Gera-IT

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager at BioAnalyt. We’re in the food fortification space and we manufacture portable devices that measure the vitamin, mineral, and nutritional content of food and other biological substances.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

Over the years, we’ve supported many NGOs and governments in setting up nutritional programs. Though our devices churn out a lot of data, we were having challenges in interpreting them. That’s why we sought Gera-IT’s help.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Gera-IT developed a mobile and web-based application that can visualize the data produced by our devices. These apps will essentially act as decision-making tools, so their team organized the coding in clusters.

We had previously worked with a freelancer, so Gera-IT took what we had already developed at that point and revamped it. They also fixed some bugs and introduced a lot of new features to the tool.  

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with about 8–9 people in total. The team is made of web and mobile developers, a QA manager, a UX designer, and an account manager. 

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

When the project first started, Gera-IT was one of the many agencies that proposed to work on it. We couldn’t take them in at the time, though, due to financial constraints. Over time, we realized that in order to ensure the sustainability of our product, we needed to work with a company and not just with freelancers, so we reached out to their team.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested a little over $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2021, and the project will be completed in March 2022.

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

They fixed all of the bugs in the system, made everything more streamlined, and ensured that we have a good foundation for further developments. 

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Their turnaround time was very impressive; they finished the coding within six weeks, which allowed us to start the pilot phase last September 2021. Throughout that whole time, they were also proactively contacting and supporting us. 

We used Slack as our main tool for communication, but I also had access to their ERP and Jira. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Gera-IT really put their heart into the projects. They weren’t driven by money. They even gave us good advice on how we could sustain the project and the platform in the long run, which I really appreciated. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would’ve been good if they used layman’s terms to explain the development processes seeing as I’m not tech-savvy in those areas. I did learn a lot from them in general, so that was good. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to what their team has to say because they’re professionals in their field. You can rest assured that they will give really good advice for your project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m CEO for hire at Strategy Cafe, Inc. We do all kinds of technology services for business, including custom software.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

We hired Gera-IT to help us with software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The scope of the work is building custom pieces of software for my clients. So far, they’ve built three different applications in Ruby on Rails. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with about six different people from administration and three different software developers.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

They were referred by a colleague of mine who spoke highly of them. We had a talk, and I decided to hire them. 

How much have you invested with them?

On average, we’ve spent about $25,000 a year with them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since May 2008, and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

Ultimately, the measure of success is if the client is happy with the results. My clients — the people that have hired me to help them do these projects — have been very happy with the results. The software worked as it’s supposed to and as we designed it.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication has been excellent, and I completely trust them with the work process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their engineers are some of the best I’ve worked with in the business. In addition to having good people skills, Gera-IT’s team is very knowledgeable and has stellar technology skills. Moreover, I totally trust their ability to build applications in Ruby on Rails — they’re experts.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish we had a better way to pay them. Currently, I have to wire money to them, which costs me money. With all the different payment systems that are out there, it would be great to have another way to pay that doesn’t cost me so much. 

Any advice for potential customers?

Be organized on the client side of things. Give Gera-IT the most information possible, and then let them do their jobs while trusting them with the process.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the principal partner for a high-tech consulting firm. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

We had an ongoing development project to build a medical application. We needed capable engineers to bring a solution to life that we could then sell.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our solution consisted of two parts. The first was an iOS application for patients, while the other is a server-side application for care providers. The server-side application records patients’ data and allows care providers to access medical information.

Gera-IT built the mobile app in Swift and the server tool in a variety of different technologies. Because both apps need to comply with HIPAA, Gera-IT had to meet several requirements in their development.

We use a continuous development model to work with Gera-IT. The process lets us rapidly produce a prototype for both apps, but because of the speed, we do get more rough edges that need refining. We balance this by creating some practical mockups and wireframes before each sprint, and we can point to specific areas for Gera-IT to work on after their part is done.

What is the team composition?

