The Gnar Company

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Teach people to build deeper trust in their professional relationships.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Upgrade an online self-assessment tool

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Clutch Site

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from The Gnar Company were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Upgrade and enhance an outdated version of a custom application. Phase one upgraded the technology to the latest software versions. Phase two added functionality and application security and transitioned application and database to a more robust platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Improved system functionality and increased reporting.

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

Gnar were incredibly easy to work with and stayed in constant communication. I felt comfortable with both the plan and the progress we were making on most elements of the work. They created a Slack channel for near-real-time communication, in addition to weekly progress updates and, during the enhancement phase, weekly meetings to review and prioritize requirements, which was particularly helpful when we were unable to complete testing or provide inputs timely. 

They immediately flagged any potential changes to scope and provided options and quotes for new work. When we had out-of-scope requests (e.g., updating security on the production system), they engaged the appropriate resources and managed the work without seriously impacting schedule.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

Virtual Meeting

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

The people! From the first conversation, Pete and Mike were open and curious about our project and, more importantly, about our company and how this project helped us help our clients. We had a dedicated developer, which provided continuity and allowed us to work better together as we got to know each other. 

When we needed to change staff (for their reasons or ours), they were transparent about how to do so, and why, and made sure new staff were the right fit for our team. I always felt like they cared about us and our success more than just completing the work.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

I wish we would have spent more time in discovery and requirements mapping up front. Because we prioritized the upgrade to current software, then launched right into the enhancements, we ended up limiting some desired system functionality. Gnar did a great job of fulfilling our requirements, but we would have changed some of the requirements had I had a better up-front understanding of how the system and data were designed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Product Manager of (a/an) Consumer Products

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

24/7 health and fitness wearable that provides actionable insights and helps you live your best life.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Act as our API onboarding and support team, working with our customers to help them integrate with our API.
• Help build out our API documentation in an effort to make our API more self-serve.

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Referral

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing first our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

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

We hired Gnar to help us scale our API onboarding and support, which also reduced the load on our core engineering team to let them focus on building our product. Gnar was responsible for being the "first line of defense" and contacts for our API customers/partners: they built out and distributed API documentation, they had onboarding calls with developers, they managed shared Slack channels where they answered development questions, and they also provided feedback to our team on ways to improve our API offering.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Our engineering team spent a fraction of their time (from many hours per week down to < 1 hour per week) supporting API customers. Instead, we mostly interfaced with Gnar who gave us consolidated feedback & detailed bug reports.

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

Yes; Gnar was very punctual on all projects / workstreams. They were extremely responsive to emails and Slack messages from us and from our customers/partners.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

Virtual Meeting

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

They balanced being professional, personable, available, amicable, and knowledgeable. This is a tough combination to do well, but they did.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Global Solution Delivery Director of Onepak inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Onepak provides IT reverse logistics services and a offers a reverse logistics platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Establish a new React based framework for our web apps
• Create a new front end portal in React JS
• Enhance our React Native mobile app
• Create a new Consumer facing web app

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Online Search

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

What was the size of The Gnar Company’s team?

6-10 Employees

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

• Create a web app React framework
• Create a new React JS portal
• Enhance a React Native mobile app
• Create a new customer facing web app

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Launch of the new React JS web app
• Launch of the new consumer web app
• Implementation and use of the enhancements to the mobile app

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

• Agile project management was managed by OnePak. The Gnar developers were all professional, agile proponents
• Their engagement created a hybrid model that worked as though they were part of the OnePak development team
• The team always responded positively and rapidly to requests and were proactive in their efforts to streamline delivery and processes.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

• It was always easy to work with the company founders, who went out of their way to meet our needs
• Developers were specialists in our required fields and offered broad experience and expertise.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Shepherdly

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Bug prediction for pull requests

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Build initial web application
• Design for website
• Design for logo

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Other

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• Good value for cost
• Other

What was the size of The Gnar Company’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

• Web app: Build initial web application off figma designs. This involved implementing on top of an existing API. The application included search facets and data visualization.
• Website: Design a single page website from scratch, along with logo and other visualizations to showcase the product.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Completeness of agreed upon JIRA tickets

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

The team is proactive in their communication, giving updates daily in Slack. We also had a weekly zoom meeting to sync on the remaining issues. Items were delivered within a reasonable period of time.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The quality of the code is well written and they were able to optimize for speed given my project requirements. The team also responds to pivots in priority very well and are willing to dig into problems with you to make sure the solution is right.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

I think it could be beneficial to have tiered rates based on developer experience. This would allow clients to potentially optimize for cost vs speed/quality.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the COO of Gridly

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Gridly exists to accelerate the adoption of clean energy solutions for single family homeowners. With just the entry of an address we provide a bespoke plan to optimize the energy efficiency of a residence and convert all fossil fuel burning systems to clean, electric based equipment. Gridly demystifies the whole-home electrification process, doing all the upfront research and analysis for the homeowner and then connecting them with qualified installers to execute the Gridly Action Plan.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Assist with designing look and feel of the user interface
• Build the customer facing platform
• Manage the development effort

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Referral

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit

What was the size of The Gnar Company’s team?

