Freeport Metrics

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of operations and finance at HealthConnect Networks, a healthcare IT consulting firm operating in around 2,500 hospitals and clinics as part of a federal subsidy for their IT services. Our parent company is ProInfoNet, a company doing network design and overall IT consulting. As VP of operations and finance, I run our entire healthcare consulting business unit and take care of our parent company's financial management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

For the last 10 years, our 20-person team had been working out of an access-based database as part of our day-to-day operations. However, our company had grown quite significantly in the last 10 years, so it was clear that our database had become obsolete and was getting really slow.

Therefore, we needed to come up with a new operational solution for our entire team. As our company grew, we established a more complex operating model, so we needed more than just an on-premises solution. We required a web-based system that could guide our entire team and their daily operations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Freeport Metrics to migrate all of our historical information into a new custom software solution with automation capabilities to simplify our overall day-to-day processes and help us scale and grow. The team implemented an entirely custom web app using C# and JavaScript. Their work included the overall design, development, and QA. Although they also offered continuous maintenance, we decided to keep the hosting in-house.

One of the main challenges was taking around 100 historical forms and implementing them into the new web app. These are forms that our team needs to fill out and are a big part of our data-gathering and automation work, so we use them with these 2,500 hospitals and clinics on a daily basis.

What is the team composition?

From Freeport Metrics' design team, we worked with three designers focused on UX design. They were involved in the frontend of the solution during the initial three months to help us design the entire product. We also worked with two QA specialists who helped test everything as it was being developed.

Moreover, Charlotte (Senior Project Manager) worked with us on a daily basis to keep track of the entire project and make sure that it was being developed properly. On the development side, we worked with Mariusz (Software Architect), who was responsible for the backend design and for leading the engineering team comprised of three developers.

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

Finding Freeport Metrics was totally organic. We put together an RFP for this project and interviewed 3–4 different companies. We had found Freeport Metrics online, so there were part of those interviews.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $900,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership officially began in July 2022 and ended in October 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Freeport Metrics' solution streamlined our form automation process for us, helping us run through an entire ACH program as well. We're still in the period of full adoption, trying to get our team on board with the new software product.

Although I'm completely happy with the software, the first three or four months after its launch were a pretty big challenge for us. We ended up hiring an internal software developer to help us fix a lot of bugs that Freeport Metrics had coded improperly so that the solution could be fully usable for us.

It took us almost six months after launch to get the product to be fully functional so that our team could use it daily. Although I really like the software design, there were some key data migration challenges; that was our biggest issue.

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

Freeport Metrics' communication was fantastic. Charlotte was one of the best people I've worked with. We had weekly or every-other-day check-ins, depending on our needs, and they offered timely responses. It was very clear that we were their number one priority.

As for the overall project management, there was definitely a scope creep. We initially requested an MVP, but I felt that some of the developers did what they wanted to do instead of what we really needed, which ended up causing more challenges for us on the backend. Due to that scope creep, our budget vastly exceeded what we had originally intended to spend on this project.

Freeport Metrics used Microsoft DevOps as their primary tool for working through development tickets. They might have utilized another Google-based platform for their internal project management, but I'm not sure. Moreover, we gave them access to our Microsoft Teams instance to allow for easy communication. Still, we used Google Meet for most of our meetings.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I would like to give a shout-out to Charlotte (Senior Project Manager) and Mariusz (Software Architect). Both of them were absolutely fantastic.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One thing about Freeport Metrics that was extraordinary was their willingness to come up with creative solutions to our complex challenges. They were very good at trying to understand our processes and figure out solutions. As mentioned, there were some challenges along the way, but it was clear that their team cared about the project and was interested in coming up with great ideas for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Freeport Metrics' team was great, and they did their best. However, there were some language barrier challenges. They're a Polish team, and although they're fully fluent in English, there were some conceptual understanding challenges when we were discussing the nuances of our business.

I don't know if it was because we operate in a unique space, but Freeport Metrics came back with more generic solutions based on what they had understood. We could probably have done a better job describing those nuances, but there definitely were language barriers causing those challenges.

Moreover, it would have been great if they had provided a better upfront budgeting and scope definition during the proposal phase.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Schedule as frequent check-ins with them as you can and be involved in their daily stand-ups if possible. This approach is beneficial for understanding what they're working on every day. Additionally, get access to their DevOps instance to have a good understanding of the tickets they're working on and do your own review.

