HackSoft

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO and Founder, Carederly

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Hacksoft was asked to build our first MVP, a web app, based on detailed prototype designs in Figma.

SOLUTION

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

Hacksoft was recommended to me by my technical advisor, who is a CTO at another startup in Europe. He had familiarity with their work through the Django community, where Hacksoft is an active contributor. Hacksoft was extremely professional and they were quick in reviewing the project scope.

Their work output during these initial interactions was prepared with an attention to detail that other vendors seemed to lack. Finally, they were committed to supporting their codebase at no additional cost to ensure it was bug free for several months after delivery while other vendors demanded a "support fee" for this.

This implied a high level of commitment to delivering a workable and quality product. In summary, their speed, flexibility, attention to detail and reputation were factors in my decision.

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

The platform required a Django backend to be consumed as an API by a React front end. We identified some rough milestones and feature sets that we wanted to meet (e.g., alpha version by around x date) and agreed on a level of flexibility to ensure that we could pivot based on ongoing user feedback.

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

1 team lead, 3 full stack developers and a couple of QA folks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Hacksoft delivered a stable MVP with a solid foundation that we can further build upon. The code itself is easy-to-follow and well-organized and follows standard practices for other engineers to take forwards.

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

The team is very responsive and a pleasure to work with. We communicated through Slack, Google Docs and Whimsical (for flowcharting and brainstorming ideas). They also used Trello for project management.

Further, we synched up on weekly video calls as needed and provided me end-of-week updates on features or bug fixes that were ready to test. We generally agreed on timelines for delivery of features based on complexity. There was a consistent cadence of pushing new features or bug fixes to production on a weekly basis.

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

I valued the thought partnership that the team provided. That is, it wasn't just me dictating features but there was a lively back-and-forth on what was a better design or solution to address a problem. For example, we needed an onboarding flow as our initial users didn't know what to do.

While I designed an initial flow, the team challenged me on how users might respond so we could improve on initial ideas. Finally, from speaking with other founder friends who worked with external development agencies, I realized that this team provides exceptional client service.

My other founder friends described the headaches they endured such as, waking up in the middle of the night to news that existing code broke because their dev agency pushed new code to production. Issues like that didn't exist with Hacksoft - their code was always thoroughly tested before it was pushed.

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

None that I noted.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Kuula is a health and fitness company, creating a platform for teachers to monetise their skills. We provide ways for teachers to schedule and charge for lessons, upload video content and create various types of membership. I was CTO at Kuula. I managed the external and internal development teams, worked with support to provide technical support to our customers and reported directly to the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired hacksoft for the entire development of Kuula. From the beginning proof of concept stage onwards. First goals were to create a proof of concept in a month to get pre-seed investment. This involved creating auth/schedule creation/payment / live streaming (HLS based and WebRTC based) functionality. Going forward, based on the feedback from customers and upon my direction, Hacksoft worked directly with us on sprints to create features to help us grow and expand, and reach market fit.

SOLUTION

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

Introduced to this vendor by the original CTO of Kuula who had worked with Hacksoft before.

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

Radorado the CEO of Hacksoft worked with us directly for a few months to build the proof of concept and help us understand the product. From there, Hacksoft brought in additional staff, eventually staffing up to 6 people as the project and needs grew. We worked with them on a permanent basis as our developers for the product, so our deliverables changed on a per sprint basis based on our roadmap.

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

6 people, 1 senior full stack developer, 4 full stack developers and 1 QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Month on month, due to the hard work the Hacksoft team put in on delivering high quality features for our site, we managed to increase our active teachers from 0 when we started, to over 180. We also had over 4000 students using the platform.

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

We had daily standups and weekly syncs. We communicated on Slack, and used Trello to sort cards. Hacksoft were fine taking task cards written up by Kuula, but were also capable of taking a feature spec and breaking down the feature themselves into cards to be worked on.

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

The team was communicative, flexible and extremely professional. Their attention to detail and ability to work well with our internal team was great.

