The Frontend Company

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of EducateMe Inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide a platform to run their learning infrastructure online

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire AVA.codes to accomplish?

• UI/UX design of the website
• SEO optimization

SOLUTION

How did you find AVA.codes?

Referral

Why did you select AVA.codes over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

What was the size of AVA.codes’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

We engaged the services of AVA.codes to help us with various aspects of designing and developing our website. They played a key role in designing the layout and visual design of the website or app, with a focus on creating a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate. In addition, they were instrumental in creating interactive elements such as forms and buttons, which added value to the overall UX.

One of the areas in which AVA.codes provided significant value was in ensuring that the website was responsive and optimized for different devices and screen sizes. This involved testing the website on a variety of devices and platforms and making adjustments as necessary to ensure that it looked and functioned well on all of them.

Another area in which AVA.codes made a significant contribution was in helping us optimize our website for search engines. Specifically, they played a key role in optimizing the blog section of our website, which helped improve our search engine rankings and draw more traffic to our site.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Traffic for our blog
• SEO-powered keywords
• Arrived customers

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

All team members are easygoing, proactive, and self-managing. Their ability to provide honest feedback was valuable to us. Pavlo, who took on the role of project manager, helped us manage tasks effectively. We received weekly reports that helped us track progress.

What was your primary form of communication with AVA.codes?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email
• Messaging App

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

What I found most valuable was their interest in the project. They were invested in helping us rather than just finishing the project quickly. They provided us with consulting and guidance on areas where we were weaker. Communication was at a high level, which made the working process really comfortable and with no stress.

Are there any areas for improvement or something AVA.codes could have done differently?

To be honest, I don't have anything specific in mind right now. I suggest focusing on acquiring more projects and building even better expertise.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

ACHQ is a third party payment processor heavily focused on tech to streamline and modernize the US based ACH system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AVA.codes, and what were your goals?

Our website was quite dated and in need of a refresh to coincide with our rebrand. We reached out to the AVA.codes team to assist with design and build of the new site.

SOLUTION

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

AVA.codes came highly recommended from a partner of ours. We did our due diligence and they proved to be as good as the recommendation.

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

After our initial meeting and discussions the team at AVA quickly turned around wireframes and concepts. We worked together to make refinements and dial the site in to its final design.

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

Several people from the project management, administrative, and development teams came together to work on our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have yet to launch the site as other parts of the business are not ready. The website, however, was delivered on time and budget.

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

Communication was great. We had a shared slack channel so we were able to communicate with the developers directly any time of day. There were no communication issues at all on the project.

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

Their speed and professionalism are impressive. They turn around things faster than expected and have a firm grasp on technology and scope.

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

Not really, if anything we could do a better job getting back to them more quickly!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

In a few words, we’re disrupting the accounting firm model and reinventing the way traditional bookkeeping and back-office Accounting services are delivered. At the end of the day, we’re providing Owners with Financial Insights to help grow their business. Our recipe = cloud accounting tools + technology + people + timely accurate and tailored support based on your accounting needs and budget.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AVA.codes, and what were your goals?

We were looking for a team of developers to build a website for one of our entities.

SOLUTION

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

Communication, technologies supported, budget and responsiveness were my criteria.

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

• Computer programming services
• Development of standard software services
• Other services in the field of software development
• Information technology consulting
• Database maintenance
• Data processing
• Posting information on Web sites and Web portals, and related activities

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

Project manager from Ava. codes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Clients positively noticed the upgrade for our rebranding. The duration of the project met our expectations.

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

Fast communication and feedback collection.

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

We were impressed with their flexibility, and they understood the challenges we were facing in terms of development.

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

As with most of the development projects, we were focused on the respect of the timeline but they've been able to adjust to our timeline and MVP in the timeline discussed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Product Engineering & Solutions at SkillDirector, a company that offers competency based learning services and software platform that inspires a culture of lifelong learning, helping individuals and workforces to upskill and reskill at the speed of business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AVA.codes, and what were your goals?

I hired AVA.codes to help us build and integrate a robust and scalable front end application for our flagship product, of which the backend had recently been redesigned to be driven by an API. The UI was designed to be completely modular with a multitude of reusable components. The challenge was to get the application built under a relatively short time frame in order to meet commitments to customers like Linkedin, PPG, HoneyWell, GE and more.