Freeport Metrics does a great job of keeping everything organized, but as a representative of your organization, you need to do all the extra work to ensure that the other team is doing exactly what you request of them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Outreach Director of Animal Ethics

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We do outreach and education to help all sentient beings, with a focus on wild animals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Freeport Metrics to accomplish?

Create an AI assistant to answer questions about animal ethics and wild animal suffering

SOLUTION

How did you find Freeport Metrics?

• Referral
• Tech to the Rescue

Why did you select Freeport Metrics over others?

Other

How many teammates from Freeport Metrics were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• A chatbot that can accurately converse about 10 major topics in animal ethics
• UI design
• Documentation and training to maintain the bot

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

They delivered the chatbot and provided training on how to maintain it.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Freeport Metrics kept us continually informed and were responsive to our needs. They gave us weekly demos of their progress and incorporated our feedback. They also educated us when we needed to understand technical details in order to make informed decisions. 

What was your primary form of communication with Freeport Metrics?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I was impressed by their overall professionalism, but especially by how they incorporated us as part of the process all the way. They helped us understand the technical issues and answered our many and frequent questions quickly. They even went above and beyond in learning a lot about our domain so they could do thorough testing of the accuracy of the AI assistant's answers.

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

I would have liked to have a prompt template that we could modify ourselves, but they've been very responsive in making the changes we request.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and founder of a business management SaaS company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

We’re a startup company, so we needed to supplement our onshore development team with additional resources.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Freeport Metrics helps us develop custom software for our product. Our platform is built mostly with .NET and Microsoft technologies.

We initially engaged with them, signed the contract, and created a statement of work that reserved us a team with development, QA, and project management resources. After the discovery session, we started the project. 

Our team in the US has provided a lot of the architecture and guidance to build the software as product managers. We’ve leveraged Freeport Metrics to do the construction and reviewed their code for all the releases.

We’ve launched our MVP project and have reserved a team member. They help for a certain number of hours each week and commit to bug fixes and minor feature development.

What is the team composition?

We’ve had everything from junior to senior engineers, QA resources, architects, and project managers. We’ve been using them for over a year, and the team has varied depending on where we’ve been in our development cycles, so the team's makeup has changed based on our needs.

For the most part, we’ve had software engineers and project managers consistently throughout the entire engagement. Other resources come in and out as needed.

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

I found them through a referral a long time ago, back in 2008. I’ve used them on and off at different companies I’ve worked with, so I’ve been with them for quite some time. I leverage Freeport Metrics primarily because of their skill set.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in May 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we’re a startup company and don’t have full-time employees, Freeport Metrics has helped us supplement our staff to get to a product launch. Having them as part of our team has certainly helped us get the product to market sooner.

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

Freeport Metrics is very flexible about working with us as a startup. They understand when we need to scale up or down; there’s no real pressure on the development other than managing the project to ensure it’s complete and high-quality and that they have the resources needed from our side to get the job done. Overall, they’ve been very flexible regarding budgets.

They’re always on time. Freeport Metrics operates with agile sprints and is disciplined at following an agile development process. They’ve also assigned us a Scrum master project manager along with the resources. We have daily stand-up meetings with them; they effectively operate through development as an extension of our team.

We collaborate primarily using Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Teams and Azure DevOps, to add user stories, check the source code, and other similar tasks. In addition to those common repositories, we mainly use calls, emails, and Microsoft collaboration tools. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve exceeded our expectations regarding the quality of their work. They have various technical resources, so whether we work on UI, frontend, backend, or software engineering, they’re always pretty nimble. Moreover, they’re talented in most of the technologies we’ve used in the product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve been pretty consistent over the years I’ve worked with them. If I could come up with something, it’d be very soft.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As a new client, make sure your key stakeholders or product owners are available and ready to engage with them so that they can move through the work. If there are any delays or times when we expect something and it isn’t done on time, it’s generally due to my team’s availability, not their ability to get it done.

