GLOBALDEV

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Tech River LLC is a custom software developer, web developer, and online marketing firm. The side that I’m most associated with is the custom software development. It’s pretty much all web based applications and we’ve now branched into app development as well. I am owner/partner. My official title is Director of Customer Solutions and it includes the technical management of all the products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IDAP Group?

We had a contract to develop an iPhone application and we had no in-house experience developing iPhone applications. We looked for a contractor that had that capability.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The app is iOS only. We actually utilize their service in three areas. One is we had them do the UI/UX design because we didn’t have that design capability in-house in terms of the actual user interface look and feel. We had them do the frontend implementation and the actual iOS development for the app. The app itself utilizes a backend database as well, so we had them develop that capability. That’s something that we could’ve done in-house but it seemed like it would cut down on a lot of the communication hassles if they were developing that as well rather than me trying to communicate the backend API to them.

How did you come to work with IDAP Group?

We found them through Upwork. My business partner who is the president of the company was the one who did that. I didn’t locate them. I can’t really speak to the vetting process. We had a limited budget to work with so we had to consider what their rates would look like and their existing reviews on Upwork. In this particular case, we were looking for a team rather than an individual. We would’ve subbed it to an individual, but we were looking for a rapid turnaround so we didn’t want to lay that in one person’s hands.

How much have you invested with IDAP Group?

We have spent between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Version one of the iOS app is complete and we’re starting version two with them now. We closed the version one contract and immediately opened up a version two contract. The version one contract was closed on Upwork last week although it was effectively done in the middle of August.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We have nothing yet. Even though it’s on the app store, it’s for association members. We’ve actually only done a soft release. In other words, it’s there if somebody looked for it but we’ve really only alerted about 100 members of a focus group. Within the last week or two, we haven’t seen any activity yet. It’s only been a week and a half. Understand that this is a contract that we’re subbing out to IDAP. In my opinion, I’m very pleased with what we came up with while working with IDAP. The association that wanted this app is happy with it as well. It’s going to be an ongoing thing. It’s probably going to be three years of development to flush it out to the level that they want.

How did IDAP Group perform from a project management standpoint?

I have never seen better.

What did you find most impressive about IDAP Group?

First of all, when we started looking for lower budget contractors, we looked overseas. Oftentimes there’s a tradeoff between what we come to expect as US developers in terms of communication versus solo contractors that are out there. The IDAP team provided a level of communication that I was really blown away by. I wish I communicated as well as they do. When I say communication, I don’t mean just English skills, which were excellent by the way. I only dealt with one person directly at IDAP even though there was a team of five or six. He had excellent English skills, and in addition, he kept me moving because he would get back to me with questions. Everything was kind of a continual flow to make sure that the project kept moving. He didn’t make assumptions and made sure I was in the loop on everything.

Are there any areas IDAP Group could improve?

I couldn’t come up with anything. It’s a limited data set right now because that project took about three months. We’ve got other projects going with them now - two other projects in addition to version two of this app. I couldn’t come up with anything yet. I know that several of the programmers rescheduled vacations around getting this app out in a timely manner. I don’t wish that on anybody but I did appreciate it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're an international IT company focusing on pharmaceutical, healthcare, and lifestyle areas. I work in the marketing department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi?

We were approached by a relatively small healthcare center in the Netherlands. They needed a development partner who could help them build a website as well as mobile applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SteelKiwi built our software using Django Python as a backend. The front-end was built using HTML, CSS, and either Backbone.js or Knockout.js. The client didn't have particular requirements in this regard. We've worked with 1 project manager from SteelKiwi as well as one designer, a front-end developer, and 2 back-end developers. SteelKiwi also provided QA services.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi?

I browsed the top companies on clutch.co. The main ones were based in the US and Canada and were priced accordingly. Our client discarded those options due to budget constraints. I also looked at an Indian company with some Drupal experience whose prices were mid-range compared to other companies. I chose to look at Eastern European developers, not because Indian ones are less qualified, but because of the language barrier. SteelKiwi approached us about becoming our development partner. I talked to their sales manager. We drafted a proposal, signed a contract, and got the budget details out of the way.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work has been completed. I may use SteelKiwi for future projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

SteelKiwi has done a great job with our site. As always, we identified a few bugs, but SteelKiwi resolved them. 

