Humancrafted

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Lykke. We’re a blockchain-based technology company providing bespoke B2B as well as B2C services that allow clients to exchange cryptocurrency. In my role, I run the entire technology department.

What challenge were you trying to address with Humancrafted?

We brought them on for mobile app development services.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was specifically focused on the B2C client offering. Essentially, Humancrafted was tasked with the creation of a mobile app, for both Android and iOS, that’d enable retail clients to leverage our services.

That encompassed creating the applications and publishing them to their respective app stores. It also encompassed integrating them with all of the service providers we leverage in order to provide things like KYC, profile management, and for the trading side of things.

The app was a React Native solution. We brought pre-established designs to the engagement, and Humancrafted was involved with the tooling and decision-making that’d be used for the designs.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Mitch (Founder). He led the application team.

How did you come to work with Humancrafted?

That decision was made prior to me taking on the role so I wasn’t involved.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between €150,00–€200,000 (approximately $183,000–$244,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement was from October 2018–July 2020.

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

They were very proactive. The app works and functions as it should; so, we’re quite happy.

How did Humancrafted perform from a project management standpoint?

To a degree, Mitch was involved in working directly with the stakeholders of the project and managing the workload for him and the others embedded in that team. It worked quite well, and things got delivered as expected. We made heavy use of GitHub.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very professional. We got what was expected and the behavior associated with that as well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s potential for further work on the automated testing of the client-side of things. It was one of the things we chose to step away from just from a cost ROI perspective. I think a greater degree of focus on that would be beneficial.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Engage, be open, and collaborate with them; you’ll get what you want out of it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a product designer and engineer, and my company designs and manufactures rowing machines for the fitness industry, both the home and the gym.

What challenge were you trying to address with Humancrafted?

We wanted to do a trial run for an app development project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We laid out what we were after in terms of the functionality of an app. Humancrafted then put together a prototype after going through storyboards with us and conducting user testing. 

They created an Android and iPhone Bluetooth device that communicates with external hardware. The purpose of the app is to display rowing metrics on a mobile device. They did UI/UX and backend work. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with Mitch (Technical Consultant & Director), as well as another teammate who did the backend work.

How did you come to work with Humancrafted?

I knew Mitch previously.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them in February 2020. We’ve wrapped up for now since everything got pushed back because of the pandemic, but we plan to work with them in the future.

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

The trial run went well. The quality of the work was good, and they were able to get it done quickly. They work with the hardware that we gave them and translated it very well into the app.

How did Humancrafted perform from a project management standpoint?

The team was very communicative, and they met all of their deadlines. Mitch set up regular calls to go over everything, and he took on the project management so that we didn’t have to do it. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication was very clear. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, it was all very good. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just go in and tell Humancrafted what you want. The team is flexible, so it doesn’t matter if you come in with an idea or not.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product at Unicard. We’re the leading supplier of transportation management solutions in the UK. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Humancrafted?

Three months ago, we decided to build an asset management and reporting system for micro-mobility assets, such as e-scooters and dockless bikes, to fill a gap in the UK market. We also wanted to try a new, more modern web stack than what we currently develop in. Because we lacked the time and expertise to make it happen in-house, we decided to outsource the development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Humancrafted scoped the project, set up our environments, created all the designs, and delivered a working proof of concept. It’s a convincing sales demo powered by fake data. We’re now speccing out the production phase to make a fully working system.

The goal was to build a codebase that we’d then take over and manage ourselves as we learned the stack. Mitch (Technical Consultant / Director) has been very keen to act as a consultant to help us learn the technology, guide our developers, and sell the story of change to our company.

What is the team composition?

Mitch is our main point of contact. He’s brought on two developers to build the system as well — one joined the project just last week.

How did you come to work with Humancrafted?

Our founders found them on google. They were local to our office, which we liked. We did a mini competitive process between Humancrafted and the company I used to work for. In that process of due diligence, we chose Humancrafted because they were smaller and more flexible.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about £45,000 (approximately $56,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in March 2020 and is ongoing.

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

The quality of code is very good. Overall, the feeling and process are very professional and polished. I find Humancrafted likable, flexible, and enjoyable to work with. We haven’t had any issues so far.

How did Humancrafted perform from a project management standpoint?

Humancrafted is self-sufficient when it comes to project management. They communicate what they need, and we never have to babysit them. Per their suggestion, we use GitHub to keep our project management and code in the same place. We work in agile, and I don’t watch them on a granular level; I trust them to get the work done, and they’ve never missed a deadline.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can’t think of anything massively noteworthy, but I do find Humancrafted’s model of rotational developers interesting. For example, up until last week, we were working with one developer on the frontend side of things. Since then, another developer came in and is building out the backend. They give us the flexibility of freelancers with the security and resource depth of a larger organization.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not, nothing springs to mind right now.

Any advice for potential customers?

We had two options when it comes to pricing and project management: first, we’d pay them for time and materials and manage the project ourselves as if the developers were a part of our team; second, we’d pay them a more expensive fixed price, but the onus would be on them to deliver what they promise.

A fixed price worked better for our budget and purposes, so we went with that. You can decide which one you want, but you do need to pick one; they aren’t flexible in adapting these models.