We work with data specialists, mathematical analysts, graphic artists, web design specialists, and app developers experienced in working with iOS and XCode.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

One of our longtime business partners had a lot of successful experiences working with Gera-IT and recommended them to us for the work we were looking to do.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in August 2018 and is ongoing.

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

Gera-IT’s work has met our requirements so far. The continuous development process works well for us. We’re in a testing phase and expect to have more work on enhancements for them in the future.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

It depends on our time and availability. For the heavy engineering parts, we communicated with them daily. The fact that Gera-IT is off-cycle from the US because of time zone differences is a big plus. We can submit revisions during our day, and then Gera-IT will send those changes in time for us to review them the next morning. It’s been an efficient relationship.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Gera-IT gives a lot of attention to satisfying our requests. They have a high level of expertise and excellent English language skills—we can communicate with little difficulty. When it comes to continuous development, they’re very comfortable with the process. Gera-IT performs as well or better as other teams I’ve worked with in the past, both in the US and abroad.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While Gera-IT has been very quick and responsive, there have been times where their responses didn’t match the level of urgency—high or low—that we needed. That’s as much our issue as theirs, though. I’d encourage clear communication on both sides.

Any advice for potential customers?

As with any engineering team, you need to have a discussion between your users and the vendor. Gera-IT is an excellent group that understands the projects, offers relevant and deep skills, and does their part.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of an online discount and coupon business. We collect and distribute coupon codes for over 200 online stores.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

We engaged Gera-IT to build our website’s backend in Ruby on Rails.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Gera-IT developed the site’s framework from the ground up in Ruby on Rails. They implemented new features as well. We wrote a spec of what we wanted, and the team built the new backend to our specifications.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with a Ruby on Rails developer.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

We were looking for high-quality coders who perform cost-effective work. We found Gera-IT through a colleague’s recommendation.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $12,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from 2015–2016, but Gera-IT continues to provide support services and new releases.

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

The site now has a robust backend and lacks significant issues and bugs. We’re moving forward with revamping the frontend based on the excellent framework that Gera-IT built.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We found it more cost-effective to provide the project management in-house, which Gera-IT happily accommodated. We used a ticketing system to keep track of new tasks and continuous progress. The project proceeded smoothly from start to finish. The team started work immediately and implemented small fixes diligently.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team was friendly as well as highly efficient and transparent; they made the collaboration seamless. Gera-IT turned around many items very quickly, kept track of every detail, and provided regular updates of their progress.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we were highly satisfied with their work.

Any advice for potential customers?

Give them a chance; they are excellent Ruby on Rails developers and worth at least a try.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of SimpliDeferred, a directory and review platform for qualified intermediaries (QIs) who manage tax-deferred exchanges between investment properties and estates. Because QIs are largely unregulated and are, therefore, sometimes involved in fraud or other misbehavior, we established our site so that people could do due diligence and choose from different QI options.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

I don't know how to code, so I needed help building our platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the whole project using Ruby on Rails. I worked with the CTO at the beginning to set the scope, articulate the use case, and brainstorm ideas. They managed the whole process from design to development, including the UI/UX.

The site has an admin dashboard that tracks all user activity and is easy to navigate. We can see whoever signs up, manage their requests, and approve or deny those requests. We can also track the client reviews and requests for information about QIs, which allows us to easily follow up.

What is the team composition?

My main contact was the project manager, but I worked with up to eight people, including designers, developers, UI/UX specialists, and the CTO.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

I had some friends that recommended I outsource to Eastern Europe, and I searched via Google before finding them on Clutch. I contacted about five different companies and interviewed them.

Some of the larger vendors suggested that I use their more out-of-the-box packages. However, Gera-IT seemed to be more open to different ideas and processes. They were also smaller, which I felt meant they weren’t working on a large number of projects. Rather, they would be more focused on each project, which I liked.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent around $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from February–June 2018.

