Faster Than Light

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a co-founder, CEO, and interim CTO of a very young food tech startup. We’re building a plant-based restaurant platform. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Faster Than Light?

We're developing our MVP, and we needed help on the admin portal where our site admins and restaurants are going to input data, manage menus, and see their orders. We also need assistance on our customer-facing site, where customers see the menus, place orders, and check out. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Faster Than Light assists us with full stack software development, but mainly in frontend development. We are working together on two websites. The first site is an admin site, and they use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Vue.js to work on its styling and code the different features and pages that we need. 

The second site is customer-facing, and Faster Than Light has worked a lot on our checkout flow. That’s where our customers are confirming their details, such as their phone number, email, address, and payment information. They have broken up the checkout process into smaller modules and steps that work well, look nice. 

I have provided the documentation, but a lot of it is ad-hoc and collaborative. I came with the tech stack already defined, and Faster Than Light worked with it. However, they look for additional plug-ins and libraries whenever we need one. That said, they are good at picking up and running with my chosen tech stack. 

Additionally, even though it wasn’t the main task, Faster Than Light went out of their way to do some graphic design work. They are very resourceful. 

What is the team composition?

I work with one senior frontend developer, and I also talk with Dennis (CEO).

How did you come to work with Faster Than Light?

I met them through Clutch, and I was looking for a developer in Ukraine. I had worked with Ukrainian developers in the past, and I had a good impression of them.

Dennis was very responsive. We held several meetings before we started the engagement. He sent me a referral from someone he had worked with, and they had really positive things to say. Before we started working with the developer, we had an introductory call to get introduced. 

How much have you invested with them?

I have spent somewhere shy of $22,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2021, and it’s ongoing. 

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

The impact of their work is a bit immeasurable since we haven’t launched yet. That said, they have sped up the development time to meet our deadlines. I don’t think we could have been ready with our MVP without their support and help.  

In addition, Faster Than Light has made it easier for the customer to check out. They did an excellent job of coding our platform’s sections and making them work together.

How did Faster Than Light perform from a project management standpoint?

Faster Than Light is good at project management. I work mainly with the developer, and we use a task management tool to share tasks and check in daily. He is very responsible and updates his tasks using the tool. I always know what he’s working on and how much time it will take.

Faster Than Light is very easy to work with, forthcoming, and accommodating to my timeline and budget. We communicate through Slack and Zoom, and we also have emails here and there.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re small, responsive, and hands-on. I like that I’m not talking to a huge agency that doesn’t care about me. I feel that I have their attention and that I’m in good hands, even though I’m only working with one developer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m very happy with our engagement. I don’t think there was anything that they could have done better. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The daily check-ins help to keep us in sync. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

The company develops a Multi-Day tour marketplace. I'm the CTO

For what projects/services did your company hire Faster Than Light, and what were your goals?

Develop a new marketplace based on a new design and improved requirements.

How did you select Faster Than Light and what were the deciding factors?

We evaluated 10 companies. After having an initial interview with each team we moved to the second phase of detailed project evaluation. We also had an interview with lead developers and made a final decision based on Experience and process proposal

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

The technology stack is:

Ruby on Rails - Backend ReactJS, MobX with Server-side rendering in NodeJS Develop 30+ pages with Filter/Search functionality, user authentication and admin section

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

6 engineers worked on this project + 1 QA 2 Senior Backend (1 is team leader) + 1 Mid level Backend 3 Frontend engineers (1 is team leader)

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

The team did a great job way above the expectation. They worked in the USA timezone to remove the time gap and they were very dedicated to the project's success. The team leads survived an endless amount of meetings with the business team to cover the domain knowledge gap and did the "extra mile" to develop the best possible solution.

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

We used Google Drive for document sharing Figma for design Slack for communication ClickUp for task management

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

The team did an "extra mile" in every subject they worked on.

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

Sometimes, due to a very short time frame, it's better to understand the actual user flow before implementing even the draft version. It can improve deliverables.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a cloud-based software solution for farmers and growers. We are an Agtech startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Faster Than Light?

We had some internal changes in our tech team and we needed to be leaner and more flexible, but at the same time not compromise the level of technology.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started small and built up gradually. We needed someone to manage our bugs in the system. We built trust with time and they showed a high level of expertise and we moved onto development.

They provide us with project management support in terms of putting everything together for the developers. We have the backend and frontend, as well as some UX design.

They definitely contribute. They ask questions regularly which I like and they challenge what we provide, they ask why, as well as make suggestions which is great.  A lot of the time we accept their suggestions. They also provide a little bit of advisory on what to do from a technology point of view.

What is the team composition?

We work with everyone on the team, but we do have a project manager who is our first point of contact and the one we’re in touch with the most.

How did you come to work with Faster Than Light?

My former CTO found them.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent up to $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in February 2020, and we are still working together. 

