*instinctools

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Development of an engineering company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Implementation and design of conveyor systems and development of autonomous mobile robots

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire *instinctools to accomplish?

• Development of a webbased Userinterface

SOLUTION

How did you find *instinctools?

Online Search

Why did you select *instinctools over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Awesome effort in quote presentation

How many teammates from *instinctools were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The aim was to develop an intuitive web user interface for a mobile robot. Particular attention was to be paid to the target group, ease of use and the rapid implementation of an initial MVP for presentation at a trade fair.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A truly innovative and intuitive user interface for mobile robots that offers unprecedented simplicity for the user.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The project management was highly professional and extremely structured. Transparent plans were drawn up and metrics were used each week to show progress and risks. Whenever there was a change to the plan, sometimes at very short notice, maximum effort was put into realizing the plan

What was your primary form of communication with *instinctools?

Virtual Meeting

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

*instinctools delivers great work at a reasonable price, and they are very flexible with cost options. I was also impressed with how the project was structured in terms of their expertise: they literary gave us access to experts and professionals that openly shared their knowledge with us.
These facts make them stand out as true, honest, and diligent professionals.

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

There is always room for improvement, but I am absolutely satisfied with the performance of *instinctools

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Technical Writer of DEIF

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Design and manufacture controllers and instruments for electrical power

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire *instinctools to accomplish?

• Transform semi-compliant Dita content to compliant Dita content
• Migrate Dita content to their DitaWorks SaaS
• Create a custom document handling interface in DitaWorks

SOLUTION

How did you find *instinctools?

• Online Search
• Referral
• LinkedIn message

Why did you select *instinctools over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• DitaWorks CCMS

How many teammates from *instinctools were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Convert semi-compliant Dita content to compliant Dita content. Migrate the content to the Instinctools DitaWorks SaaS. Create a custom interface for document handling (product linking, publishing, updating, removal) to the www.deif.com CMS.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project met all the requirements, and was completed within time and budget. Our team productivity improved immediately. We have been able to expand the scope of our responsibilities without increasing the size of the team. We can now also work more intelligently with our documentation. The robust system has also allowed us to handle challenges quickly and effectively. 
The continuing excellent service from Instinctools has kept us running well. Instinctools have also made a number of improvements since the initial project.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The project manager was very good at understanding the issues, and delivered on time. We particularly appreciated that they rarely accepted solutions that we proposed; they applied their minds and counter-proposed better solutions.

What was your primary form of communication with *instinctools?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

TLDR: They used our outline spec to create a user-friendly and robust custom interface. For our custom document handling interface, we provided an outline specification. Instinctools not only implemented the specification, but they also added all the small, helpful HMI elements that makes the interface a pleasure to use. These elements were not included in our outline specification. They also added error checking and messages to make the system robust.

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

Where issues arose, Instinctools was quick to understand them and adjust accordingly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Frontend guild manager of a CX Solutions Company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide personalized user experiences for brands and retailers based on a wide range of behavioral data, across multiple mediums.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire *instinctools to accomplish?

• Assist in reducing our tech backlog
• Support our R&D efforts in lower prioritized areas
• Migration of legacy projects to modern stacks & infrastructures

SOLUTION

How did you find *instinctools?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select *instinctools over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fits our budget
• Great culture fit
• Impressed by the level of technical skills

How many teammates from *instinctools were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

At the start of the project, the team's focus revolved around the migration of legacy Angular code to a more modern stack - mainly React. Over time the team has also worked on several additional areas which were considered as less prioritized but with high impact, once completed. This allowed us to free our internal teams to keep focused on higher priority tasks, while retaining an ongoing effort not to neglect the rest of our product offerings.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Onboarding of the team was done very quickly - the team "hit the ground running" and was very quick in picking up their tasks, understanding them, and delivering on them. We were also very impressed with the team's level of communication and quality of work. At the beginning the team worked pretty isolated from our internal development teams, but once both sides were more familiar with each other's contributions - integrations worked very smoothly. 
Availability and communications were very good, and - based on feedback from both sides, and past experiences with other vendors - it feels both sides understand each other pretty well. On most of the epics the team was tasked with they were able to exceed our expectations in both the quality of work, as well as hitting delivery milestones. We were also impressed with the team's effort to be involved more, and to reach beyond the areas they worked on.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

PM was very professional and well maintained. Goals and timelines were set and understood clearly. On most tasks and epics - where there were no external blockers during development and testing - they were able to deliver on time and even exceeded our estimates. Responses to shifting needs and definitions - which did happen a lot, unfortunately - were quite positive, and the team was able to be very reactive.

What was your primary form of communication with *instinctools?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Compared with prior experiences with other vendors, we were very impressed with both the team's level of communication and quality of work. We were pleased with their responsiveness and willingness to be involved in our business.