How did SteelKiwi perform from a project management standpoint?

Even though there is a time difference between our locations, SteelKiwi has been online whenever we needed them for status updates. We used Slack for communication, where we had channels for developers and project management. Jira was used for task management, for both front-end and back-end progress. SteelKiwi attached designs to the platform so that I could see and approve them.

What did you find most impressive about SteelKiwi?

SteelKiwi's project management team has a good command of English, which I appreciated as an international client. SteelKiwi also had good pricing, but this isn't something unique to them. I appreciated the quality of code provided by SteelKiwi. I was also impressed by how smooth the process of working with SteelKiwi's project manager and sales team was.

Are there any areas SteelKiwi could improve?

SteelKiwi's team was a bit too persistent in asking qualifying questions, which weren't even necessary at times. Gathering specifications took more time than we would have wanted. SteelKiwi nitpicked too much, and I didn't have that much time to dedicate to them. In the future, SteelKiwi should ask the client how they want to approach the project. This is my only negative comment about SteelKiwi.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work for Cherkasov LLC. We created a DJ application for DJs. We created an app for iPad only.

What is your position?

I am the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IDAP Group?

This is my second team that I hired from India. It's a music application, and you need a good user interface.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Many companies develop older engines, but we are using some different company that creates a music library in C++ language. A team like IDAP Group should know iOS systems and C++ integrating C++ libraries to my application.

How did you come to work with IDAP Group?

I posted the job on Elance [now Upwork]. IDAP gave me a decent price.

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

It cost $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was completed in 2015. We worked in 2014, and then we stopped because of the budget. I found new investors, and we started again and completed it in 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The app has been on the App Store for six months. We have 3,000 downloads [as of August 2016]. They have 2,000 subscriptions on Google Plus Twitter accounts. Young DJs are still interested. I feel like they're still coming back to the application from time to time.

How did IDAP Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very professional. It was not an easy application.

What distinguishes IDAP Group from other providers?

All their work was great. Before, I was working with some company from India, and I signed some documents with them. They said in the contract that if I decide to leave the application, they will own the project. That was no good. The IDAP Group contract was different. This is my idea, and I own it. I designed all the prototypes. The other company didn't understand C++ language in sound libraries, and they stopped. The IDAP Group was good in conversation and gave us a good contract. They separate the development and my ideas. They understand what I want.

Is there anything IDAP Group could have improved or done differently?

No – not really.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I have worked on a method for rating and ranking airlines, based on the physical metrics of the airline cabin.

I am the founder of the platform. I work full time as a management consultant and focus on this project in my personal time.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi?

My work with SteelKiwi started off as a personal project. I wanted to have some sort of online representation of the analysis being done through my software. I figured out that I could be combined with customer feedback, so it became a variant of Trip Advisor, but for airlines.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, I wanted to have pure ratings on my platform. People could see numeric representations of the quality of an airline. This quickly evolved into route-specific searches, as well as a kind of sky-scanner API. The Google Flight API has been hooked into my platform recently. From what was supposed to be a simplistic, web-based representation of hard-coded data, it has become a search engine, which also offers airline ratings.

There have been 2 key parts of this project. It has a database through which SteelKiwi has replicated the logic that I've built using an Excel document. Django is used for interfacing with the database. The other major component was integrating my database with Google's API and combining the 2 of them so that a search result can be retrieved when a customer queries the database.

SteelKiwi has used mockup software for sending quick wireframes to me, as well as creating prototypes of my platform.

SteelKiwi provided 2 account managers and 2 frontend developers with whom I interacted. There may have been more resources behind-the-scenes.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi?

I found SteelKiwi through Upwork.com. I was looking for a more long-term engagement than the typical projects on that platform. I saw that they had experience in Python, which is a powerful way of running an analytics-based app, like mine. I contacted SteelKiwi with a clear idea of what I wanted and probably ended up being one of their more difficult clients. I changed my mind at least a couple of dozen times throughout my engagement with them.