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

Things are working well. Our projects are being developed and pushed to production, so we are happy.

How did Faster Than Light perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a meeting every Friday with everyone involved. It can be between 3–5 people depending on who is working that week. Everyone discusses what they’ve done and what they’re doing next. We provide them with an overview of the company and our progress just to put things in context since they’re a contractor. We touch on a couple of bigger topics and we ask them what they think. 

Sometimes during the week, we’re in touch with the front- or backend developers, but it is mostly the project manager we communicate with. We mostly use Slack, WhatsApp, and Jira to communicate and internally we’re happy with the communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The way they engage with the business and are willing to provide additional services is impressive. They start off really slow and then offer additional services such as project management. They offered to cover the costs for the first month just for us to try them out, which is awesome that they were willing to do that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to perform a bit more QA because sometimes we find very basic bugs that should have been picked up by anyone.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It depends on the business and what they are looking for. It is important to keep them in the loop and try to provide them with as much work as you can but also let them know how what they’re doing is contributing to and impacting the business. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of an event solutions company. We’re developing a CRM software for music festivals. It has API keys for different cashless payment providers, and it works as a white label solution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Faster Than Light?

We had an initial prototype built by a Berlin-based company. As soon as the proof of concept was successful, we needed to find a longterm team of developers take over for maintenance and new feature development. We needed a scalable approach for maintaining the software in the long term, and that’s why we contracted Faster Than Light.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The base product was in place when we brought Faster Than Light onboard. We had a ticket management system and some payment APIs, and they helped us develop additional APIs in order to extend our base of payment providers. They’ve also helped us build additional functionalities like a secondary ticketing module for resales. They’ve worked on our entire infrastructure, covering a long list of features.

The platform was built on Ruby on Rails, and that remains our sole backend programming language. We’re using Vue.js on the frontend. It's completely web-based, with special modes for mobile viewing. We’ve tried to develop the frontend in a way that would let it adjust to different screen sizes.

What is the team composition?

The team consists of three Ruby on Rails backend developers and one frontend developer. Dmitry (Engineering Manager, Founder & CTO) was our main point of contact initially, and he passed the responsibility over to Denis (COO & Co-Founder). He’s the administrative project manager. We have a project manager on our side, who acts as a scrum master.

How did you come to work with Faster Than Light?

We were working with another nearshore development company, and they introduced us to Faster Than Light.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested less than one million dollars so far. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Faster Than Light around April 2016, and we were one of their first clients. We’ve had to downsize the team due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I’m sure we’ll keep working with them.

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

Faster Than Light acts as the core of our development team. We trust them a lot, and they’re basically developing our entire feature roadmap.

There are always hiccups and unforeseen bugs, and there were developers that didn’t perform well and had to be replaced, but I’m totally happy with Faster Than Light’s overall performance. They’re always willing to go the extra mile.

How did Faster Than Light perform from a project management standpoint?

We hired an internal project manager for the team at Faster Than Light, and she’s doing a magnificent job. We have weekly planning meetings and catchup calls to discuss requirements.

We’ve been using Slack for team communication since the beginning, and we’re using Jira for task logging and release management. We’re using Confluence for requirement documentation and business aspects, and we’re using GitHub, CircleCI, and other deployment tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve done a good job hiring people and building a strong team. It doesn’t feel like we’re contracting someone that gets paid by the hour, but rather, it feels like we’re working with people who have passion for this product and are going the extra mile. It feels like we’re working with our own team, just in a different location.

I’m always very impressed with how they manage to recruit such a balanced and friendly team. They have a great team spirit, and they work well together. It makes working with them very enjoyable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind right now. Everything’s going well for me.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It depends on what the client is looking for. I believe Faster Than Light is also offering an agency service, but I can only speak to their nearshoring services. In this respect, clients need to ensure that the work they’re requiring is detailed and written down. Otherwise, you can’t expect any agency to develop what you want. 

It’s also important to have a person on the client’s side to draft and structure the business requirements.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a software development company that builds products specialized for the insurance industry. My title there is vice president of development, and I oversee all of the engineering at the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Faster Than Light?

We wanted the team to help us build a mobile app to go along with a software product that we already have in the market.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The existing product that we offer has a web interface and a full dashboard and set of tools that are only accessible from a PC. We wanted to give access to all of our users from their mobile phones as well, and Faster Than Light helped us to create the API and cross-platform code necessary to transfer that full set of capabilities.

We split the design responsibilities about 50-50, with us providing some mockups and general guidelines on what they wanted, and then taking the lead from there to fill out the wireframes and then develop the actual infrastructure and frontend. It is available now on both iOS and Android.

What was the team composition?

We’ve worked with a wide variety of the members from their team, but on average there are between 3–5 people involved at any given time.

How did you come to work with Faster Than Light?