2-5 Employees

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

Given a set of business objectives, the Gnar team collaborated with the business lead on defining the screen designs, functionality, user flows, and external integration needed to build our product. Through an iterative process a wireframe prototype of the product was built and refined. The product was then built, tested, validated by the business lead, and deployed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• On-time delivery of bug-free code

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

Gnar assigned strong PM resources to our project. Work was accurately estimated and completed within the timeframes planned.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

Virtual Meeting

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

The quality of the work delivered was exceptional. The competencies of the engineers, with support from the Gnar management team, was very strong and they produced clean code consistent with the business' requirements.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

We were pleased with all aspects of the relationship with Gnar.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the co-founder of a home inspection SaaS company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gnar Company?

We needed an additional Ruby on Rails engineer to help accelerate the development of new features for our platform.

SOLUTION

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

I found them while searching for local development shops on Clutch!

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

The work was comprised of several self-contained mini-projects, including connecting our system to third-party services. I wrote up the requirements as JIRA tickets, and we took advantage of a visual designer from Gnar as well for one of the mini-projects. 

The engineer assigned to us was able to work through these tickets to build the features, and adapted easily as we changed things along the way.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

I talked with Pete (the head of growth) and he matched me with an engineer that worked with us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The work that was done is either already in production or undergoing beta testing. We've been happy with the results.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their Ruby on Rails engineer was able to jump right into our productivity tools and go.

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

Our system is quite complicated, and Gnar was really able to be productive quickly without a lot of ramping up.

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

At the beginning of the project, Gnar had more involvement in the code reviews that were happening. It tapered off towards the end, it was nice having another set of eyes on the work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a Series B SaaS B2B Startup that sells IT/Endpoint Security Software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gnar Company?

Shortly after raising our Series B we needed to find qualified Rails devs to augment our existing team while we began our hiring process.

SOLUTION

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

The local Boston community and the folks I'm connected with know Mike and the other folks at Gnar. I've have many successful engagements with them and knew this one would also work well. They also have a knack for hiring folks that share similar culture values to Kolide employees.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Project was a simple staff augmentation where a Gnar engineer is working on our core SaaS product, usually on things outside of the critical path.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

I called up Mike, he was having a baby so I spoke instead with Pete who quickly got us matched with a suitable engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Yes Alex has helped us with various long-form projects like upgrading major dependencies that require changing hundreds of files across our code base, or helping us build out various aspects of our marketing website (like portions of our new blog system) and has been a major asset to other departments at Kolide looking for engineering support. I very rarely have to over-prescribe the work, Alex does a great job of listening to stakeholders which requires less work for me to best define a solution.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Working with Alex feels just like working with the engineers that work at Kolide. He is a treat.

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

They quickly knew exactly what they were looking for, and they've got us matched up with a perfect-fit engineer.

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

None! We love working for Gnar and look forward to considering them for more specific projects beyond staff augmentation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of Katalyst, which is a Restaurant and Hospitality Point of Sale platform providing software and other technology to help restaurant operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gnar Company, and what were your goals?

We had a new product that we wanted to have built alongside internal development initiatives. Our goal was to get it completed in early May for a specific launch date. We needed very specific requirements as far as tech languages used, style of implementation, and native API implementation initiatives.

SOLUTION

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

Many factors including cost, location of resources, timezone limitations, and specific areas of execution

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

learn all designs and implementation initiatives, then created the infrastructure of the application. Iterated with new feature implementation and connected the product to the core API of our system to test in tandem while developing. Written in React and React Native while plugging into our core API to work in unison with the rest of our ecosystem of features and tech.

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

4 people

• 2 developers
• 1 project manager
• collaboration with one of the co-founders to oversee the project

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Project was delivered on time and we were able to get the product implemented in a testing environment with relative ease of use.

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

The communication and project management were very professional throughout the process and attention to detail was followed throughout the process.

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

They did a good job of jumping in and learning the in's and out's of the application quickly to begin building right away.

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

not that I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an engineer at a small startup. We’re developing consumer software targeted at legal services; we build web apps and third-party integrations. Our engineering team was previously 1–2 people, and we’re now up to three teammates.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Gnar Company?

We needed development staff augmentation. We brought Gnar on board very early in the development of a product that we were building from scratch.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Gnar augmented our engineering team by embedding two resources who worked work us in building a web application from scratch. The app had a Python web server and a React frontend. The Gnar team worked exclusively in the React run. 

They suggested candidates for us, and we talked to and screened 3–4 different Gnar employees to see who was the best fit for us. I onboarded the first candidate into our company, our software, and our tools. When the second person came into the project, they worked together on the onboarding process.

What is the team composition?

We worked with no more than two Gnar employees at a time. In total, we worked with four different people.

How did you come to work with The Gnar Company?