How much have you invested with SteelKiwi?

The total cost of SteelKiwi's services has been around $6,500 [5,000 GBP]. We've been working on a shoestring budget, given that I don't have backers at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

The platform is currently ready to go, but I haven't done much in terms of promoting it. I am figuring out what the best way of going to market would be. My work with SteelKiwi is paused at the moment because I need to get people aware of it. I want to stop spending my own money on it, and start attracting investors.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I'm happy with where the platform is at the moment. It's useful enough to be engaged by users, but it's up to me to start raising awareness for it. I'm still trying to figure out my strategy for going to market, and I also need to start approaching people with deeper pockets than mine. When this does eventually happen, I plan on going back to SteelKiwi for the next phase.

I've seen it at every stage, so I'm not a very objective source, but people who have tested the platform have said that it looks very professional. The platform's functionality has been more to do with my input, given that we've worked on a shoestring budget. I made calls about cutting corners, so any fall-downs have been because I needed to draw a line. It wasn't a reflection of SteelKiwi's work. If I needed something done, SteelKiwi could certainly have handled it.

For example, I wanted a popup feature after a review was posted on my website, asking users to also post on Facebook. It is a great way of making the website viral. I wanted this and it was something that SteelKiwi could do, but I couldn't pay for it at the time.

How did SteelKiwi perform from a project management standpoint?

By and large, I'm happy with SteelKiwi's performance. There were times when getting development resources could have been faster, but because I had a low-cost project, I didn't have enough hours at hand to make my work a major priority. Otherwise, SteelKiwi was incredibly professional and efficient when it came to offering quotes. They knew exactly what was required of them, based on the requests that I put in. This was great because I don't have this knowledge.

We have used the Atlassian suite of project management software, including Jira.

What did you find most impressive about SteelKiwi? 

I have no point of comparison, but SteelKiwi was spot-on when it came to getting tasks done. Whenever something took longer than their estimations, I wasn't charged extra. I have seen time sheets with hours that far-exceeded the hours estimated. For me, as a buyer, this was quite good.

Are there any areas SteelKiwi could improve?

The only point of improvement is being able to engage SteelKiwi with a lower threshold of work. If I had business partners with deeper pockets, I wouldn't be in the position of asking for 3-4 hours of work at a time. To be a perfect development team, SteelKiwi would need to engage slightly smaller tasks more efficiently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is in the software development business. We develop mobile apps and web applications for German media companies.

What is your position?

I am the CEO [Chief Executive Officer].

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IDAP Group?

We had a special project where a backend application was involved, and we needed external development support to help build the app.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They helped us with app development.

How did you come to work with IDAP Group?

We found IDAP on Upwork. There were a lot of agencies who applied for the job, but I chose them because of their proven track record. But the most important aspect was that they had a project manager that was included in the hourly price. We started with a small project to test them out. It worked out well and we moved to bigger projects.

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

We’ve spent $50,000 over the span of our engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been working with IDAP for one and a half years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

On the one project where the web application backend was involved we had a problem because of the client. He didn’t specify how many users they would expect. We implemented the application and they did a very big marketing campaign, and suddenly there were over 18,000 users who utilized this backend, and the server was down or nearly down and we had a lot of performance problems. The IDAP team worked so hard - I think they went three days without sleep to solve my problem. I couldn’t find any workers in Germany who would do that. The customer was extremely happy that we solved the problem in such a short a time and over the weekend.

Also, as we were in this difficult situation and things were getting urgent, the project manager stayed calm instead of blaming the customer. They always had the solution in mind.

What distinguishes IDAP Group from other providers?

IDAP thinks outside of the box. They don’t just do what I tell them but they think about the documentation that I give them and tell us if something is wrong or not correctly specified and if there are problems. This was a strong point for me. The project manager there was always on the project. The project manager was online for nearly 24 hours. I once asked him if he was actually human or a machine. He responded every time. It was fantastic.

Is there anything IDAP Group could have improved or done differently?