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

More attention to detail when working on the visual look and functionality of the site in the initial months of working together, but Hacksoft were quick to react and fix any issues as they arose.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO at EdLight, an educational technology (EdTech) startup that makes it easy for teachers to digitize their work. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HackSoft?

I built the product’s prototype, but I didn’t have the time or expertise to transform that into a full-scale MVP. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

HackSoft is helping us develop our platform into a full-scale MVP. We had a good sense of what we wanted to build going into the project, and they jumped in quickly and started the process.

Our first product is a tool for in-person learning. We started the development in February 2020, but we realized that was not the right focus, considering the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

HackSoft has helped us pivot our app to providing remote learning support. We’ve worked on the remote learning product for around nine months. However, when we were about to be finished, schools were returning to in-person classes. HackSoft has again helped us to pivot back to building an in-person solution.     

What is the team composition?

We work with two senior engineers and three junior engineers. 

How did you come to work with HackSoft?

I found HackSoft through their open-source work. I saw that they wrote good codes and had innovative technical approaches in dealing with problems they were trying to solve. That gave me the confidence to go with them instead of other vendors.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $250,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We wouldn’t have a business without HackSoft’s support. Their degree of responsiveness in the face of a rapidly changing environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is unbelievable.

We feel like HackSoft is part of our team; we can build a collaborative environment with them. They’ve internalized our goals to be their goals, and they’re able to work with the right mix of entrepreneurial instinct and communication. We have a productive partnership. 

How did HackSoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve set up a good routine of bi-weekly sprints, weekly check-ins, and daily status reports. That gives us full transparency into what HackSoft is working on and insight as to why their work is going faster or slower than expected. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with the degree that HackSoft has internalized our goals. They’ve understood our objectives and what we’re trying to do, and they’ve helped us backward plan in a way that has aligned with our specs and requirements. 

HackSoft is instrumental both in the implementation and improvement of our product. In addition, they gave us access to tools and resources that we didn’t know about. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you know what the next sprint is going to be. Use your check-in before the next sprint to transform mockups into back end wireframes so that you can maximize your productivity by the time you proceed with the sprint. Being planned one sprint in advance has helped us stay efficient at all times. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

OfficeRnD provides an all in one ERP system that helps shared flexible workplaces stay on top of their day-to-day operations. Founded in 2014, we have four locations around the globe - US, UK, Bulgaria and Australia. We have around 60 employees split across all 4 locations. I am the Engineering Lead inside the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Hack Soft?

Due to the business rapid growth and the aggressiveness of the business team we faced a challenge - they needed more and more functionality in order to acquire new customers and upsell existing ones and we didn't have the resource to deliver all they wanted. If we were to hit the sales targets we needed some help from outside of the company.

What were your goals for this project?

As our system sits in the core of our customers' businesses it heavily relies on external integrations in order to decrease operational overhead. Unfortunately, we didn't have the resources to finish a few long awaited integrations and we needed help - the integrations had to be written in JS (Node.js, Angular, MongoDB). Developing such integrations is tricky - the developer needs to get acquainted with the remote system's API, comply with its limitations and be careful to not overload both the local and remote systems. The second initiative we needed help with was re-designing an existing web application. It was written in Angular.js. We needed to both re-design and re-write it to a more up-to-date framework like React. Unfortunately, one more time we didn't have the resources and knowledge to pull this off on our own.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

By recommendation. We've heard good things about HackSoft's team and we also read a lot of reviews about them + we contacted some people that has been working with them in the past. We definitely needed a reference otherwise it would be hard to trust an external contributor with such vital projects. Luckily for us, the feedback was pretty good - one thing actually tipped the scales - communication. It was extremely important for us to have a partner that removes the overhead of micro-managing a remote project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They designed, developed, configured, and launched a few of the most complicated native integrations in the system. The team got acquainted with the remote systems, created a plan on how to approach the delivery and executed it accordingly. There were 2 weeks sprints and sync points every week with stakeholders from OfficeRnD. We were even happier with how the re-design of the web app went. HackSoft team's expertise in the React technology helped us get the project going in no time. They bootstrapped the whole project and together with key stakeholders from our side came up with a plan on how and when everything will be delivered. Again, we worked on two weeks sprints with regular code and design reviews.