They were a recommendation from someone in our network. We spoke with a few different options, both individuals we knew and firms similar to Gnar that offered engineering services at a fixed price point. Gnar was well-positioned with the technical expertise we were looking for, and they had engineers available, so they were a good fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent just over $100,000. We paid Gnar directly, and they were in charge of the payroll of the employees embedded in our team.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February—December 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I worked with Gnar very closely, and the measurement of their success was the quality and speed of their code development.

How did The Gnar Company perform from a project management standpoint?

The first Gnar employee embedded in our team wasn’t a good fit for us regarding communication; they didn’t communicate or project manage well. We worked with Gnar on replacing that resource, and a senior contractor came into our team. He was a very strong communicator and planner and good at project timeline management. Ultimately, their project management performance in the last nine months of the project was very solid.

We used a tool called Linear to manage the project. Most of our communication happened either on Slack or video calls. Beyond that, we occasionally used project documents.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Gnar was flexible and understanding in finding the right people for the project. The resources embedded in our team were excellent at frontend infrastructure. The team was great at implementation, and they guided us on how to build an infrastructure to underlie our app. They were able to advise us on good long-term approaches and strategies for frontend development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The main frustration point for us was the experience level of certain team members with the technologies we were using. The first resource they gave us was not a great fit, and they had people who were still learning. We would have had a better experience earlier on if we had had people who had more experience from the start. This issue comes with a caveat because they did provide us with a lead engineer who was very strong in our tech stack. Although this issue ended up being fixed, it was a source of problems at the start. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise you to speak with whoever will be embedded on your team; figure out how comfortable they are with your tech stack and what level of communication and project management they expect. Decide whether you’re going to delegate at a task or project level. From there, figure out who from Gnar will be capable of planning that and how much communication they need from you to succeed on the task and project levels.

In our experience, the expertise level of Gnar teammates varied quite a bit, from very little to extremely experienced. So, I would advise you to evaluate that level of expertise, which will be a key step if you consider hiring Gnar contractors.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Wealth Kitchen, a financial aggregation app for individuals and families. Unlike other financial aggregation platforms that let users track their finances by themselves, our app can be used to connect with a human financial advisor. 

On the other side of the equation, our app provides financial advisors with a UI design that helps them structure their day and take care of their clients in a better way. That sounds simple, but it’s harder than ever to do that in a day and age where the COVID-19 pandemic exists.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Gnar Company?

I started the business in late 2020 and while doing our fundraising efforts, I wanted to find a co-founder that could handle the design and engineering part of the business. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult to go out and network with people. 

As a result, I conferred with investors and customers to know whether or not my idea was worth pursuing. When they said yes, the first thing I did was to find a high-quality outsourced engineering firm. That way, I could continue to build the app while I was looking for a technical co-founder. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Gnar currently serves as my CTO-for-hire partner. They’re working on our development tasks. Since we’re a fairly early-stage company, the bulk of the work we do revolves around building the prototype of our product. 

What is the team composition?

My first point of contact has been with Pete (Head of Growth & Client Service), though I don’t work with him on a daily basis. I also work with Mike (Co-Founder); he oversees the development engineers that work full-time on the project. I’ve also engaged with some of their design specialists who’ve designed the wireframes of the product. Finally, a full-time engineer works with us for 40 hours per week. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $75,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since I’m a technical person, I’ve been judging Gnar’s performance based on my feelings of where we should be. That’s not necessarily quantifiable. For instance, I’ve had no real concept of how long it would take to establish the foundation of the software product. I’ve had a good idea of what it would cost, but I’ve had no specific success metrics or KPIs. 

As a result, I’m more focused on tracking our initial funding and making it last over a period of time. During that time, I should be able to show some progress so that I can continue to raise funds. From that standpoint, my engagement with Gnar has gone well.

How did The Gnar Company perform from a project management standpoint?

For communication, the Gnar team is always thinking about what I want versus what our expectations should be in terms of timing and costs. In other words, they help make important business decisions; they acknowledge what I want to do but also help me understand the alternatives we have. In a nutshell, their thoughtfulness and communication have blown me away. 

In terms of tools, we’ve used Netlify, GitHub, Trello, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager. We’ve also used Slack to communicate. I’ve also initiated an integration with Plaid — a financial product development tool — which isn’t necessarily a part of our coding environment but is critical to our overall workflow. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I get what I pay for; Gnar’s services are expensive — make no mistake about it — but that forces me to be thoughtful when it comes to fundraising and managing cash. On top of that, they also do great work. Their outputs have strong foundations and are truly well-thought-out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There have been times when I wish they’d asked me about the higher-level, longer-term business rationale for why I want to do something. Sometimes, I have to spend a few minutes by myself wondering if they truly understand why a particular piece of work is extremely important to me. I value their feedback and honest communication, so they can also ask me what I’m trying to do with my business idea.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know that Gnar is expensive, but you’ll receive high-quality work. If you’re trying to save money and have a much smaller budget, they might not be the right team for you — you can’t buy a Ferrari if you can’t afford one. Overall, you get what you pay for when working with them.