project management role that normally they would take care of themselves.

They were super flexible. We used Monday and Slack for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have developers in a bunch of different companies, but it was super easy to work with them, especially in comparison to other offshore development companies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be really honest with what your goals are and your management style. They’ve been super flexible, but that’s dependent on clear communication. For anyone planning to work with them, think about how you’re going to do that ahead of time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is the premier news and information website in Alaska, with an outsized share of the market. I am the founder, president and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire FarShore?

Website development, maintenance, and technical support.

What were your goals for this project?

This is an ongoing contract to keep the website updated and optimized.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

The owner explained that he would be willing to take on our company as a client and took a personal interest in the success of the venture.

Describe the project in detail.

This is an as-needed arrangement. Whenever the site is bogged down or if I need things swapped out, I contact the team and they take care of it. The open a ticket, resolve the matter, and usually it's within a day.

What was the team composition?

There's a person in Chicago that I loop things through, and a team overseas that works with my site and has been consistent with me from the start.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

My Alexa ranking pretty much says it all.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I'm their smallest client but they make me feel like my company is very important and they prioritize me.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don't know what I'd do without them. They've kept me alive.