What was the team composition?

We started off with two people - one senior developer and one technical lead. As the project advanced we added one more senior developer in order to boost the efforts and increase delivery. Of course during the whole time there was a main POC from our side who ensured the business objectives are met.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Impact was pretty obvious - we managed to save more than 10 important customers from churning (what would have happened if we haven't delivered the integrations) and we managed to acquire new ones thanks to the competitive advantage these integrations provide. As for the web app redesign we consider this a great competitive advantage as well. Our customers are hyped about what we have shown them so far.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Management of the whole project was pretty impressive. HackSoft team met all expected deadlines and as mentioned, communicated potential issues upfront. We communicated exclusively with Slack, Jira, GitLab and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most valuable asset they have is their personality. We were lucky that HackSoft's culture is so close to ours which eliminated a lot of communication barriers and smoothened the overall development process. This, coupled with their technical proficiency is what makes them a great partner and keeps them ahead of other providers we've worked with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Can't think of any. Some might pop up until the project is finished but for the time being I think there are none.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-founder at adaptai, we are a HR-Tech startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Hack Soft?

Hack Soft helped us develop our first MVP solution. With input from multiple stakeholders, including university academics, project managers, designers and business owners. We were looking for a pro-active solution to build an assessment tool via a chatbot interface. Collate the data, apply calculations and display instant reports and dashboards of the insights. In a graphically pleasing way. Including the customer experience and admin setup for company benchmarking report analysis.

What were your goals for this project?

A working assessment and reporting tool built for our soft launch event in London. Together with the support to roll-out our beta program to 50+ companies and 5,000 employee assessments.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After a number of referrals and careful consideration, we selected HackSoft based on their energy, flexibility and the confidence they gave us in working with startups before.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

From a very loose brief, they were able to build and develop a working solution. Without their commitment every week during the project we would not have been able to complete this. Their team were open-minded, solution focussed and flexible in approach. The technical system will enable us to validate our business proposition and concept, raise investment and establish early market traction.

What was the team composition?

One main project manager and multiple developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As a result of the first MVP build we are about to roll-out the beta next week. We have attracted partners such as IBM, GSK, HSBC and many others to take part. This will enable us to seek further investment and no doubt will play a segnificant part in our future success.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We had an excellent project manager, who joined our weekly zoom calls. Comms were super smooth and responsive using our Slack channels. Even direct developer contact made fixes and feature enhancements rapid to discuss, test and deploy.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed by how simple and un-complicated they made the process. Felt like they were part of our team, not just suppliers delivering a project. They thought of ways to improve and were super responsive to enhance the solution as we learned more during early testing and feedback.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We compromised a little on the final design UX due to time and budgets, however, this was clearly communicated and good advice in our early stages. As having the sound technology in place will allow us to move forward with confidence and address this in the next project phases.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a platform to connect the property industry with PropTech companies around the world

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Hack Soft?

End to end build, front end and backend, plus ongoing maintenance and development

What were your goals for this project?

First goal was to get to market by the end of 2018 and ongoing goals are to continue iterating the product based on user feedback

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Recommended by a friend

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Working from Zeplin designs, Hacksoft's team scoped and built the entire product. This involved building from scratch but also, where appropriate, integrating with third parties where doing so was more cost effective or appropriate. Led by Ivaylo Bachvarov, Hack Soft always works with commercial relevance in mind and consistently produces a product that is largely bug free. 
When bugs do inevitably arise, they are very responsive to resolve them.

What was the team composition?

