HiGroup

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of Jump.co, a Web 3 NFT crypto platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with HiGroup?

We needed someone to provide us with front- and backend development and design.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired HiGroup for front- and backend development services to supplement our efforts in building an MVP.

We started with a small engagement for the discovery phase and backend development and from there, we slowly amped the process up to them providing us with frontend design to basically define the product with different code elements.

What they’re essentially helping us build is a full and fractional NFT platform that’s specifically tied to our physically-backed products and assets. Moreover, they utilize React Native, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, NestJS, and GitHub.

What is the team composition?

We initially interfaced with their CFO and CEO, but we’ve been working mostly with their engineering and design teams.

How did you come to work with HiGroup?

I was specifically looking for developers in the Balkans or Eastern Europe and came up with a target list of 100 agencies.

HiGroup happened to be part of the list so we tried them out along with a couple of agencies — the other agencies couldn’t pass the initial engagement, so we decided to stay with HiGroup full time. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested somewhere between $35,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in September 2021.

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

Their team delivers their tasks in a timely manner and they’ve also integrated well into our toolchain of GitHub and Shortcut. We’ve yet to miss a deadline or encounter a problem with them, as they continue to accomplish the most important aspects of this project.

How did HiGroup perform from a project management standpoint?

They consistently adhere to our budget and timelines, and it’s really easy to communicate with them.

We use Shortcut for all our iterations and story planning and typically communicate through Zoom, Google Meet, email, and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re not a typical agency that solves our problems as we lay them out, they put in the work to identify our problems and come back with phenomenally creative solutions for us to implement.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to hire more people.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you’re really clear about what you want and set your expectations. If you could also do a two or four-week engagement before committing, the project will likely be more successful.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the lead developer and product manager for a small technology consulting firm that exclusively serves public libraries. We provide multiple web applications to libraries on a SaaS basis.

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

We were planning a rebuild of our existing line-of-business tool in a new-to-us development framework. We hired HiGroup to provide high-level application development architecture consulting, as well as mentorship for our development team at the code level. Our goal was to keep all development in-house for knowledge retention purposes while leveraging HiGroup's extensive experience to ensure we were following best practices during the rebuild.

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

We issued an RFP on HackerNews and evaluated a number of shops from around the US, Europe, and Canada. We interviewed representatives of a couple of shops, including HiGroup, and eventually decided they would be a perfect match (we were correct! :-) HiGroup has certified Laravel experience, and a proven portfolio of sites. Their team has been incredibly supportive of our project.

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

We started by completely on-boarding their consultants on our existing application, the requirements for the rebuild, and a full accounting of our tech stack and skills. Since then, we've essentially paired me with two of their consultants, doing a kind of async pair programming in Laravel, with checkins multiple times a week in Slack.

HiGroup staff reviews all of our code in Github for compliance with best practices. They also answer issues and discussion questions directly in Github for our staff. They've also *excelled* at providing a mentorship role as our team learns the ins and outs of Laravel from them.

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

We worked directly with Timotej, who is a patient and talented communicator as well as a fantastic Laravel developer. In addition, I know that David from the team contributed in the Github issue queue with advice and code samples. (I'm sorry that I don't know their exact titles.)

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

Subjectively, the HiGroup folks have been absolutely fantastic. Every single issue that I've assigned in Github and every single question that I've asked in Slack has been answered thoroughly and expertly, and they've gone above and beyond to work with us on time zone scheduling and other issues.

I literally can not think of a single instance in the past couple of months where I'd want them to have done something differently. I hate to jinx myself here after 20+ years of technology project management, but this project is going amazingly well and it's in no small part thanks to them :-)

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

I've dictated the PM style but they have been great about working like our team does: both real-time and async conversations in Slack and then Issues and Discussions in our Github project.

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

Not sure how applicable this is to anyone else, but their work style and general vibe meshed pretty well with ours. We get along great.

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

As I mentioned earlier... nope! :-)

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a personal finance application.

What challenge were you trying to address with HiGroup d.o.o.?

We needed help with app development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

HiGroup first helped us with the initial design for our mobile app by creating mock-ups of the UI/UX. They then proceeded to develop the app for iOS and Android. It’s integrated with financial aggregators like Plaid. The app provides users an overview of their financial information, including transaction details and cash flow graphs. Although the app is mostly finished, the team continues to work on getting it ready for its launch.

The HiGroup team has also designed and developed a landing page for the app using React. We gave them copy, and they organized it into different sections of the page. Additionally, they helped us set up our newsletter by building an email collection form.

What is the team composition?

We work with four people: a co-founder, a project manager, a developer, and a designer.

How did you come to work with HiGroup d.o.o.?

They posted a listing seeking out new clients, so I researched them. I was impressed by the work they’d done and reached out to them. They had a great approach and seemed excited to work with me, so I hired them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $25,000–$30,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in November 2020, and it’s ongoing.

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

HiGroup doesn’t stop working until we’re satisfied. The design they’ve created for our landing page is interactive, fast, and stable. Everything looks perfect — HiGroup works really hard to help us get to where we want. Furthermore, I’m pleased with the conversions we’ve gotten since they launched the landing page.

How did HiGroup d.o.o. perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent. HiGroup has never missed a deadline or a meeting. Communication is also so easy — they’re always available and responsive despite the time difference. They’ve never made me wait for anything. We primarily communicate through Slack and share a task list.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Aside from their outstanding technical skills, they also have the best attitude. Their excitement and upbeat demeanor are super contagious. Working with such an enthusiastic team is just great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have clear objectives and communicate well with the HiGroup team to help them achieve these goals.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the head of product at a consulting company introducing transparency solutions for bio-based value chains.

