Faster Than Light

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Suppli, a vertical fintech software company that builds payment and communications tools for the construction industry. 

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

We were working with our VP of engineering to build out the initial version of our payments and accounts receivable software product. We brought on Faster Than Light to be our outsourced development team. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Faster Than Light functions as our product and engineering team — they’re building out our web-based app with a customer portal using Ruby on Rails. My team has already developed the wireframes in Figma, laid out the backend infrastructure, and chose the development language. Faster Than Light collaborates with our VP of engineering, working on the back- and frontend development using the materials we’ve provided. They’re also providing some feedback on our existing UX/UI design. Their team is building our product from the ground up and is also working on QA and product testing. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Denis (CEO), a project manager, three frontend developers, and three backend developers. 

How did you come to work with Faster Than Light?

Our VP of engineering had worked with members of Faster Than Light before and had a good experience with them. So, we decided to hire them for this project. 

How much have you invested with them?

By the end of the project, we’ll have invested $150,000–$200,0000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Faster Than Light in October 2021, and our partnership is ongoing. However, we didn’t utilize Faster Than Light’s full team until January 2022. 

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

Faster Than Light’s quality of work is unbelievable. Our VP of engineering reviews all of their work — very little of Faster Than Light’s work needs to be redone. They get everything right the first time. Whenever we make corrections, Faster Than Light delivers them quickly. The two senior engineers we work with are more than comparable to the resources we could’ve found in the US. They’ve helped us think through the implementation of the complex logic on the backend. Faster Than Light’s team has provided great insights to improve our product. 

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

It took a while to develop a workflow with Faster Than Light, but we would’ve had to do that for any new team. My team sets up a weekly agenda for Faster Than Light to follow; we follow their progress through ZenHub. Internally, Faster Than Light also has a daily stand-up call — Faster Than Light manages themselves very effectively. We have weekly all-hands meetings and daily stand-ups on Slack with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed with the quality of Faster Than Light’s team and how invested they are in our project. At the start of the partnership, we were concerned about their dedication to our projects, but Faster Than Light has taken ownership of the project. They act as a part of our team. Their resilience and commitment are easy to see — even after they were displaced because of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, they were eager to continue the project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing for Faster Than Light to improve — we’ve already worked through all of our roadblocks. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise customers to have a good sense of what types of technical resources they need to leverage for their project. Once that is laid out, it’s important to layout communication channels and deliverable updates with Faster Than Light.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product marketing manager at a planning platform for off-site companies. We’re also a marketplace for vendors. 

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

We hired Faster Than Light for their custom software development services. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Typically, our projects start with discovery calls on the frontend, and then we talk about the full scope of the projects. Faster Than Light then provides a full estimate of timelines, hours, and costs. 

Moreover, I usually put forward designs and write requirements. I then interface with the person that manages their resources. From there, they build everything from the front- and backend to the full data model. Additionally, Faster Than Light works in our task management system, and we communicate with them as often as we need to keep in touch.

In terms of technology, we predominantly use Ruby on Rails. On the frontend, we primarily use React. Our team does the design tasks on Figma, but Faster Than Light also provides suggestions for UI/UX improvements.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with around five engineers, consisting of two junior developers, one senior backend developer, and one senior frontend engineer. We also deal with one system architect, one junior backend engineer, and one junior frontend engineer. Our main point of contact is a project manager. 

How did you come to work with Faster Than Light?

I found Faster Than Light in my previous role as the head of product at another startup. They built our platform there. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $25,000–$30,000 so far; the project total will be around $50,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Faster Than Light in February 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

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

We measure success based on Faster Than Light’s ability to meet whatever product roadmap and timeline we set. Forecasting is crucial for non-technical people in the business, and communicating timeliness to investors is truly important. 

Against these metrics, Faster Than Light has an impressive ability to stay on the same page in terms of timelines. Whether they’re on schedule or behind schedule, they make sure to communicate that with us. So far, we’ve hit all the interim milestones that we’ve set for our engagement. 

Overall, I’m 100% satisfied with Faster Than Light. Given their circumstances in Kyiv, it’s downright amazing that we’ve only lost a day or two. We’re happy to be in a position to continue to support them in today’s world. 

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

Faster Than Light’s project management has been good. We use ClickUp for task management and Slack for day-to-day communications. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their strong point is their technical expertise. They can play the role of a technical subject-matter expert that can bounce ideas off us. When we give them product requirements, they can talk us through the best technical approaches we can use to move quickly. For comparison, other development firms need a fairly big overlap to make sure there’s full alignment. By contrast, Faster Than Light can move quite quickly without spending too much time discussing hypotheticals. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. They’ve been doing a great job so far. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When you’re looking for a development shop, think about what you truly need, whether that’s product design expertise or technical expertise and actual development manpower. In the engagements that I’ve had with Faster Than Light, they seem to shine when they can focus their technical expertise on the execution of a well-thought-out plan.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm CEO at the Product Development agency, We help startups and companies building their digital products.

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

We are working on multiple projects, and we were looking for additional hands to help us meet the deadlines. So the main goal is to scale up the dev team quickly.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I met Denis, their CEO, at a conference. We were in touch for a while. Earlier, we started on smaller projects and decided to move on afterward.

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

They are providing us with Front end development resources. We are primarily working on React, and they've provided us with really skilled people for a reasonable price.