Freeport Metrics is disciplined and excellent at agile development. When they move, they move pretty diligently and quickly, so you won’t see a delay on their side.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder and CEO of FoodTrux. We're a SaaS company focused exclusively on the food truck industry with the hope and goal of building out business management tools.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

We brought Freeport Metrics into the fold after working with a software development agency that failed at their job. The team went over budget and didn't handle many deliverables. We asked Freeport Metrics to conduct an audit and finish building our software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Freeport Metrics has conducted a 30-day audit of our software. The team then went back into the software and spent about a month and a half fixing a number of major issues. Once that was completed, we put a bunch of new initiatives in front of them. Freeport Metrics is building out a custom-built POS system for food trucks. After the audit and bug-fixing, the team has added more complex features over the last six months that we weren't able to accomplish with the other firm. 

Freeport Metrics has added 7–8 major features within the POS system, and the team works within React Native. Freeport Metrics has also done a free UI audit.

What is the team composition?

We've worked with a UI designer, three full-time developers, a tech lead, a project manager, and the head of business development. The team we work with ranges from 3–7 teammates. 

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

I found Freeport Metrics through a Google search. The team was one of the original two companies I spoke to when I started this endeavor years back.
How much have you invested with them?

We've spent close to $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began talking with Freeport Metrics in February 2023, but our engagement started in July 2023. Our engagement is ongoing, and Freeport Metrics is wrapping up the development of two features. The team is scoping and budgeting the MVP of three additional features we'll begin developing by September or October 2024. We expect to work with Freeport Metrics for approximately another year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I previously worked with two different development agencies from Croatia and the US. Freeport Metrics' hourly rates are almost the same, but their work quality is ten times better. I regret not choosing Freeport Metrics the first time I talked to them because I worked with a different company that didn't meet expectations. If I had chosen Freeport Metrics, our product would probably have been on the market a year ago instead of three weeks ago, and we'd be much further ahead in our process.

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

Freeport Metrics has excellent communication and presentation of budget and deliverables. The team delivers work on time, a rarity in the industry. We get what we pay for, which I didn't feel was the case with the previous company we worked with. The instances where Freeport Metrics hasn't met deadlines and budget have been because this is a complex project.

We've exceeded the budget at times. However, the team has been flexible in discounting some of the work above the budgeted amount. Freeport Metrics has been spot-on with expectations. If anything has slowed things down, it's been my inability to define the project at times. Reviewing our research sometimes takes us a week or two to gather all the details we need to provide to the team.

Freeport Metrics is good at managing and meeting expectations. We mainly communicate via email and Zoom meetings several times a week. We have shared Google Drive files, and the team provides me with presentations and reports.
Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I want to highlight Antonina (Project Manager) has been great at managing the entire project. Krzysztof (Head of Delivery) came in after we paused after the first audit and bug fixes. He has been unbelievable in helping us manage the budget. We've requested additional features, one of which was expensive, and Krzysztof reduced the original quote from $80,000 to $55,000 as long as we stuck to the MVP. 

We're a startup that has just started to generate revenue, and Krzysztof has been great at negotiation. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Freeport Metrics exceeds my expectations. Given my bad experiences with previous companies, Freeport Metrics has been great. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I haven't noticed any improvement areas for Freeport Metrics. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Freeport Metrics is very flexible from a communication standpoint and accommodates my schedule. Even though they're six hours ahead of our timezone because the bulk of the work is done in Poland. The team is good about working with the client's schedule, and future clients who work with them will have a smooth and easy experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a researcher and a professor at a university. I do research on the ecology and management of weeds in organic farming systems. I have four graduate students, a post-doc and I collaborate with people all over the US and Europe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

This particular project involved a grant that we received from another university. We are the co-principal investigators of the US Department of Agriculture MISA Grant from the Organic Agricultural Research and Extension Initiative.

It's a two-million-dollar grant that aims to improve weed management in diversified organic vegetable systems. In particular, we're doing research with farmers in both the Midwestern US and in northern New England. We're getting farmers to evaluate alternative weed management tools and strategies.

We were looking for help developing the website for the project, which we termed a data dashboard. This dashboard allowed participating farmers to upload data and in real-time see how their weed management was performing on their own farm, as well as how it performed relative to other participating farms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Freeport Metrics developed and designed our website and dashboard. First, I described conceptually what I wanted to happen with Andrew (CEO, Co-Founder, Freeport Metrics). He convinced me that it was possible with our budget.

Then, I mocked up what I imagined a data dashboard to look like, first in pencil sketched and then using PowerPoint. They took those sketches, brought in designers, and refine my very crude sketches into something that looked quite attractive.