The project has been on-going with AVA for almost 2 years now, and successfully launched on time. That's greatly thanks to the requirements AVA has been able to meet in a relatively short time frame. They were able to do in a year and a half with a few developers what other larger teams would take 3-4 years complete. AVA developers took ownership of our front end needs, and the quality of the work delivered has been excellent thus far.

Our project started with Front end 2 developers. We had backend issues to sort out during the first 6 months, and we had to freeze front end development twice in the span of 4-5 months to allow the backend team to sort out all API issues. AVA was extremely flexible in allowing us halt development, and did their best to keep our 2 assigned developers as flexible as possible so they could be reassigned to our project when we were ready.

It’s not easy to rotate developers on complex projects, and AVA’s talent pool of front end developers is top notch, in my opinion. 9 months into the project, we fell behind behind in our project timeline due to backend issues. AVA was able to quickly scale our front end team from 2 to 6 Angular developers in less than 2 weeks. This was huge! New developers came on and dove into things rapidly. All guys had the right skills and talent we needed to get things done well and efficiently.

AVA took on the cost to onboard new engineers onto our project with the help of our 2 main developers, and the project was able to get back on track quickly. We stayed with 6 developers for 6 months until the all the grunt work was done, and scaled back down to 2. The attention to detail and proactive nature of AVA developers helped us deliver what might be the most solid functioning and most beautiful / picture perfect Beta build out there.

SOLUTION

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

I found AVA.codes via https://topdesignfirms.com/. After vetting a few potential partners, I chose AVA because their optimistic and pessimistic estimates to complete the project was closest to our expected launch date. Additionally, we needed a flexible partner, with the ability to scale the front end team with new developers on demand. The ultimate deciding factor was that fact that I was able to interact with the actual developers during the vetting process, where they reviewed our UI designs and APIs, provided feedback on how they would go about building it, and asked great questions in order to fully understand the scope.

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

The scope of work was to build a custom and fully customizable front end application with Angular --dashboards, tables, charts and data widgets and grids--, integrate Kendo UI components for interactive elements using material design principles, and also integrate application functionality with our API.

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

We started with 2 developers for the first few months, and scaled up to 6 until the project launched. We did not have a project manager assigned. I elected to work directly with all the developers as their PM to speed up our efforts. The ongoing team currently consists of 2 developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch the project within the projected timeline. The effort turned the tides of our company. We were losing business because of the lack of capabilities (and scalability) of our old platform. We were able to release an Alpha build in record time after scaling to 6 front end developers. Customers loved it, and were very excited for what was coming.

We successfully launched a production Beta 3 months later, and all customers were seamlessly migrated. The effort eliminated 80% of the backlog of bugs form the old platform, making way for a refreshed product roadmap that we can now focus on. The timing couldn't have been more on point, and we knew we had exceeded customer expectations when we started seeing customers who had previously left us returned due to the renewed capabilities and scalability for our application.

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

We did not have a specific project manager. I mostly interacted with Alex (CEO) and Pavlo (COO) to address requests, feedback and concerns. They both were very diligent in every facet of the process. We mostly communicated by Zoom, Email and Trello.

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

They are young, talented, and extremely smart developers. I was in urgent need of front end work and landed on them. I wouldn’t have been able to deliver without them. Their developers immersed themselves to deeply understand our platform, and they were very thorough in understanding the many complex workflows of our application in order build it. One of my favorite feats is that they are proactive developers.

They have solid design acumen, and they are not afraid to make suggestions based on what they see in order to build an even better product than required. They continuously studied our API as we progressed, and diligently identified API problems that needed to be resolved by the backend team in order to optimize front end integration. They saved my backend team a great deal of time in identifying API issues that could have taken weeks and months for the backend team to find on their own.

They often make suggestion on models to facilitate the passing of data back and forth, they thoroughly test, and always make it a point to synchronize with the backend team to integrate front end faster, with great attention to detail. Before integrating pieces of functionality, they review designs and test all API end points needed. If they find API problems, they communicate well and fast, and are always available to jump on a call to synchronize with me and my backend team, to review, fix issues or have live coding sessions. They do not waste time, and we really enjoy working with them in live session (another great feat).

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

The one thing I will note is that AVA does not have internal project managers who are actively involved in managing the developers day to day, and holding them accountable. That responsibility falls on the client side. I had to make a suggestion, it would be for AVA to have a few internal technical project managers who can work with developers in order to manage accountability and quality assurance internally.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I came onto Social Curator as the CTO a little over a year ago. I was in charge of re-implementing the company's existing Wordpress site into something that would scale features more quickly.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AVA.codes, and what were your goals?