If you work with offshore companies, the challenge is communication. The other challenge is that most of my clients cannot afford the cost requirements. I didn’t think we could improve anything. It went really well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I run a small Product shop that designs, creates, and manages several small cap SAAS products. Team size varies but is consistently between 5 and ~12 people. I am the Co-founder, CEO and CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SteelKiwi? 

We decided to create a social media management SAAS targeted towards a very niche slice of the market. Functionality was core to the USP/value proposition, while UI/UX wasn't.

What were your goals for this project?

This is a SAAS that will generate high cash flow and attain a market value in the single-digit millions.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found SteelKiwi on clutch.co, while specifically looking for python shops, as python is great for the specific tech problems we were addressing. Their price was fair and I was impressed by their honesty and competence when we video skyped. They seemed like straight-shooters.

Describe the project in detail.

This entire project (from spec to MVP) took just 3 weeks. The service provider managed all parts of the project.

What was the team composition?

They had in-house experts who actualyl handled every part of the project and actually cared about finishing rapidly instead of dragging it out to earn more money.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This is my second experience working with SteelKiwi and I am very pleased. The project came in within a very reasonable margin of the budgeted cost. Most importantly, SteelKiwi handled EVERYTHING without needing me to hold their hands.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Functionality was tested before they showed it to me, instead of me having to find the bugs for them.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

At many points they suggested alternate technical decisions which could save me money or reduce technical debt. In summary, I am very much looking forward to working with them again.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

For context, In my career I have managed a few hundred thousand dollars worth of development budget, spread over many companies, and I rank SteelKiwi very highly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a digital agency and work to build apps for companies of all sizes with a focus on startups.

What is your position?

I'm the digital producer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IDAP Group?

We found ourselves in a situation where we'd taken on a lot of business, and we were struggling to fulfill the development side internally. That's when we engaged with IDAP. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

There were three projects IDAP worked on for us. One of the projects was a video editing app. The app allowed people to upload their videos, share them with friends, edit them, and put on filters. The filter aspects required a technical skill set, and IDAP had some good expertise in that area. Another project was an app for the medical profession – helping them to share data securely. It was almost like a LinkedIn for doctors. The last project was an event management app to help the organizers reach the attendees.

How did you come to work with IDAP Group?

Hiring IDAP was prior to my time with this company, so I don't know how the partnership exactly started. I know IDAP has some strong voice and video processing skills. I think that's probably why we first engaged them to help with the video app. Their CEO [Alex Chernikov] spent the time trying to get to know us as a company and how we worked. That gave me confidence that they were going to be a good partner. I also suspect that cost was another deciding factor.

If you're working with a company from overseas, a crucial aspect is trust. For me, personally, I trust the IDAP team. They commit themselves to do a good job. We had an experience with a company in India and that didn't go so well. I don't think you can make any sweeping judgments about the quality of staff from a given country. I think you have to look at the individual company and the capabilities of the individuals in that company. IDAP delivered, and we were working under some pretty punishing deadlines. 

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

The video project would be in excess of $350,000. IDAP's part of it was probably $50,000 to $150,000. The conference project was probably smaller – less than $50,000. The medical one I would suspect around $50,000. IDAP came in at a good price for the amount of work they were doing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What distinguishes IDAP Group from other providers?

Personally, I really think it comes down to the quality of their individual developers and having an element of trust. I trust IDAP, and I think trust is one of the most fundamental things in any relationship. However, I think you have to make sure you know which developers you're going to get doing your work for your project. That will make or break you. 

Is there anything IDAP Group could have improved or done differently?

We've have a good relationship with IDAP, but you always have to be careful. Everyone should be careful with any company. You always have to make sure you get the right people. IDAP has the people, but you have to make sure you're getting the right ones.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

BoardNotebook is a board portal service for nonprofit organizations. It does things like meeting management, document retention, and governance aspects for American nonprofits. A web-based app used in nonprofit board meetings is the best way to describe it. The company is comprised of three people. We've been around for about 18 months.

What is your position? 