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

The platform is the foundation of our business. It’s not as if we already had a functioning business platform for them to impove—they built it from scratch. The software they developed was the start of the business, so they had a massive impact.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated via Skype, usually in the mornings and at the end of the day. We also used Google Docs for sharing materials.

The project manager was excellent; everything I asked for was completed more or less exactly the way we discussed and in a timely manner. They did everything perfectly.

I would give my requests to the project manager. They would provide a scope of work for me to review and approve, and then they would execute it. We brainstormed together and really collaborated. They also integrated their own ideas and suggestions, which I generally liked.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciated their accuracy and precision in execution. That level of competency is pretty hard to find. They listen incredibly well and execute on what you want.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really. They nailed it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a plan coming into it. Be clear about what you want and be able to discuss that with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re developing an online booking platform for school building facilities. I’m the managing director.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

We had an idea and a clear vision but were struggling to find the right development team to make it a reality.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked based on tickets and tasks. I had the ideas about what the platform needed to do and relied on Gera-IT for technical questions and anything related to development. They designed and developed the whole website from scratch and took care of upgrades for it. Ruby on Rails was the main coding language.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a project manager and with three developers at different times. There were 1–2 main developers working on the project.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

I attended an entrepreneurs’ networking event which featured a question about the challenges everyone was facing. I said that I had an idea but didn’t have a development team. Someone came over to me and put me in touch with Gera-IT. The rest is history.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent $250,000 since we started.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Gera-IT in February 2016, and the collaboration is ongoing. The main site has been live for 20 months. We’re still improving it and are also building a site for a spin-off business, which will be launched in the next couple of months.

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

They took my vision and turned it into reality. The feedback we got from our clients is based on the product we’ve built, and Gera-IT is very much a part of that building process. I have a good relationship with them, and I trust the people on my team.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

I take a hands-on role when it comes to project management, whether it’s working with the developers, creating tickets, or doing QA. I do as much as I can myself in order to keep the cost down. We used Slack as the main form of communication as well as Jira for tickets.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really bought into the idea and believed in it, especially during the initial development, when we had no customers or revenue. It was more than just a job for them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When something takes longer than expected or when there’s a misunderstanding, the risk is born 100% by me, as the customer, as opposed to being spread more evenly. If a task was supposed to take 10 hours to complete and it takes 20, perhaps I should only pay for five out of the 10 extra hours. This could simply be how teams like this work, and they did explain their rates.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’m unique in terms of the hands-on role I play. We’re doing big things with small numbers, but I believe each client is different.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the owner of a Belgian IT company, for which I subcontracted large projects to Gera-IT

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

One of our projects involved building a planning tool for the Vlissingen (Flushing) port in the Netherlands

What was the scope of their involvement?

I handled the client analysis and subcontracted the whole project to Gera-IT. They handled all programming. We had a SQL database and used Microsoft Silverlight. The tool worked with smartphones, which was less common in 2008. Every worker in the port could see their tasks in real-time and plan for the following day. The same was true for the clients, who could see certificates.

It was a rather complicated project—we were generating certifications on one side, and data inputs for invoicing and salaries on the other side. The platform was linked with 4 or 5 other systems in the outside world.

What is the team dynamic?

I had a 7-8-person team from Gera-IT, but I was only in contact with their project leaders, who distributed the work internally. I have visited them onsite twice before, and met the whole team.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

I had worked with a few of their competitors in Ukraine. Gera-IT was 40% more expensive than those other companies, but they were better suited for such a complex project. Together, we made an initial analysis of the full parameters in order to ensure the database would perform optimally in the end. Most providers would start right away with a small project, and only after realize that they have to rewrite the database. This analysis was the main reason for assigning the project to Gera-IT.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work on this project was around €600,000 [$700,000]. Overall, I’ve spent €1.5-2 million [$1.75-2.3 million] on their work.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with Gera-IT intensively over 6 or 7 years, and the first project was 10 years ago. I have recently started a new project with them, working directly with them for my own project, not a client’s

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

We tracked the bug count on our projects. The more complex a project became, the more bugs we had, which was logical—but once a tool was up-and-running, the numbers stabilized.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They had a planning tool in place for tracking activities and tickets, which made the interaction with me and my client more efficient. The client would generate tickets based on screenshots and bug findings, and Gera-IT handled those errors and interventions.