I came across AVA.codes through a LinkedIn notification. I never read those. But this time my gut told me to! We brought them on to assist in rebuilding our dashboard into a React application.

SOLUTION

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

From the first point of contact and consistently through the process I felt like they had my best interests in mind. It was easy for me to trust the people that they set me up to work with. Whether it was a lead developer or architect, account manager, to management, everyone was a friend.

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

We tasked our developer to reconstruct existing WordPress views into a standalone React application. We used Firebase as a backend so he also had to do a bit of research to make sure we were designing the features in a way that would scale. Even though his focus was on front-end code, his consultations and brainstorming sessions on the backend was essential to us.

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

We worked with a variety of people. Chief Operations Officer, Pavlo. Viktoria, our account manager. A couple different devs that would assist our primary developer, Bogdan.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch our new website with the flick of a switch. It did come with its own set of troubles, but we are all aware that that's how software goes! Features were not just worked on, but they were brainstormed on. Our levels of communication were always very strong so we never missed any targets in terms of what we were hoping to accomplish with AVA.codes.

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

They were able to fit their process into the tools and systems that we had in place. We used boards inside of Notion to keep track of tasks, backlogs, and feature discussion.

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

I appreciated the level of comfort AVA.codes made us feel. It was like being a part of a family.

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

Having a little more support with the backend side of things I think would have been valuable. Bogdan was very worried about certain things but because it was outside of his job title he felt bad giving advice on the topic.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Quik.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AVA.codes?

I needed someone to do our frontend development in React Native.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AVA.codes serves as an extension of our team. They work on our iOS and Android mobile apps with React.js and React Native. They also work on a lot of browser-based interfaces. They added plenty of features such as forms, video calling, media, scanning, auto scanning, and data capture among others.

What is the team composition?

I have a main point of contact, but their developers work within the team.

How did you come to work with AVA.codes?

I was approached by AVA.codes’ business development team. I decided to work with them because, after interviewing them, I could see that they were very hungry and talented.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2019, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They are a talented and young team. I’m extremely pleased with their work. We still hire two of their developers on a constant basis because they’re very good and respected. In addition, their culture and skills are great.

How did AVA.codes perform from a project management standpoint?

They blend very well with our processes. We have ongoing Slack communication, and we also use Jira and GitHub.

What did you find most impressive about them?

AVA.codes has the ability to dive in and get the work done creatively with a lot of personal input.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they are fulfilling my requirements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a partner in a company where we deliver EdTech products from different StartUps to schools in Scandinavia. I have worked with different EdTech companies since 2011.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AVA.codes?

One of our concepts in reading & writing were going into a new phase, after clearing different pilots and alpha versions. We wanted to connect to a team that had a wide spectrum of skills, and who were interested in Educational Technology.

What were your goals for this project?

Producing a selection of modules for a web application with deadline fall semester.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After a long period where we got to know different vendors, we were confident that AVA Codes would be a strong candidate. They are young but represent a vibrant and broad-skilled team.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The first planning period of the project was probably the most complicated, where we had to ensure that AVA Codes knew the existing concept and tech well enough. A lot of the content is in Scandinavian languages, but we together we managed to work through this in an effective way.

The production phase was challenging with producing content in several languages at the same time, but AVA Codes were focused and solved issues very effectively.

What was the team composition?

One team member worked dedicated to the applications, and other members engaged in other and minor activities.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We use a lot of our resources on pilot groups, and in several instances, we noticed that we had to adjust the functionality based on feedback. AVA Codes worked patiently together with us on these cases, and in each case, a good result was produced. The cooperative quality AVA Codes represents are also really valuable.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was solved by regularly meetings, chat and video calls when needed. Very efficient!

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Early on in the production, I was impressed by the technical skills in AVA Codes' team. Their flexibility and genuine interest in finding the best solution for the product was impressive. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

It is easy to communicate with AVA Codes, and because of this, we solved all challenges fast and efficiently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We automate the creation of project references after the completion of a B2B project. Founded in 2017, Xpertify integrates the project reference into the project lifecycle to automatically create landing pages for the content marketing of service companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AVA.codes?

