Helpware Tech

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product management for a telecommunications service provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with eTeam?

We needed a company to help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

eTeam developed a custom web-based messaging software for us based on specs I wrote and provided for them. The product has both a mobile and web component.

The software text-enables any platform, allowing users to send and receive messages even on those that wouldn’t normally have that capability, like a landline or browser. eTeam wrote the code that enables our app to provide that functionality.

Throughout the project, after I provided the wireframes, they would put together a user interface and I would tweak it.

What is the team composition?

We worked with several different groups throughout the project depending on what our focus was in a given moment. The most we ever worked with was between eight and nine people, which was when we working on databases.

We had a few project managers, a database administrator, and a schedule manager. We also had a business analyst who acted as a liaison to the developers. 

How did you come to work with eTeam?

The relationship was forged before I joined the company, but I know our CTO had engaged with eTeam in 2018. Our company selected them out of about five or six other candidates based on their expertise in mobile and database development.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $250,000 on this engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January-December 2019. However, once we reach a certain level of sales, we’re going to resume development with eTeam.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In the beginning, when they were designing some of the architecture of the product, things went really well. 

Later on, when the team started getting into some of the code, we ran into some challenges with the nuances associated with different US carriers. We had to do a lot of research and relay it back to them because they weren’t as knowledgeable about those protocols.

However, it was the only challenge eTeam had to overcome throughout the project, as they handled all the other development really well.

How did eTeam perform from a project management standpoint?

I was generally satisfied with their project management.

I communicated daily with eTeam’s business analyst, though I did have to dedicate some time and supervision to helping them with basic project management tools and spreadsheets.

What did you find most impressive about them?

eTeam’s work is visually excellent. Their user interface design is the strongest aspect of their work, and they do it exceptionally well. 

 Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they had been more knowledgeable in terms of communications and protocols. Also, I don’t think their database experience and expertise is as strong as it could be. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The clearer the specifications, the better results you’ll get. The details need to be in there. eTeam needs a little bit of ramp up time, so the more specification you have in the original specs, the better off you’ll be.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is an API connection to connect human tasks to AIs. I'm the head of Customer Success.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

eTeam helped us build the entire API connection, as well as the platform for human tasks.

What were your goals for this project?

To build a complete working API to connect with AI, as well as platform to complete microtasks and massive scale.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They were a referral to us, and we started with them as a test that actually went so well that we brought them on full time to build our entire platform.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They scoped the entire project, as well as did the development, and even QA in order to ensure that it worked seamlessly.

What was the team composition?

One project manager, one developer, one QA, and their mgmt was also heavily involved.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a real platform and API today that works, and does exactly what we set out to do. We currently sell the solution.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Yes- we had a point of contact who kept a project plan and kept us updated from week to week.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their teamwork and understanding of what needed to be done in order to get to our end goal was second to none. These guys simply got it, and we couldn't be happier with the end result.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Only thing I would have liked was a more detailed breakdown of what was needed from our side upfront. However, we sorted this out and they helped to guide us through each step.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-founder and the CTO of a company that’s developing a suite that helps businesses automate processes like billing, accepting payments, and client communication. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with eTeam?

We didn’t have enough resources for development, so we hired eTeam to help us out in that regard.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

eTeam set up our AWS cloud infrastructure and handled various development tasks. We’re a Ruby on Rails shop, so most of our parts are built using that language. We also have React.js on the frontend side.

There’s two-way synchronization between our platform and NetSuite, which is the ERP system we use. eTeam built a number of integrations from scratch with payment gateways into the ERP, including Stripe, which allowed us to start accepting payments.

What is the team composition?

I believe we worked with five people in total. We communicated exclusively through the project manager they assigned.

How did you come to work with eTeam?

We went through a number of potential partners and evaluated metrics like quality, attitude, and price. We ended up with eTeam.

How much have you invested with them?

The original estimate was between $25,000–$50,000, however, the total cost ended up being between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with eTeam around 2017 and collaborated together for about a year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of their code was excellent, and while I can’t share specific stats about our sales, we’ve seen a dramatic increase and have been published on the App Store. We were pleased with how eTeam did their job. 

How did eTeam perform from a project management standpoint?

We used a Scrum methodology. The project manager broke down all features into user stories, explaining to the developers what needed to be done. eTeam controlled the whole process on their end. We used Jira and Confluence for project tracking.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We liked their attitude, responsiveness, and quality. They’re professionals and we were really able to rely on them 100%. In the financial services space, reliability is critical, and that’s why we chose eTeam. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they need to improve at the moment. We were pretty satisfied with eTeam.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients can fully rely on eTeam to produce the best results. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a principal AI research scientist at Acceptto, a transformative cybersecurity company. At Acceptto we deliver smart, resilient and evasion-proof identity validation technology available for physical, web, mobile, cloud and IoT devices.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

We needed eTeam services to create a machine learning system that would be able to handle anomalies in users behavior.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals for the project were to perform an analysis of user behavior, detect anomalies and cluster similar users to control behavior changes.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

eTeam has been recommended to our CEO by a third party. They had exactly the right resources available to achieve the project goals in a productive and cost-efficient way.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We needed eTeam to perform an analysis of user behavior with anomaly user detection. eTeam's data scientist used unsupervised learning for outlier detection, clustering in order to detect user groups and control behavior changes. Python with NumPy, Pandas and Scikit-Learn was used as a development tool. Also there were performed integration of side packages to the Scikit-Learn pipeline and combination of the main scripts was gathered to the auxiliarily package with unit tests via pytest, type check and documentation.