One CTO equivalent and up to 5 devs at any one time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our product has always been released on time, on spec and on budget. Bugs have been minimal and any that do crop up are dealt with very responsively. This has helped us raise quite lot of money.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Projects were all managed by Ivaylo which was super easy. We were able to communicate with individual devs at appropriate times using Slack.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Responsiveness

Are there any areas for improvement?

I think with any outsourcer then there will always be some ups and downs depending on overall company workload and the importance of the client compared to others.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a German company in the energy sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Hack Soft?

I was working on our application as one of only two in-house software developers, but I didn’t have much experience with Django or Angular. I realized that we’d need to bring in more developers to get the project completed efficiently.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided them with wireframes, designs, and an explanation of how the application should function. From there, they helped us implement the back-end Django technology. They also handled our deployment, continuous development, and staging pipelines.

We’re about to start our production pipeline and they’ll manage that as well. I’m currently handling the Angular deployment. Once that’s ready, Hack Soft will come back for a couple of weeks to add final details like filtering and pagination. They’ll also put our application through another round of testing for us and help us get the final product launched.

What is the team composition?

I worked with their CEO and one of his interns.

How did you come to work with Hack Soft?

We initially hired two individual developers from overseas, only to realize a few weeks later that this wasn’t meeting our needs. After that, we decided to take an agency approach. I happened to see an ad for Hack Soft on Django’s site itself, so I called them and set up an interview. I was impressed with their method of working, so we decided to bring them on board.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between €14,000–15,000 ($15,975–$17,116).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on the project from May–July 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We wouldn’t have been able to get this project off the ground half so quickly without them. That said, we all underestimated the amount of work required, which resulted in some delays, so we haven’t gone live with the application yet. The project was originally supposed to take 4 weeks and it’s been more like 11 or 12.

How did Hack Soft perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team works extremely quickly and they have an open, easy style of communication. We handle our testing in Jira and I make notes about what they need to work on. They follow our deployment plan pretty well. They’re also very honest with feedback and I’ve come to expect their developers to let me know when one of my ideas doesn’t make sense.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very professional and their approach meshes well with our own. Our requests are met in a timely manner, and often completed quicker than expected.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're an online platform that sells educational content about video games. I’m the founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Hack Soft?

We wanted to build a platform and we were looking for an IT company to manage the whole development process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They're building a CMS that is similar to an online store but sells content rather than a physical product. They developed it in Python and used Wagtail, which is a CMS system for Django. We had to integrate it with a payment system, so we integrated it with Braintree. They also used MySQL, HTML, and CSS.

Users will be able to log into our website with the same account they use when they play a video game. The API integration will help our users track their own progress. The website will go live the first week of September.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two full-time developers and a part-time team manager.

How did you come to work with them?

They’re the organizers of HackConf, which an IT conference in Sophia, Bulgaria. I contacted them because they're a young team and they know the gaming industry. They’re knowledgeable about an MVP, which is important for a startup, and they work with agile methodology. I thought they were a perfect fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between January–March 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I'm very happy with their work. People who have seen the platform say that it looks very professional compared to the other platforms in our market. Hack Soft was flexible about changing features, but they always cared about having a good result.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Slack and Trello to communicate and there were no issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciated their agile approach. If we were working with a more traditional company, we'd probably run into some problems when we wanted to change things around. But everything went smoothly with Hack Soft.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It was the first time I worked with a development company, so I learnt a lot from them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a product manager at The Collective. We are a co-living community, and our flagship building has about 550 units that people rent from us.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Hack Soft?

We use a lot of spreadsheets and various business software during our operations, and we wanted to pull everything together into a unified solution. Additionally, we contracted to Hack Soft to build a custom CRM for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our stack includes Python, Django, Heroku, AWS, and PostgreSQL. And for the frontend, we used JavaScript and React. When our engagement began, we had specific needs for our sales, marketing, and tracking the process of customer intake, so they developed a custom CRM for us. That was completed about a year ago, and they started the property management software shortly after. That system allows us to track the entire process of when a customer makes an initial booking to live in one of our buildings. It includes the document signings, the affordability checks, and, ultimately, the move-in. From that point, it also allows us to manage the process of them living in the building.