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

Our solution needed an upgrade to address the data collection and destination issues in the value chains as well as improvements on the user experience of onboarding to the system. The goal was to create a more user-friendly solution that is more powerful in t4ems of data aggregation and communication.

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

We got a referral from a company that worked with them on development projects earlier.

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

the project was to upgrade our existing SaaS solution. The team worked on improving the data collection within the tool and the user experience of the onboarding. They also transferred the project to a new cloud infrastructure.

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

There are 2 HiGroup team members working on our project.

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

The goals of the project were achieved with very few delays. After the update went live, there were very few bugs. Bugs were fixed quickly.

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

We had weekly meetings to see the progress and talk over the issues that arise during the week. We used slack for daily communication.

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

The dedication to go beyond checking off the list of the requirements for the project. The team delivered a product better than what we envisioned at the start of the project.

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

They can improve on the project timeline management and communication of the project plan.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO and founder of digital marketing agency specialising in lead generation.

For what projects/services did your company hire HiGroup d.o.o., and what were your goals?

We hired HiGroup to develop an inetrnal CRM web application whose purpose is to handle all sales communication for our sales efforts as well as to automate parts of our marketing activities.

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

We found them through refferal. The main deciding factor for us was that similar to our team - They are young, skilled, and highly driven. They were able to pivot quickly and will proactively solve any issues that occur.

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

They designed wireframes, structure and the overall look of the web development. After that, they presented us with key activities, deadlines to meet, timetable and all the other aspects of the work. We assigned one person on our team to be of help if needed but luckily, majority of the things they were able to solve without involving us too much so our main job was to approve what they sent our way.

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

We worked and communicated with 3 people, one of them being project manager and two full stack developers. I believe at least one more person was working on the project.

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

We were able to launch the web app sooner than expected which helped us automate certain processes such as sales and marketing activities for both ourselves and our clients which in turn helped us scale faster and also we were able to increase the revenue per employee

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

They work in a setup called Scrum. Although we weren't that engaged in it, our communication was mainly driven through either e-mail or JIra.

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

We had access directly to lead web developer which made fixing any bugs or improving the web app way faster.

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

I believe the only thing they could improve is that at some occasions I believe they could be a little more perfectionist as a whole.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Facuty for mechanical Engineering Ljubljana. My position is researcher and assistan professor.

For what projects/services did your company hire HiGroup d.o.o., and what were your goals?

The project is aimed to guide manual assembly workers through their operations ste-by-step over PC, tablet computers or smartwatches, tackle their problems, and enable them to submit process jams and errors if they occur.

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

The two main reasons for choosing this company was their portfolio of developed applications and understandig that this is developent project that needs out of the box thinking.

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

1. step: definirtion of appication main functions: guiding workes and, enable process jam/error sumbittion, admin overview of assembly processes status, communication with digital twin and ERP via APPI.
2. step: Development of WEB aplication with communication to Digital Twin and ERP via API with jam reporting function that includes PDF notation on asssemmbly blueprint
3. step: Development of WEAR OS aplication when workers cant use PC or tablet.
4. step: Testing on development server on real production line an collecting update suggestions from production workers.
5. step: Updating aplication and installation on production server in company.
6. Final testing, debugging.

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

There were 4 team members: 2 backend progrmmers, 1 frontend programmer and one senior developer for project management.

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

All defined functionalities were delivered ontime. Even more, the project will continue to further develop and update current software since the manual production line where is implemented cant work wthout it any more.

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

• Meeteng every week to check the project status and progress.
• Using trello and slack to define detected problems or additional futures needed for optimal working of developed application.
• Every month the progrmmer team visited the production line to check the application in real time and solve detected bugs or defined updates.

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

They are prepared to work on unique projects that have different logic than standard web applications. They can do this becouse they have a hard-working team that takes their time to understands what we need, why we need it, and how to achieve this.

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

They should whatch aut not to grow too fast and loose this commando pagramming team that they have (if too many average programmers join the team).

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a sustainability project manager intern at an insulation manufacturing company. The company is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of insulation products and solutions. With more than 40 years of experience in the industry, we represent one of the fastest-growing and most respected names in insulation worldwide. Our company is present in more than 40 countries and has 27 manufacturing sites in 15 countries.

For what projects/services did your company hire HiGroup d.o.o., and what were your goals?

HiGroup was acting as a co-contractor with another consultancy firm to develop a business intelligence tool for us to better understand our and our competitors' emissions.

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

The vendor was proposed by the co-contracting party. The deciding factor was good reputation and ability to work adaptively.

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

The project requirements were set up in advance by us. HiGroup was required to build a tool based on those requirements. The development was set out in two phases, first developing the front-end of the tool in order to test out the user experience. The second phase was revolving around database integrations which developed the long-term value features of the tool.

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

There were three people on the team: a project manager and two developers (1 front-end & 1 back-end).

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

The project was delivered based on the business requirements set by us. It also received incredibly positive feedback during the pilots.

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

The project management approach adapted was agile development. We had weekly update calls where the progress was measured and assessed based on the agreed timeline. The infrastructure for the communication of bugs between the acceptance team and the development team was also provided.

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

The ability to be adaptive based on the volatility of the project requirements.

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

The project itself had key moments where the requirements changed. This impacted the timeline and the team could have better assessed the impacts on the timeline.