During critical periods, we had 15-20 tickets per day. We had weekly reviews over Skype where we went through all open topics. Every 3 months, my project manager came to The Netherlands, or I went to Kiev.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their analytic skills. We revisited a couple of projects, but all the work was done efficiently. Gera-IT could, in a short timeframe, correct any area where an analysis was not properly done.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their pricing is on the higher side, but I couldn’t really complain.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Take enough time for analysis. As a client, I had the tendency to be less patient for this, but Gera-IT insisted, and it’s there that we created the majority of the value.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a self-employed web developer from Germany and have been in the business since 2005.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

I wanted to outsource development to try to expand my capacity. Gera-IT helped with the development of an e-commerce app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I’m contracted to maintain and expand the online shop for a river cruise company. I had been working on the project for a long time, and my hiring company wanted to extend our collaboration. I proposed expanding my team to them in order to get more work done, and my hiring company was fine with it. I previously had good experiences with Gera-IT, and I inquired if they would like to take over some of the work. Gera-IT found a good developer for me, and he had been working on that project with me ever since.

It is a Ruby on Rails application. The front end is Cuda bootstrap, and the backend is MySQL database. There are a few background workers, but it is mainly a pure, complex Ruby on Rails application.

What is the team dynamic?

I had up to three developers working on this project.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

For this project, Gera-IT was my first choice, and I haven’t regretted that decision.

How much have you invested in them?

I spent approximately $45,000-$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on this particular project together last year, and it was approximately a 3-4 month engagement.

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

The customer was very pleased with the relaunch of the existing website. It had a completely new design and front end which Gera-IT partly worked on.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

For this particular project, I mainly did the project management tasks, and spoke directly to the developers instead of their project manager. We communicated mostly through Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I feel good working with Gera-IT, because they know what they are doing and have the capacity to instantly increase developers, QA, or whatever the case may be. I have always had a good experience with them. The developers I worked with spoke English well, they understood what I needed and wanted, and they are very good at what they do. I was happy that I could reach them directly and almost instantly through Skype. They are very fast in picking-up new projects and new situations. I have worked with other companies before, who were average-to-good, but never on this level.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have been pretty happy with them.

The only advice I have to a potential client would be to approach Gera-IT, give them what you need, and they will come back with a very good and accurate estimation.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a telemedicine organization. We provide telemedicine services, that is, medical consultations by different electronic modalities, whether it's telephone, email, or video consultations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

We have a portal that the entire business operates on, and we needed a company that could maintain and continue development on that portal, and that’s what Gera-IT did for us. We've used other companies for development as well.

It's not so much customers and it's not so much features; our entire corporation is operating on this CRM [customer relationship management] portal. It's everything. My nurses' consultations are set up in it. Doctors access it to complete the consultation. Nurses develop the consultation form, which is an HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act]-compliant medical record storage. It's literally the backbone of our entire organization.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We got the big development out of the way, and now we are enhancing small features regularly. I met with them recently for the next set of those. Not only are they doing maintenance and bug fixes, but they are still doing additional enhancements.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

They worked on some other projects that we had, and they've done a pretty good job. Once we found out that they had a team that could work on Ruby [on Rails], they were the obvious logical choice. It's not easy to find Ruby on Rails developers, and Gera-IT has some very good people on that technology.

Ultimately, Gera-IT ended up becoming the champion or the most knowledgeable about our products or our platform in a very short period of time. They really helped separate themselves from anybody else we used by becoming extremely knowledgeable of our platform, which is fairly robust and complicated.

How much have you invested with them?

It's well north of $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

They still maintain the site, and they do more than that.