What was the team composition?

I worked with a data scientist from eTeam's side who gave us insights on a regular basis about project progress.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are extremely pleased with the outcome. As a result of our partnership with eTeam, we reached the goals of the project under the lack of real data: compared the algorithm efficiency, added a visualization module with metric selection, performed use clustering to oblation similar users, cluster visualization.

In order to make up for the lack of real data, there were developed artificial dataset generator based on Dirichlet distribution with controlled variance changes, and feature variable grouping.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The communication was great, as we scheduled daily meetings to discuss progress and tasks as well as spoke over email.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They've done an excellent job on our project - the technical expertise they provide are outstanding. Their team has the technical background and deep insight needed to produce quality work.

Are there any areas for improvement?

So far, they’ve been a great partner. We’re happy with their service.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Delivery at PwC Experience Center Europe

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

We worked with eTeam on multiple software engineering engagements one of which was to develop a cross-platform mobile questionnaire app for iOS and Android that was aimed to help companies to understand if outsourcing is a good choice for them.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to give our prospective clients an easy way to evaluate their internal policies and business conditions to identify if hiring a freelancer is the right choice comparing to other employment options. The client would have an easy way to reach out to PWC consultants for additional assistance if need be.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were looking for remote engineers for one of our projects across different platforms and found eTeam on one of them. They had engineers with the required expertise and available asap. After successfully finishing the previous project, we decided to work with eTeam on this project as well.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

eTeam developed a lightweight cross-platform mobile app using a React Native framework. The purpose of the app was to carry out a survey to help our potential clients to decide whether outsourcing worked for them and potential regulatory implications. One of the main challenges was to allow our employees to make changes to the app without having to re-publish the app. This was achieved with the Expo.io framework.

What was the team composition?

We've worked with a project manager, a React Native developer and a QA engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The mobile app helped us to increase our team’s productivity by asking a set of prequalifying questions to our prospective clients. A great benefit of this solution is that our consultants can modify the question form without having to re-publish the app every time.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We operated in an agile manner, with two-week sprints for development activities. Each sprint was followed by a demonstration of the progress and results achieved.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

eTeam met all our requirements and built the mobile app we wanted. We were happy to work with an agile team who could work without a detailed requirements document and help us work out our needs and technological capabilities.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. This has been a positive experience for us.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a founder at BYO, which provides technical production solutions for brands and agencies. We build teams of senior industry professionals for every project, allowing our clients to quickly test and validate solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

We developed a concept for a storytelling voice skill. We needed to hire an external resource to help us improve on some of the key performance areas of the product.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to move forward with the development of the voice app from the prototype stage.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We received a recommendation from a colleague who had worked with eTeam in the past. Their ability to start the project quickly was a plus for us.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our product is an interactive voice app for Google Assistant. eTeam engineers helped us to improve the overall performance of the application. They tightened the underlying app by decreasing the response time of the app and fixing the listen/play duplex difficulties.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a technical lead and a full-stack developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

eTeam was quite competent. They were very professional and their communication was good.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was effective, but the project was not complicated.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The communication, reporting, and team management were all positive. The quality of the work and the professionalism of their team are most impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, they were a great partner for this project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a CTO at Talan Systems, an IT integrator specializing in developing and implementing comprehensive solutions for wide automation of business tasks and activities of enterprises and institutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

We hired eTeam as a subcontractor for one of our projects to get substantial niche expertise and enhance our existing team to fulfill the project goals in a cost-effective way.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to find external engineers with proven expetise in Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana so they could add missing knowledge and additional value for our client's project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were searching across Ukrainian IT companies for a team based in Kyiv with required technical competence and experience developing solutions in the telecommunication industry. eTeam matched our criteria and was able to provide us engineers in the short term.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our company had been working on a project for a leading telecommunication company and we needed extra hands with niche expertise. Once started working with eTeam, together with their engineers we created a system for log aggregation and visualization and anomaly detection using machine learning. We worked in iterative sprints until release.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a team of four people: two DevOps engineers, a technical lead and QA engineer. Our project required tech expertise in Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, hence it was critical to have highly-skilled senior engineers, which eTeam provided.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within our collaboration with eTeam, we successfully delivered a project for our client on time with minimum delays and within the expected budget. As a result, hiring a subcontractor like eTeam was much more cost effective for our company than bringing on new, full-time employees.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our company uses agile as well as eTeam so we had daily standups, sprints and then demos that included all the team members working on our project. This made it feel as if we were all working under the same roof!