I gave them some mock data sets and some examples from some statistical outputs that I had made in terms of what I wanted the data to look like. I wanted more than just numbers in a box. Instead, I wanted what we call box and whisker plots, something that shows both means as well as ranges, mediums, some more statistical ways of presenting the data.

That was a little different than what they had done before, but they took that and came back with some examples. We brought in my colleagues to review it and see if it was going to actually present all the data we wanted.

Freeport Metrics also came up with some really clever ways to add mapping to the site so that we can put a pin where the participating farm is located. It was important to present the data in both an appealing and informative way. Their team also utilized internet tools and available code to build the website without scope-creep.

What is the team composition?

It varied a little bit over the course of the project. I had one main point of contact but I also worked with around three tech people and one designer. There was usually a team of 4–5 that I would be dealing with.

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

I have a neighbor who's in the IT business. He couldn't do the work so he recommended Andrew and Freeport Metrics. It helped that they were based in Freeport, Maine, and I'm at the University of Maine. I always try to work with companies within our state. It was a little surprising when, in our first conference call, I found out that their entire team was in Warsaw, Poland, but it didn't affect our ability to get the work done.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested $75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with Freeport Metrics from October 2018–June 2019. They’ve been in touch several times over the past years to let me know when I’m missing certain updates.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I really couldn't be happier with the design and functionality of the site that they made. Freeport Metrics made something that exceeded my own vision for what I had hoped for because they just knew more about both aesthetics of design, aesthetics of how to present data in engaging ways.

They came up with ideas for turning on and off data in a particular frame so you could compare one data set to another. It was demonstrative of their passion for the project that they came up with ideas for presenting our own data that I hadn’t even thought of.

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

Freeport Metrics excels at communication and project management. I was impressed with just how on top of managing this they were. I actually learned some things that I applied to how I managed my own graduate students. Freeport Metrics was really clear with scheduling and what they want to happen.

They were incredibly organized and articulate in both what they were working on, who is working on it, how they were going to work on it, and how they were going to report their progress. It was interesting that they wanted to make sure that I understood sort of how their team worked in addition to reviewing the content that they were delivering. It was very confidence-inspiring.

There was never a meeting where they couldn't answer a particular question. Things were finished on time, so they were able to launch on time. We were working with a bit of a deadline because we were going to have farmers doing their part in the field. They had to go from a concept at the turn of the year to launching by the time planting season came around.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There's a niche for accepting, aggregating, and presenting data to help people that are interested in data-driven decision making. I ended up being very happy with their ability to work with me to process the data that I was interested in showing. Freeport Metrics also ensured that farmers could use their phones to upload data, processed it in their database, and then presented it in real-time. They were great at this data-focused presentation of information.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Freeport Metrics has been great. We're very happy with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bring them a mock-up or give them as clear a picture of your vision as possible right from the beginning. Let them know how you envision it and who the users really are that you expect to be either contributing to the site or using the site. I had a particular vision for how I wanted the product to look, and Freeport Metrics helped me achieve that. We were also able to make progress quickly because of this.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the director of data management, in charge of databases and data reporting for a fintech company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

We did small engagements over the years, but the two major ones were building a data warehouse and researching a SQL Server technology called Always Encrypted.

For the data warehouse, our team was receiving many different raw format data files in Microsoft SQL Server technologies. We laid out a plan to load that data and process it into a data warehouse. However, we didn’t have enough people or time to build it ourselves, so we engaged Freeport Metrics.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We explained to Freeport Metrics what we wanted to do. They came up with a comprehensive plan and executed it on time and within budget.

This was an internal-facing project. In terms of the size of the dataset, it was very large; I believe it was multi-millions of rows.

What is the team composition?

Our point of contact was a project manager. We also worked with a developer. I believe they also had about three people supporting them, although I didn’t really deal with them directly. I dealt with a leader from their side who created an SOW and managed the project.

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

I was aware of them through my local contacts. We had used them for smaller projects over many years. They did some consulting and installation for us on SugarCRM many years prior to the data server project.

How much have you invested with them?

The data warehouse project was $20,000, and the Always Encrypted research project under $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The data warehouse project was from July–August 2018. That was a very busy two months of work. Then, the Always Encrypted project was more part-time, and it was for a couple of weeks in June 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were extremely satisfied with their work and the people we dealt with at Freeport. The data warehouse is still in operation today. 