I am the chief technology officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

I had done some Python and Django work on the minimal viable product for this startup, and I'd done about 50 percent of the total codebase at the time. I went to SteelKiwi and showed them what it was and what I needed to add in terms of features. They then handled the development of the additional functionality and configuration.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We were paying them by the hour but, because they were integrating new things into an existing codebase, and helping me with getting the changes up to my staging and production servers, I ended up using four or five different people at SteelKiwi, including Julia Titova, my main contact and project manager. I'm not sure if I explicitly hired all of them, but we ended up working together throughout the course of the project.

We started the engagement with them at about this time last year [December 2014], and they worked through to April [2015]. All of their work has been custom Python and Django development.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi Development?

I'd worked with them once before, on a different project, so I knew that the company was good. I didn't participate in finding them. I'd been impressed with their skill and capability in Python and Django development work, so when the current project started, I thought of them first. They had the necessary capacity, and we started right away.

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

It was between $20,000 and $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was completed in April [2015]. That's when we finished all the small work, with testing, cleaning out little bugs, and so forth. Just recently, I found a bug and asked them to work on it for me. They said no problem. Less than a day later, they came up with a solution.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I have a small core of devout users. They use it a couple of times a month. There will be board members who come in, get their meeting agendas, documents, and everything else they need to run their board. I would say I have happy users. We're now opening it out, taking it out of beta, and doing more marketing for it.

I'm very happy with their work and where the app stands. Like any minimally viable product, as soon as I start generating revenue, I will discover new things I want to add to the platform.

How did SteelKiwi Development perform from a project management standpoint?

We used GitHub extensively and a Python bug tracker that they host. In the early stages, we were using it to address tasks, and make descriptions of everything that needed to be fixed. At some point during the process, we switched in large part to GitHub, where they would do code deliveries via pull request. There's a lot of back and forth through email, but it was well done all around. It works very well.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

They're based in the Ukraine. Russia invaded their country. I don't mean to get political, but one of the cities in which we had developers was occupied and controlled by the Russians. Some of the developers moved to Odessa to get out of the war zone. In spite of all that, they were very responsive and professional through the ordeal.

Another thing revolves around working successfully with English-speaking clients. Their English is very good, and there were really no instances of misunderstandings due to the language barrier. I worked with companies that had that problem. They're able to speak English far better than I can speak Ukrainian.

I'm a developer myself, so the translation between the business goals and technical ideas was something largely done by myself. Technical person to technical person, we had a fine time. I would definitely hire SteelKiwi again without a doubt.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a startup with less than 10 employees. We are in the retail logistics business, and we essentially compete with Square. Everything they do, that's the space we are in.

What is your position?

I am the co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi?

Before we went to investors, we wanted to build a robust prototype and, therefore, we were looking to get a number of skill sets in one place at a price point that was not possible within the U.S. We were looking for an offshore team that could provide us some of these skill sets at an affordable price point. We looked everywhere outside the U.S., so it wasn't limited to Ukraine. The basic challenge was to get a number of skill sets under one roof, at a lower price point. The technical development didn't have to be industry specific. It really was more about the platforms that they had experience using.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

If I ask a company the develop something, I would expect them to do QA [quality assurance] testing, integration testing, some amount of DevOps [development operations]. That's part of the package. Everything other than design, they did from the beginning. Only recently, we hired one of the designers to help out with the design of the UI [user interface]. Initially, we were working with a U.S.-based designer and, just recently, we hired their designer to complement our designer to reduce the turnaround cycles, because their designer is sitting in the same room as the front-end developer and our local designer is not. This helped to get around the communication challenges.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi?

At the time, we used two of the leading online platforms for finding freelance developers because initially we would find developers with specific skill sets, and manage them in-house. Find the best available developers for A, B, and C, and then they won't necessarily need to know each other because we would manage them. We went on Elance and oDesk, and then from researching the skill sets that were available, we concluded that it would more efficient, if possible, to work with a firm that had more than one skill set under one roof, rather than working with multiple freelance developers directly.

The task was to build a website and then mobile apps that had the same back-end platform. We considered all of the popular platforms every time, from Python to Ruby to PHP and others. We decided on a Python platform for a number of reasons. Once we decided on Python, then you're talking about Django, so then we ended up looking at companies on Elance-oDesk who had expertise using Django; that was the core skill set.