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I really liked their quick start and how engaged they were from the very beginning. Their team met all of our expectations and brought strong expertise to the project. They provided great advice and the deliverables fulfilled our requirements.

Are there any areas for improvement?

eTeam delivered precisely what we need without any delays or complications.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-founder of a startup that aims to create a smart booking and locker solution for a coworking space that automates the process of choosing, booking, and using the coworking space without needing to interact with staff.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

I hired eTeam to for technical consulting, and I asked them to create a proof of concept for my startup idea to test its technical viability.

What were your goals for this project?

My goals were to find the most efficient way to build the booking platform for our coworking space, review existing smart locker solutions on the market, and test their APIs to validate if the idea is viable.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I looked for IT development companies across different business listings and found eTeam in one of them. I liked their project portfolio, and they have experience working with different startups.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

I had an idea of creating a solution for fast and easy rooms reservations without interacting with any personnel. When we selected eTeam, we had a series of meetings to go over the details and prepare a scope for the future solution. 

After analyzing requirements, eTeam reviewed existing solutions and presented a proof of concept for our business idea including technical aspects of software and hardware implementations as well as technical limitations and how they can be avoided.

What was the team composition?

I worked with a system architect and a project manager from eTeam.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The biggest marker of success is that now I know my business idea is really worth the implementation effort from a technical point of view. It’s a solution that could be created in the real world.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was very efficient to communicate with the team. A series of meetings were organized to go over the idea and gather my requirements.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

eTeam was a perfect fit for the project. Beyond their technical expertise, they are highly responsive to our needs. We’ve changed our minds multiple times and added new ideas, and they always go with the flow and make results happen within the budget and time frame.

Are there any areas for improvement?

In general, everything was delivered exactly as I expected, so it is hard to say that anything needed improvement.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a leader in the local tech industry specializing in digital transformation and cloud computing. I have a consulting client that required very specific expertise.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

I needed technical consulting because the current solution my client had in place was too rigid to work under sudden high loads.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase uptime and improve the overall architecture of our cloud hosting solution.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I had worked with them in the past and knew that their expertise was a perfect match for the specific type of issue I needed to resolve for my client, which involved tuning AWS.

Describe the project in detail.

I needed them to achieve 100% uptime for a website of a popular charity that gets advertised during common TV programs. It gets traffic spikes of 10,000+ visitors within a few minutes sometimes right after commercials.  

We needed a solution that could handle a high load on the backend, still offer DDOS protection, and be implementable by our engineers, all without affecting user experience. I hired eTeam in a consulting role; they came up with a detailed solution and my team was able to successfully implement it.

What was the team composition?

After contacting eTeam's CEO, I was directed to their solution architect and CTO. Their CTO and DevOps engineer drew up the solution plan.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

eTeam provided a document with a list of the identified bottlenecks and provided recommendations on how they could be solved. They also presented a roadmap to the charity leadership board for implementing these improvements.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication was easy. eTeam conducted a series of interviews with the organization's engineering and marketing staff and reviewed the existing infrastructure and digital assets.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their technical expertise was top notch! They were able to dive into a complex problem and solve it.

Are there any areas for improvement?

For my project, no. Everything met or exceeded my expectations.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the founder of a startup that aims to make it possible for people to purchase Bitcoin at physical retail locations using cash.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

I hired them to first design a proof of concept to test the feasibility of my startup idea. After that, they built an MVP that provided all of the engineering solutions I needed.

What were your goals for this project?

To solve my engineering issues and develop a technically viable product.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I've worked on other startups in the past and always found tech issues to be one of the main blocking points, so I decided to hire dedicated engineers. I heard of eTeam through mutual connections. After going through my vetting process, I could tell their engineers understood my needs and were able to deliver a quality product.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Initially, I spoke to one of their senior project managers to define the scope of the project and decide on the right tech stack. Once they had devised a technical solution, one of their full-stack developers built a web app.

The app prints a barcode that enables a user to add funds to a Bitcoin wallet at point-of-service locations. They also created an entire website for the project, in addition to the backend.

What was the team composition?

The main developer was a single full-stack developer. They took care of both the product itself and the frontend of the website. My point of contact was a project manager who coordinated tasks with a designer and a QA engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project website functions really well and the development of the MVP was a great success. Their contribution was flawless.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The workflow and communication were great. Our project manager was very diligent and made sure I was kept up to date on the progress through daily and weekly standups, demos, and other tools.

The weekly demo meetings were used to discuss the progress and clarify any further requirements with the designers and engineers. Overall, we really enjoyed working with him.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

More than anything else, it was great that they didn’t need micromanaging. They understood what I wanted and then simply did it. I could really trust them to follow through.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

They’re a nice group of professionals and we have no complaints about the experience. It can be difficult to find a company to help you on this journey. Many make promises and then when it comes to implementation, they really struggle.

In contrast, eTeam understood the complexities and worked with me to simplify and streamline the process.