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a great job of communicating with me and the team. The team was thorough, and in some cases, too thorough; we had to ask them not to go down a rabbit hole, as the priorities shifted a little bit on our company’s side. We had stand-up meetings to check in with everybody, which was extremely helpful. They gave us prototypes and feedback to guide things. They also had portals set up where we could check the progress of their work.

I felt comfortable letting them talk directly to my staff, which I normally am not, because I’ve had negative experiences with other contractors. It was completely night and day with Freeport. I felt like they were trying to actually get the job done and not just drum up more business for themselves — I trusted them to deal with my people directly. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

It was a very positive engagement from start to finish.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I was very satisfied with their work. In general, I think communication was key, as were the stand-ups, because they were operating in a different timezone.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do the check-ins with them and communicate, because it takes both sides. They’re totally willing to do it. I’ve worked on a lot of projects with Freeport and other contractors, and the key to success is always communication.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’ve worked with Freeport Metrics in a couple of companies, the latest one being MagNet Analytics. I’m the CEO, and we have a retail technology platform for a network of micro-stores in the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

Freeport Metrics developed our software technology platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our entire platform was developed by Freeport Metrics. They made it modular and used open-source platforms like MySQL, along with HTML for the user interfaces, and Java, as well. 

Freeport Metrics completes certain milestones and objectives, and we’ll come back with other needs. We’ve had 6–7 engagements so far, working on different parts of the same system.

What is the team composition?

On this project, our direct interaction has been with about five people from Freeport Metrics, but I’m not sure who else supports the work on their side. 

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

We followed a personal referral from a former employee — I started using Freeport Metrics’ services 15 years ago. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $150,000–$170,000 with Freeport Metrics on this platform.

What is the status of this engagement?

The relationship started around March 2014 in the current company — it’s been a continuous on-and-off process.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The technologies they use are easily maintainable, accessible, and don’t have high costs for additional development. The platform is easy to understand and modify by new developers.

Freeport Metrics created an architecture that’s essentially timeless. These technologies aren’t closed environments, and they won’t go out of favor and become obsolete in the way other ones have. 

The best outcome is that the system has worked reliably over the past 4–5 years, with no issues. We encountered and fixed several problems as we were developing it, but the system worked with zero issues once it was finished, with very little maintenance.

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed well. The only drawback is that they work on a different time schedule to us, but that’s common. It’s rare to find developers within the same US time slot for us. 

Outside of that, Freeport Metrics is focused on the objectives we ask them to handle. From my experience with other developers, other people just want to run the time and get distracted. In our case, we agreed on goal-based objectives, and they achieve what we’re looking for. It’s been pretty impressive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The bottom line is the system they built works and functions very well — it’s reliable, efficient, and timeless. Although we set up the architecture many years ago, it’s still a current, modern system.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They can improve their documentation process significantly. Freeport Metrics has switched version control and documentation platforms since we started using them, and that’s been a bit hard.

We’re pretty happy outside of that, and I wouldn’t be recommending them, otherwise.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

With any software development company, I recommend working on objective-based and fixed-price projects. The model has worked well for us. It’s allowed us to focus on the solution as opposed to running the time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a software consulting firm and I’m the managing consultant. We do a lot of technology implementations to make people's user experiences better.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

We're a fairly small company and we work on a subcontracting model where we bring in resources for specific projects. On this occasion, we needed someone who could provide mobile app development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We requested them to develop mobile banking applications on both the iOS and Android platforms.

The typical scenario is the customer would come up with the requirement and then we would come up with a solution. Freeport Metrics was integral in developing the wireframes for this.

What is the team composition?

They had UX/UI designers, a project manager as our main point of contact, and developers and architects. We dealt with them all.

I was the only point of contact with report metrics to the multiple projects that we did. I had the majority of my interactions with the project manager on their team. If we were doing a UX/UI design, I would deal with those designers. Very often we had interactions with the developers, as well.

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

The company was already working with Freeport Metrics when I started back in 2016. They'd already completed one project and the customer wanted to do a similar application in a different area. That's the project that I started working with them on. 

How much have you invested with them?

For many of the projects, we spent around $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with them from October 2016–April 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of the app development was top-notch in terms of the number of bugs, performance, responsiveness, taking care of issues, and production-level support for apps that were live in the field.