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

We had the pleasure to work with different amounts of people during the whole period of our collaboration. They usually provide us with various level developers, depending on the needs.

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

We were able to hit the deadline without pushing a price a lot for our end customers. Happy customers - the main outcome of our work :)

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

We were able to communicate with the devs via Slack and telegram. If there were a need, we used Google meet. In general, there were no issues with communication at all.

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

I like that they are easy-going guys, the way they communicate matches our own vision. It's really important that they integrated well with our internal team.

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

I wish they would have more senior people available right away. But I would not blame them since the people that they provided were on a really high level.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our family has proudly produced high quality Table Grapes in Red Cliffs for over thirty years. We grow, harvest, pack and export fresh table grapes and citrus. I am a general manager and director at SJDC Produce.

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

I’ve hired Faster Than Light to build an internal sales portal together with a new website. The main goal is to automate the sales process, increase visibility and allow our customers to get all the necessary information easier. I also wanted to create a high quality landing page to professionalise our brand.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

When we came up with this idea, we looked for somebody to turn ideas into an actual project. My friend, a founder of another startup, referred to me Faster Than Light and did a small intro to Denis, their CEO. I was new to the website development process - so that word of mouth reference from someone I trust really contributed to my decision.

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

We needed a landing page with information about us, an admin panel and customers sales portal. The idea was to build everything mobile-friendly, automate messaging and make it easier for our clients. I believe the main parts are custom chat functionality, custom design, clients portal and overall management system.

They also handled the deployment part and setup. Project steps included a weekly meeting over zoom, access to a cloud folder for shared documents, files and media, a dedicated slack channel for discussion, and access to prototypes for my continual review. It was an excellent example of how to work asynchronously.

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

The main point of contact was Denis and the tech lead. Also, I had a direct chat with UI/UX person that boosted productivity a lot. The whole team were 3 developers, 1 designer and a project manager.

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

It's hard to quantify the financial benefits of this project, as our fresh fruit season hasn't started yet. However, I have already rolled the website and portal out to a number of new cutomers who are very excited about the concept. I have created test listings which have been responded to enthusiastically by customers - it provides me a valuable, controllable way to communicate with fruit buyers around the world.

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

Faster than Light's management style is strongly geared towards working remotely, efficiently. As already mentioned, we utilised several different tools to ideate, develop, communicate and solidify the project. Our weekly meetings were productive, and kept the project flowing steadily without being to burdensome on me as a client. The consistent focus on actionables at each step was very valuable to me - and they made it easy to navigate the technical nuances.

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

The breadth of their capability - my project had so many different aspects: custom chat, graphic elements, video elements, significant user interface for the admins, custom emails, user management and permissions - they were so readily able to take the ideas I had and just make them happen.

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

Though still very good, I felt that Faster Than Light's area for improvement would be their creative and graphic design. I came to the project with brand concepts already developed, and I felt that they could use additional creative design resources in-house to help them to provide a truly full service.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at a financial services company. We’re one of the leading invoice funding providers in North America.

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

We had a shortage of staff resources. We were trying to find a company that could work in our development model but was flexible with timing and ramping up and down based on our budget.

On the engineering side, we were looking for senior Ruby on Rails developers and a senior QA.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Faster Than Light has helped us build and enhance our application throughout the year. We have ongoing development, and if we need staff augmentation, we have their people joining our team.

Initially, we did a bunch of training with Faster Than Light. We gave them access to our systems and trained them like any new engineer that joins our team.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with four people so far. We initially had three openings, and one person changed halfway through the year.

We started with one senior engineer with the idea that if we trained them, they’d train any additional people. Then, we ramped up to three senior engineers and one senior QA person.

How did you come to work with Faster Than Light?

We went through a pretty rigorous selection process. We looked for different types of software vendors — around ten companies. Faster Than Light had quality senior Ruby on Rails engineers, which was the biggest criteria we had. Then, we got them to give us different senior engineers to do a technical assessment with them. They passed, so we negotiated pricing and more.

Overall, Faster Than Light came out on top in terms of their development process and other things. However, there were other practicalities involved, such as time zone. Since we’re in Toronto, we wanted to have half a day overlapped, and their geographic area was good for that.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent over $80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2021, and we continue to work with them.

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

The engineers are really good. When we added them to the team, they integrated really nicely. Also, Denis (CEO & Co-Founder) is always very available and checks in once in a while to make sure things are going well. He takes the relationship very seriously and is definitely invested in it. If there are any changes, they let me know ahead of time and handle them proactively.

Moreover, they’re good at managing the relationship and understanding our needs. They proactively offer people to us when they have new engineers available. Faster Than Light always comes to us first to see if we can find a role for them. Overall, it has been a pretty positive experience.

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

We manage the project on our side, so it’s been pretty hands-off. However, their engineers join our team, and they’ve been able to deliver different initiatives or features on time. They work with us daily and are essentially part of the team.

We mostly communicate on Slack, and they join our regular team meetings. Denis might talk to us once a month.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have good Ruby on Rails talent, which was the hardest thing to find. Their prices are pretty reasonable, and Denis is a great guy. He’s easy to work with.

Additionally, our teams match culturally. They feel like they’re part of our team even though they aren’t working in our office.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They proactively deal with things, so I don’t have many complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re an excellent option for people who want staff augmentation.

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 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.