We short-listed about 15 firms from a number of countries, and we looked at whether they had complementary skill sets under the same roof. For example, the database we work with PostgreSQL, so we wanted that expertise, we wanted iOS and Android expertise. It would be a huge plus if they had designers. If we needed designers, we needed people who knew front-end languages like AngularJS, and other Java-based front-end technologies.

SteelKiwi was one of the 15 firms who had all of these things, so then we short-listed them. We sent them invitations to respond to our RFP [request for proposal], and we interviewed about five and went with SteelKiwi. This was last summer [2014].

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

I'd rather not disclose that information.

What is the status of this engagement?

It's an ongoing involvement, and I fully expect it to continue in the near future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or user feedback from this engagement?

We are a startup, and the service that we provide does not have widespread benchmarking available in the industry yet. Since January [2015], we've gone through a number of iterations, so we've had many, many versions pushed out there. One way to measure the quality of a developer's work is the number of critical bugs in their deliverables. From my experience with this firm, and from my experience with working with other firms previously, I would say that the quality of their development expertise is extremely high. That's half of the story.

The other half is, some bugs are unavoidable. That's just part of the process. Another way to measure the skill measuring how quickly they can diagnose why the bug happened, and how quickly they can fix it. That just comes down to the experience of the person who's actually on your team. Currently, we are working with two developers, one senior and one junior developer. We are working with a front-end guy or designer, a DevOps guy, like a sys-admin, and a project manager. That's the composition of our team from SteelKiwi.

The senior developer is as skilled in Python as I've ever seen anywhere. His ability to resolve bugs is just phenomenal, and that would be an important reason why we are working with SteelKiwi. They are able to provide people like that guy, who have that level of expertise. This gets down to not just how well you can design an algorithm, it's also the experience he has in the field, and they have a very talented QA [quality assurance] testing team. If you go by metrics, such as the number of bugs and the critical bug turnaround time, they are very good. As good as what you would expect anywhere in an offshoring situation.

How did SteelKiwi perform from a project management standpoint?

On that front, they are probably best-in-class, although the side of project management that we have seen would focus less on being strategic because we are a young startup and our horizon is not years, it's not even six months – it's every two months. Now, the side of project management that we do see, and we have seen from the beginning, would be one of three reasons why we are with SteelKiwi now.

If you think broadly about the landscape of people who are in the offshoring business, a lot of them are in India. There are also a lot of them in the former Eastern European countries, Ukraine included. There's also Poland, and there's Russia itself. When I was looking, I was surprised to see how many options there were in China. Now, because of the language issues, China was a nonstarter for us. We just couldn't get over that. Because of a number of reasons, we ended up not going with India. Now, in Eastern Europe, you then have the language issue because the developers speak Russian or Polish and we don't.

What becomes critical, as soon as you step out of India, and work in any other country that's non-native English speaking, is that the project manager really has to be the glue. The project manager and the communication have to be at a level where he or she is able to understand what you're asking of them clearly. We are very hands-on, so our involvement is on a daily basis. We participate in some of the end-user testing on a daily basis. It's not like we define our projects, "Hey, build this, and come back in two weeks." We are really hands-on with them.

The project manager has really been a partner to us, in perfect sync with us not just in what we're asking them to do, but also at times in connecting the dots. That works in two ways: one way is at a very basic level, the language issue. I speak to the project manager, not the developers, who were OK with written English, but not so okay with verbal skills.

I, being on the user side, obviously have the best understanding of our vision, and where we are going with all of this. I also have a technical computer science background, so I can get fairly deep at the algorithm level, and can hold a conversation with anybody. What I'm not good at, because that's not what I do, is, what is, for example, the current state-of-art in JavaScript practices? Is AngularJS any better or worse than Backbone.js or Node.js, and what the difference between them? I could speak high level, but I would not know the details.