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very good about meeting deadlines because they work very fast, and generally came in ahead of the timelines.

One of the challenges that we had was trying to get a realistic answer on when features could be available. But when it comes to how well they performed, they worked really fast and provided high-quality work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their applications were tight. They thought in terms of not just the customer requested features but on providing the best experience of that feature. The quality of the work was just top-notch.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The best working arrangement for them would be a managed time and material set-up as opposed to lump-sum, because lump-sum projects in general are very hard to quantify up front.

We faced a lot of challenges with how that was scoped, but it was a requirement from our customers and it was always a pain. My feedback would be that it's better to organize the engagement as time and material instead.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you haven't really thought through the requirements, they will help you think through them so you can properly scope it. If you have thought of the requirements with a lot of detail, they're going to give feedback about how to dial it in better. It’s along the lines of just start working with them and you're going to see a positive impact.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a software and services company for renewable energy developers. Our platform helps clients find and qualify customers looking to purchase the offtakes from these renewable energy assets. It also facilitates billing and customer care. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Freeport Metrics?

We needed a development resource as we were starting up our business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We built a Ruby on Rails platform. The database was MySQL. The interface was Bootstrap. There were different custom CSS, HTML, and JavaScript in various other places. They built the foundation of our platform today. They built the entire foundational system and architected the database; a lot of which has evolved over the years. A lot of the original foundation is still in place today, even after we’ve taken the projects in-house and hired our own development team.

What is the team composition?

At our peak, we were working with 7–8 developers, QA people, and design staff. After the bulk of the work was completed, we held onto a couple of additional resources.

How did you come to work with Freeport Metrics?

My other co-founded received a recommendation for them. They’re another Maine-based business and felt like a good fit. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $500,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2015–August 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We didn’t have any experience at all walking into this engagement. To walk away from the engagement after a year with an MVP that was fully functional is a huge success. Working with them was always a pleasure. 

How did Freeport Metrics perform from a project management standpoint?

I enjoyed working with their account manager. She was great. I’d send emails with walls of texts and she’d return emails covering everything that I pointed out. They were very thorough. The lead architect was also really knowledgeable. 

We flew them out to Boston from Poland, and we got to meet them face-to-face which was awesome and really helped the engagement. The individuals there are awesome people. I really enjoyed working with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very committed to our success. It never felt like it was just business, it always felt like a partnership. Even after we decided that we were moving in-house, they reached out and offered to help if anything ever went down. They continued to check in to see where we were at. It always felt like they were really committed to us and our success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were times that some of the logic that they built was very literally implemented. I think they assumed that I had more experience in software development than I did.

We decided to move our efforts in-house instead of continuing to work with Freeport Metrics because of the time that it took to get certain features developed. Speaking from my experience now, I understand why it takes so much time to implement certain features. I definitely understand the care that you should be putting into designing a platform when architecting it from the beginning. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key. I sent emails every single morning. We always tested features as soon as they were deployed. Getting that real-time feedback as soon as possible is helpful to make sure you get the most out of that situation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Forager is a digital B2B procurement platform for local food, designed to simplify the sourcing process for wholesale buyers and local food suppliers. I currently lead product at Forager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Freeport Metrics, and what were your goals?

We needed to update our core product with new features in order to accommodate larger enterprise customers.

SOLUTION

How did you select Freeport Metrics and what were the deciding factors?

Freeport Metrics has always been a key development partner for us as we've grown our business and we have worked on multiple projects with them over the last few years.

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

The project was broken down into 2 sprints.

1. Adding a new super user functionality
2. Adding new billing mechanism Although they offer project management and design support we decided to keep this in-house for this project.

Their management team was actively involved in defining the architecture and dev strategy at the beginning of the project after which we worked closely with their engineering and QA team. Our platform is built on Ruby on Rails and Javascript (AngularJS framework).

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

- CEO - Director of Software development - Senior Engineer - Engineer - PM/QA

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

- We were able to launch the project on time and within budget. - The developers were very proactive when it came to thinking ahead and identifying potential issues as early as possible.

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

Project management was good and the team was always very responsive. - We used JIRA for most of the PM and QA work - We had multiple calls per week for status updates - Slack was the main tool used for smaller questions

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

The teams willingness to help was always appreciated and you could tell that the developers cared about building a robust product and not just doing thee bare minimum.

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

Nothing to note for this point.