Initially, they came to our attention through a freelancing website and our relationship started there and ramped up as we progressed.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on the project with them from around January 2018–August 2019.

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

We were totally satisfied with the final product that they delivered over the course of our partnership. They have a lot of incredible technical talent on their team, so there was always very little back and forth around bug-fixing or testing the app.

How did Faster Than Light perform from a project management standpoint?

Our relationship with them was excellent, which is why we stayed with them for so long. They were self-driven, which is rare for a third-party contractor, but which really helped drive the success of our engagement. All they ever needed was the minimum amount of information required for them to do their job, and they were able to handle everything from there.

Their CEO is very engaged with the business and does a great job of managing relationships. On top of that, his team is straightforward, organized, and detail-oriented, so we never encountered any problems with the schedule or budget on our projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s tough to narrow it down to one thing, but I think their ability to self-manage is really what makes them such an excellent partner. They don’t need a lot of handholding or extra support from their clients, which frees you up to focus on the core aspects of your business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve been totally pleased with their work. We definitely want to work with them again in the future.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a CTO of software development company that based in Florida.

For what projects/services did your company hire Faster Than Light?

Web development services for a couple of projects.

What were your goals for this project?

We worked with Faster Than Light on multiple projects. One of the projects raised a lot of investment money and there was a really short amount of time between the actual date when we were going to receive the funds and the date when we were scheduled to present to the investors. There was no chance that we could’ve expanded our team quick enough on our own to build the platform.

How did you select this vendor?

They are our trusted partners for a long period of time.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They’re responsible for the core part of a couple of platforms. They worked with us on projects written on Ruby on Rails, Java, Python, Go, and JavaScript. The products already exist and are being used, but they’re helping with continued development. They did all the maintenance that was needed on the project. One of the projects was build up on microservice architecture using Docker. We had an integration with Amazon services. Platform's main idea was to collect a huge amount of data from open source and analyze it afterward. Everything was done cost efficiency and their flexibility in technologies allowed us to build an extremely good product with machine learning on top.

What was the team composition?

The beauty of this company that you could increase a team from just 1 developer to 4 and hire a QA. They all work together in the same space and that creates efficiency.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

As long as the people are still in the company, we will continue working with them indefinitely. We treat them as if they were part of our own company. They’ve provided us a contact person in case we experienced any issues. As a result, projects, where their team was involved, got money investments with happy users. They are valuable partners that we would like to work in the future.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We worked with different approaches. The team hits deadlines and communicates ahead of time if something will take longer than expected.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The communication was great. In all cases when we were worked with the Faster Than Light development team consist of professionals that you can really on. We value the people on their team. They answered all our questions. There were never hidden charges.

Are there any areas for improvement?

If there was anything we didn’t like, we talked to them like we would our internal team.

Please describe your company and your position there.

List and Ride Marketplace for Bike Rental.

For what projects/services did your company hire Faster Than Light?

Develop Marketplace from scratch.

What were your goals for this project?

Develop full stack solution.

How did you select this vendor?

Based on interviews and first test project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Full-stack development services for Angular JS / Angular, Rail Backend and QA services.

What was the team composition?

team of 5, 2 frontend, 2 backend, 1 QA.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

FTL is capable to combine the technical excellence with the understanding of the business context. They are among the highest quality developers with a full-stack skillset. He makes sure that the client, team and the company are aligned, and the projects succeed. I would be happy to recommend FTL services to other clients.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project Management arranged internal.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They're willing to dive into the project with no prior experience but are fast in understanding the requirements and building a professional solution.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No improvements.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a health tech company called MedSpoke. We developed an industry leading credentials management software for all medical professionals.

For what projects/services did your company hire Faster Than Light?

We have two developers to augment our development team that's maintaining our software and building new features.

What were your goals for this project?

Goals were to accomplish tasks and features from our CTO (Lead Developer).

How did you select this vendor?

Word of mouth referral. 

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Backend Ruby on Rails development and frontend React development

What was the team composition?

Two developers.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

They were vital to our software development and reaching our development goals. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Faster Than Light assigned an in-house project manager. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their CEO/Founder, Dmitry, was very communicative and accommodating. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing that comes to mind. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the COO at an accounting firm.

For what projects/services did your company hire Faster Than Light?

We hired them for custom software development for some of our internal tools.

What were your goals for this project?

We mainly wanted to automate a lot of work that's done manually.

How did you select this vendor?

Faster Than Light was recommended to us by a trusted partner. We interviewed them thoroughly and validated their previous projects.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They're basically working on creating tools that will automate a lot of the tasks that we've been doing manually.

What was the team composition?

They assigned two junior developers and a project manager to our project.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Faster Than Light has excellent developers and overall very nice and productive people.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management is okay. Some limitations on our side have made it a little harder.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their team is not only hard-working and productive but they're also good at solving problems.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. They should keep doing a great job!