What is the team composition?

At the moment, our team consists of seven people.

How did you come to work with Hack Soft?

Our head of technology at the time had a connection to Hack Soft from a previous position and knew we could rely on them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between €200,000- €300,000 ($227,000-$341,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work together began in May 2016 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Many of our processes before were time-consuming and done manually. Their software makes our operations much more efficient and makes people's jobs easier. From a customer perspective, it's made the booking process far easier. It's more modernized. We work in quite an old-fashioned industry, so it's given us a unique edge having this automated system.

How did Hack Soft perform from a project management standpoint?

We have taken the time to visit each other’s offices. We found it valuable to meet in person to build our relationship. Otherwise, we have a weekly conference call, and we communicate via Slack daily. Even on weekends or in the evenings, someone is able to respond and help if we have a question. We appreciate their responsiveness. We have a strong say in the priority of what work needs to be accomplished next, but the organization of their team and finding the most suitable person to work on different features is left completely in their hands, and they tend to do very well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very attentive to details. If we’ve suggested an idea and they’ve seen another avenue or something we haven’t thought through, they make sure we have all the essential information.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. As a remote team, they’ve done really well.

Any advice for potential customers?

Have your requirements clearly established at the beginning of the engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization is called Keymono and we’re developing a new real estate software program. I’m one of the three co-founders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Hack Soft?

Theirs was one of our first contracts with a development team to get our initial platform off the ground.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our platform. The unique thing about it—which made it versatile, but also challenging to build—is the fact that it’s not just agent- or broker-facing, but also requires consideration on how it’ll be used by consumers.

The platform is constructed in a way that will allow for a lot of open-source opportunities with other software companies. It also allows us to cater to agents, as they work with their clients. It involved some difficult engineering.

The platform is built and ready to go, but it will evolve constantly, as we start to gather more users.

What is the team composition?

We have one main contact from their side and we typically communicate multiple times per day.

How did you come to work with Hack Soft?

We received a referral from one of our co-founders, who’d done a bit of work with them in the past. We interviewed them and found it to be a great fit. I don’t regret my decision one bit.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2017 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re extremely satisfied. The quality has been top-notch. Hack Soft understood how our product would be used and accounted for the new demands and expectations of our consumers. This speaks a lot for the intelligence of the team.

They built a product that was useful the first time around, rather than us having to redo portions of it or fix mistakes and issues that weren’t anticipated. They were quick to anticipate and communicate any points of concern and to provide better alternatives. They’re forward-thinking, they anticipate issues before they arise, and they communicate those with us effectively.

How did Hack Soft perform from a project management standpoint?

They were fantastic; no issues whatsoever. The project management was top-notch, the communication was effective and quick, and I wasn't ever waiting on them for anything; most of the time, they were waiting on me.

They were quick to set reasonable deadlines and let us know about any delays, explaining the cause behind them. They were also quick to respond, quick to assemble a team, and good about projecting and anticipating issues. The team I’m working with is fairly well-versed in product development and at foreseeing issues that may come up. They were able to bring up things we hadn’t thought about, which saved us a lot of time and effort.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The project manager assembled the most effective team for accomplishing the task and distributed the workload appropriately. I didn’t have to worry about delegating. The project went smoothly, from an organizational perspective.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could move to the U.S. Though, in truth, their location hasn’t been a detractor at all.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I would come up with as clear a vision as possible of what the end-result is desired to be. Share that fully with the team so that they can keep it in mind throughout the project. This way, small, important components will be built out in-line with the overarching goal. This will eliminate any sort of confusion, mismanagement, or misallocation of efforts on their part. Having a clear vision of the product goes a long way.

It all comes back to communication vision. One of our founders is well-versed in product design and knows exactly how to arrange and set things up appropriately.