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

We were in a bit of chaos for a fairly long period of time, close to 6 months. The CRM marginally met the requirements originally. But when we switched our business model, it went from marginally to almost not supporting us at all. Running my company was a nightmare. We were running this company with Microsoft Word documents, with spreadsheets, everything was manual, handwritten—it was just horrible.

Finally, after about 6 months of real, hard development, and listening to us on why it wasn't working, we are now in the best shape we've been since this company was formed.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They had a project manager assigned to our project; he's my primary contact. I have almost daily interaction with them. We used Skype, Slack, and a portal where we create tickets to monitor their progress. We used GoToMeeting with them, and just a multitude of different products.

They were good at making sure that, if someone on their side might’ve had a language barrier, their project managers were IT-savvy and didn't have a language barrier. You can tell that English is not their first language, but it doesn't hinder our ability to communicate.

We've had 3 project managers over the years. In terms of developers, there's not many. I have no idea how many are around our team in total. We don't have an internal team of developers. I'm the COO and a minority owner of the company. Myself and the person that manages my call center are the liaisons from our side. That's one of their strengths—I'm not a technical guy and neither is the person that manages our call center. They are able to speak to us in the manner that we need to be spoken to, in non-technical terms, and convert it to what they need to do on their end.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The reality is, when we were going through tough times with our organization and the software wasn't meeting our needs, it was a very stressful time. They had to deal with me when I wasn't always the nicest guy to deal with, and probably not the most rational, and enforcing unrealistic deadlines. They came through that like a champ. I think a lot of companies would’ve thrown in the towel given the amount of pressure we were putting on them, but they kept coming back for more and ultimately solved it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The one thing they wished we would've done differently, and it ultimately becomes something that they might have done differently as well, is a lot of the QA testing. We don't have that resource allocated to us. We don't pay for that resource on their end, so they are dependent on us to do the testing.

Being a non-technical team, the testing that we do would best be described as woefully inadequate. I don't need to tell you that doesn't work out really well in the long term. They're doing development, we're not doing great testing. Ultimately, it results in more development that probably didn't need to be done.

The only thing that they may do better is to really insist that a QA manager or a QA consultant is part of the team. In other words, you have to have them. Although that's a double-edged sword, because if they forced it on me, I probably wouldn't have gone with them. I do know that it would be an enhancement, but I also know it's a cost, and a lot of companies just can't absorb that cost.

Advice for potential customers?

If you're going to do QA, you've got to really do it. You're either going to pay them to do it or you've got to have someone on your team who is capable.

Please describe your organization.

My company works in schools to impact literacy rates among children.

What is your position?

I’m the Chief Executive Officer.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Gera-IT?

We had gone through a proof of concept phase, done some research, and a randomized control trial. We knew our process and methodology was very effective, but the technology was not scalable. We needed help with development.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We had Gera-IT help with both front-end and back-end Ruby on Rails development. We drove the process, and they provided the skills.

How did you come to work with Gera-IT?

Our CTO already had a relationship with them. He thought that the quality of their code was very high. We felt that we got great results for what we paid for.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The projects range from $5,000-$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for two years and are currently still working with them.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The team is very tight, so there are rarely bugs in the system. Not only is that because they run a very tight process, but also because they have great quality assurance. Our customers have grown month to month.

How did Gera-IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was very good. We collaborate using Slack and have regular conversations. Thanks to the way we communicate, we know the wider team, not just the people involved in the tech side of things, but those that deal with customers in our team. They know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it which is important.

What distinguishes Gera-IT from other providers?

We’ve worked with five or six members of their team and it is clear they have a real commitment to their trade. The entire team at Gera-IT is very proud of their work and holds itself to high standards. That’s a good quality to have in development and coding.

Is there anything Gera-IT could have improved or done differently?

The employees that are higher up at Gera-IT could check in with us a bit more frequently. I tend to initiate with them, but that’s a minor issue.