Our first Webdesign was based on PHP. With AngularJS/Javascript development as well as the design from AVA, we were able to transform our core product to a great new outlook and bring it to a state of the art technology.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to bring our core product (XPR - Xpertify Project Reference) to the next level and as well build a good basis for all future development with a modern back and front end.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

With personal contact with the CEO, Alex Vasylenko, it was easy to get an idea of the working methods and spirit of the AVA.Codes-Team. We had several other meetings to evaluate a long term partnership, where AVA was clearly the most dynamic and ambitious team.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

After clarifying the requirements, a very professional design was already provided with the first drafts, so that we were able to commit on the design guidelines very quickly. Our features were including a worklow process, pdf creation, different views of the reference page, google analytics tracking, SEO, among others. AVA.Codes was in charge of providing the design as well as the development work with Angular framework.

What was the team composition?

The project team had 4 people who covered all skills needed for the project, which were Design, DevOps, Development and Project Management.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With the service of AVA.Codes we were able to improve our product on every level:

• SEO parameters: Page speed, ranking, etc.
• User experience, Look and feel
• Software Architecture: Infrastructure, Automatic deployment, etc

Additionally, we were able to offer new features like the pdf rendering of a XPR.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

For communication video chat and Slack was used. In this way the management of the project was always very proactively sharing information and reachable for a call if needed.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The different and very profound skillset of the AVA team was very impressive. In this way they cover every area of a state of the art web development project. The team spirit helps to collaborate in an very effective way.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I was very happy with the work of AVA and hope they continue to work in the ambitious way they did in the past.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of parloo.de, an event management agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with AVA.codes?

We needed a platform through which we could offer our event services to customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

AVA.codes built our platform from scratch including all the functionality and the backend infrastructure. They managed the AWS setup, the domain registration, and the SSL encryption. We released a core version after three months and are now implementing enhancements.

We provided them with a detailed briefing and met in person to discuss our idea and their suggestions for how to implement it. Customers can request services through the platform. They complete a questionnaire that helps them determine which services fit their needs. When they request the services they want, we receive a notification.

What is the team composition?

We had a dedicated team of five people working on our platform.

How did you come to work with AVA.codes?

They were recommended to us. We gave them our briefing and met to discuss it. We looked at a number of agencies, including many based in Germany where we are. We chose AVA.codes for multiple reasons. For one, they offered the best technical knowledge. They weren’t just a WordPress agency, they had a range of skills. Also, they could start working immediately and they gave us a very good price.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between 10,000–15,000€ (approximately $11,2000–16,800 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve built the platform on which our business model is based. We now have a means for gaining customers, from whom we’ve heard positive feedback about the look, feel, and usability of the site. They delivered a good design and strong performance. When we started working together, we believed that the price-performance ration of their offer was good—and that proved to be true.

How did AVA.codes perform from a project management standpoint?

We work on one-week sprints and had meetings every Friday. We use Jira for tickets. They’re responsive. They understand the idea quite well which means they can advise us on how to best implement the solution. They work well on their own without too much guidance.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been impressed with the whole AVA.codes team. There are a lot of companies that offer similar services but we’ve had an end-to-end good experience with them.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

For us, no.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Meet AVA.codes in person and discuss your ideas. What was impressive about them wasn’t just their ability to receive our requirements and begin implementing but rather their understanding of the idea behind what and why the implementation was requested.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO of a large nonprofit that arranges entrepreneurship training programs for youths. Each year, local entrepreneurs act as coaches, and the trainees take part in lectures to help them guide their business journey.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire AVA.codes?

We wanted the people in our program to be able to do accounting through a mobile app instead of paper. AVA.codes was hired to build the app for iOS and Android.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to have an app ready to be tested out in the field.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were previously in touch with them for another project, but we realized they were overqualified. Once we had a more suitable project, we touched base again. Our team looked at their previous work and skillset.

Describe the project in detail.

In the beginning, we had clear specifications along with an interactive mockup. After quick discussions, their team began implementing all the features. The app needed Firebase authentication, photo upload and storage, and an API built with Node.js.

What was the team composition?

One team member worked on the backend API, while another worked on other aspects of the app. Someone else was involved with communications.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because we had little interaction, I was impressed with how well their team was able to deliver within a short amount of time. Whenever we found a bug, AVA.codes came back immediately with a fix. Working with AVA.codes was flawless from start to finish.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication was fairly simple. We talked through chat, and all requirements and mockups were sent through Google Docs and Sketch Cloud.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed with AVA.codes’ level of technical skills and work ethic. Their team has excellent communication skills. They deliver on requirements within budget and on time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are none that I can think of.