Innocode

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at a climate tech startup. We’re developing a knowledge hub and a tool for measuring climate impacts from cultural events such as film and TV productions, events, and festivals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Innocode?

We needed a company that could help us develop a tool that would allow us to measure specific emissions from the cultural sector, events, providers, events, and services providers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Innocode to design and develop our emissions calculator. This involves hosting, front- and backend development, quality assurance, testing, and UI/UX design. The tool allows users to add activities and track emissions connected to those activities. They can also generate emission reports, compare emissions between different concepts and productions, and see live statistics on their emissions numbers.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 6–10 people from Innocode, including Bjorn (CEO), (Nina (Head of Innocode Innovation Partner), a project manager, front- and backend developers, a designer, and a tester.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent €500,000 (approximately $538,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 
We launched the fully working tool in October 2022. We have more than 200 users, and more than 60 unique organizations have purchased the tool.

How did Innocode perform from a project management standpoint?

Innocode has performed well in terms of project management. Their compliance with the project timeline has been very impressive.

We use Jira and Kanban boards to keep track of the backlog and the key projects in development. They also use Confluence and Atlassian.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m incredibly impressed with the overall work that Innocode has done. They are consistent in delivering high-quality work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have anything to say.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust them to teach you new things about the best practices for developing software. It’s a good idea to lean on their knowledge and expertise and allow them to challenge you regarding custom software development because they have considerable knowledge in their team that contributes to a better solution.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for MyRent, a tech company that provides management solutions for landlords. We offer SaaS solutions where they can manage their tenants, invoices, and property maintenance.

I served as the CEO of the company in the fall of 2018. Then, in 2020, I transitioned from CEO to CTO. At present, I’m working less on managing the company and more on the product itself.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Innocode?

We hired Innocode to deliver the development and maintenance of our platform. We already had an existing solution for our customers when we started working with them. They took over its development from our previous partner. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Innocode helps us build any new feature we need. We give them sketches and discuss those with their developers, who work exclusively for us. Simply put, their developers are integrated into our team even though they work for Innocode. During the development process, they participate in our daily standups, adjusting the plans and sketches accordingly. Their resources are also responsible for the documentation of the work they’re doing, such as refactoring the system’s parts that our previous provider has developed. 

The team has also worked on our rebranding efforts. They’ve provided us with new designs, colors, and logos, making changes to our frontend. As part of that, their resources have also built a brand new dashboard, gathering all key metrics on one page. This offers an easy way for clients to view their organization, rent, apartments, and contracts.  

In terms of the platform’s new features, Innocode has developed integrations with our clients’ accounting software. This allows our customers to integrate their accounting data into their accounting system, saving the time of their accountants. Moreover, the Innocode team has made integrations that are specific to how the Norwegian legal and accounting system work. For instance, they’ve created an automated documentation system that warns tenants if they’re defaulting on their payments. 

What is the team composition?

I work with three full-time developers at any given time and one part-time QA engineer from Innocode.

For context, when I was CEO, we worked with only one developer from Innocode. In 2019, we added two more members from them. In total, we’ve had around six developers from them throughout the years. 

How did you come to work with Innocode?

I wasn’t part of the hiring process because the decision to hire them was made before I was appointed as CEO. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent more than $500,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our partnership in September 2018, and it’s ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

While I can’t assign any specific metrics to the development process itself, we’ve been able to improve the performance of the system. Numbers have shown that the refactored code’s performance has improved by over 90% — this has made a huge impact on our customers. 

More importantly, I have the impression that if we had gone to other vendors, we wouldn’t have retained our developers for as long as we have with Innocode. In simple words, working with them has been easier than with someone else. We can retain knowledge easily because they’re good at retaining their staff, which is great since talented developers change jobs frequently. Apart from that, we also spend less time onboarding new developers. 

Moreover, Innocode treats their staff excellently. We pick up on that because when I visit or have meetings with them, I can tell that their developers enjoy working at Innocode. Therefore, they also enjoy working with us. 

How did Innocode perform from a project management standpoint?

Innocode’s project management has been excellent. We’re in the product leadership role since it’s our product; we lead the Innocode team around what we want to develop, how we want to do it, and when. Despite that, the team has been so skilled that they’ve been truly self-reliant. In fact, they’ve given us suggestions on how the product development can be more time-efficient and scalable. 

Further, a QA engineer from Innocode has been integrated into our team, so we have great documentation on everything they’ve developed. Moreover, if I’m unavailable or don’t have time to fully sketch what we want, their resources are more than capable of finding good solutions by themselves. They make suggestions and work on tasks independently, and I’m truly happy with that. 

For communication, we have daily meetings that last for 15–45 minutes, where we discuss our ongoing tasks, issues, or clarifications. Once a week, we have sprint meetings where we plan the subsequent week’s work, what we want to develop, and how we should do it. We then assign tasks to the people on the team. If we have high-end strategic discussions, we can reach out to their CTO. That’s especially true if the discussion is about recruiting developers; we discuss what competencies and skills the developer should have. Other than those meetings, the Innocode resources are fully integrated into our Slack communications. Everyone in the Norwegian team can reach out to them for any questions, and vice versa.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team culture sets them apart from competitors. They’re not just a freelancer-for-hire development company; they have their own people who work with their own product and with customers. Moreover, they don’t only work with us on a per-hour basis. Rather, they build their team around our needs.

Overall, the Innocode team isn’t only extremely knowledgeable and good at what they’re doing; they’re also extremely good at taking ownership of their tasks. They immerse themselves into our product and clients’ needs; they truly understand the problems that we try to solve for our clients. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Interact with the team and include them in the bigger picture of the project. Even if you’re working with Innocode on a technology-based project, don’t limit your communication with them to technology. Instead, include their developers in your business as a whole. That way, you’ll see that their team understands your needs and cares for you as their customer. You’ll discover that they take ownership of their part in the bigger picture.