Then, the project manager's role becomes very critical in translating what I'm asking to what could be changed, or should be changed to build a platform better. This project manager at SteelKiwi has been phenomenal with that as well. Sometimes I'll say, "Build me this," and then she'd talk to the developers. All of them will discuss it as a team, and then come back with, "We could tweak this slightly. It could reduce the timeline by three days." That really is the role that the project manager has played, which has been so critical to the success of this relationship.

We're also kind of following an agile development methodology. Our company is even younger than young. We are a baby company so, sometimes, we react even faster than agile would recommend. We do follow some sort of an agile shell, but it tends to be more chaotic than that, as you can imagine. We change direction frequently, even more frequently than what agile would allow.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi from other providers?

Their talent pool is a huge factor but also their project management approach. I've really appreciated SteelKiwi's ability to think outside of the box and offer us key suggestions around process improvement or bug fixes or feature designs. That's not what I would call typical of offshore developers.

Is there anything SteelKiwi could have improved or done differently?

If I'm not mistaken, they have about 50 people, give or take. For a company of that size, we have been happy with their ability on the things I've mentioned – the outstanding DevOps guy and the outstanding Python guy. We asked for a designer, and they've come with a great design guy. One limitation of their size is the fact that they are in only operating in one time zone. It's a problem not for today, but it's a problem for a different day. Right now, we ourselves have fewer than 10 employees, so we are not that big yet. If we ever got to hundreds of employees or if our platform ever blew up, then we would probably grow beyond them.

If SteelKiwi had a presence in the U.S., that would be a game changer. If SteelKiwi had a presence in other time zones, so that we have a 24/7 team out there, that would be a game changer. It's not really a problem for us, for what we need right now. I have no regrets with going with them. We did a lot of due diligence, we did not take this position lightly. I can see how we might someday go beyond what a company in one time zone can offer, but that's unfair to hold it against them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work at a design and development agency from Salt Lake City. We operate and run multiple platforms and products. We support quite a few clients, but on this project specifically, we've engaged SteelKiwi on some Django and AngularJS work.

What is your position?

I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SteelKiwi Development?

They have augmented our team in the past. One product that SteelKiwi has specifically helped us on a property management platform built in Python. We needed to enhance the platform and we worked with them to add manpower and hit a few key deadlines together.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

With their help, we developed and implemented some general features, enhancements, a lot of bug fixing and QA [quality assurance]. Generally, they were involved in a lot of the platform's core functionality, rather than implementing a significant number of new features. Their work was comprised of a lot of enhancements, bug fixes and small iterations. The development methodology we were using was a kind of modified agile. We were doing weekly scrums with their team, but a daily push.

How did you come to work with SteelKiwi Development?

We found them using Elance. We looked at the size of their team, the size of the projects they completed, and their ratings on Elance.

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

We worked with them on an hourly basis, which came to probably around $80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was completed about two weeks ago. We haven't expanded the scope of their involvement yet, but we look forward to that opportunity in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We're happy with them. Our main metrics of measurability weren't user engagement, they were timing out on different API [application programming interface] calls. Really just taking each API call that we have and putting it under the microscope together and making sure it is as good as it can be. I would say that, overall, they met the majority of our performance expectations. 

How did SteelKiwi Development perform from a project management standpoint?

There were no major issues from a project management perspective. We went into it eyes wide open, knowing there's a time delay with communication. They would extend their hours each day to make sure we overlapped a little bit. They gave us a project manager, which was an unbilled manager that seemed to work full-time, if not three-quarters of the time.

We've used a lot of contractors over the years for different projects. SteelKiwi was very responsive and inside our platform, using our technologies, using our systems for time tracking, using our systems for bug tracking, so they just jumped right into our platforms. We used Asana as a project management tool.

What distinguishes SteelKiwi Development from other providers?

SteelKiwi Development provided a high level of communication – weekly calls, and daily updates – using our platforms, systems, and trackers. They were integrated with our systems fully. Obviously, that's the goal for any team, but we did achieve it with them.

Is there anything SteelKiwi Development could have improved or done differently?

I think we'll always do better with in-house employees, just because communication would be better. But, for an outsourcing team, augmenting ours for a sprint like that, it was a great relationship.