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

I believe the team (and the vendor in general) are making a great effort to deliver. So far I have not experienced anything major that I would flag as a major area that requires improvements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Engineering of lawpilots GmbH

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

lawpilots GmbH works in the ed-tech industry and provides the best in class trainings for companies in the area of compliance, data protection and security, and ESG.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire *instinctools to accomplish?

• Build and maintain our Learning Management System (SaaS)
• Provide QA capabilities for our Learning Management System (automated and manual)

SOLUTION

How did you find *instinctools?

Other

Why did you select *instinctools over others?

Good value for cost

How many teammates from *instinctools were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

instinctools engineers work on delivering new and improving existing features of our SaaS offering, including dev.ops activities of our cloud infrastructure. Lately instinctools also provide us with a QA automation engineer to help us with our e2e testing efforts.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A continuously growing and happy customer base that values our service. We have low churn rates looking at the customers that use the system.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

instinctools does deliver on time and budget. The company proactively asks how they can support our efforts and provide ideas how to help us with very good candidates with expertise that either we requested or that instinctools identified to be missing.

What was your primary form of communication with *instinctools?

Virtual Meeting

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

The professional way everyone at instinctools shows when working with them – from the account management to the engineers we work with.

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

Maybe provide us with an option to buy out their engineers after let's say 18 months :).

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Manager of a software company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Software define file & object storage

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire *instinctools to accomplish?

QA for software

SOLUTION

How did you find *instinctools?

LinkedIn

Why did you select *instinctools over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from *instinctools were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Provide release and feature qualification of our 2 storage software. 
• Implement state-of-the-art QA practices.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A significant amount of customer-impacting bugs were caught by the teams prior to release.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were very autonomous, proactive, professional, and always open to help.

What was your primary form of communication with *instinctools?

Virtual Meeting

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

Technical skills

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

Nothing in mind yet

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the co-founder and CEO of SpexAI GmbH. Our company is currently developing an AI-driven imaging system to streamline cannabis cultivation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with *instinctools?

We sought out professionals who could assist us in creating our frontend and backend solutions, specifically to manage our imaging systems and present data in a visual format for our customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We asked *instinctools to write the whole software regarding steering our camera systems. The overall task was to connect our research partners' software and manual steering with the camera systems and save and load the data.

We needed a user-friendly and intuitive frontend software tool, like a questionnaire. This tool would help guide our research partners through the entire process. Additionally, we required the device to allow annotations on pictures taken by our camera system. The team has been utilizing Figma and Python. 

As a startup, we don't always have tasks for the team. There have been more significant breaks in between when we're fundraising or testing our development, but then we continue to work together. 

More recently, we began a new project to visualize our data, and *instinctools has been developing a map feature to see all the details we're acquiring with our camera system and analyzing our AI. This allows our clients to have a map of their greenhouses, all the details, and actionable insights we give them.

When we embark on a new project, we have thorough discussions with both our team and the team on our side. We establish all necessary requirements and prioritize them accordingly. We keep track of everything using lists or advanced tools. We work through each requirement, review the results, and make any necessary revisions.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of 2–10 people. The sales executive is my primary contact. The co-founder drives all technical development and constantly communicates with the tech team. We collaborate with a business analyst, senior and junior developers, and a single team lead. 

How did you come to work with *instinctools?

My co-founder was contacted through LinkedIn by them. Later, when we established our company, he remembered the interaction and reconnected with them. 

How much have you invested in them?

We've invested almost €300,000 Euros (approximately $332,600 USD),

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with *instinctools in October 2019, and it's an ongoing collaboration. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're pleased with *instinctools. Their business analysts are exceptional. They serve as the spokespeople between technology and business, representing both sides effectively. 

We work with a time and effort contract, but it's not an open budget. The team is dependable when it comes to managing time and finances, consistently staying within the designated budget.

How did *instinctools perform from a project management standpoint?

Usually, the *instinctools team delivers before the deadline, which is fantastic. 

We use Slack, Jira, and Google Meet for calls for communication. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm most impressed by *instinctools' transparency and open communication. We can quickly get on a call whenever there are issues without any hidden agendas. I appreciate their authenticity. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Developing software on a project basis can be difficult. As we don't always have the same ongoing project, new teams are assigned to us periodically. Despite having worked with *instinctools for some time, we often have to start from scratch and brief the new team. This can be challenging and frustrating for us. However, we are unsure if this is manageable from their perspective because they have to fill their resources. It isn't necessarily a negative aspect, but that's the only improvement from our side. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When working with a third-party service provider as a client, clearly communicating your expectations is essential. Putting everything in writing and having multiple iterations beforehand can help prevent misunderstandings and manage your expectations. It's best to be proactive to avoid getting caught in a vicious cycle.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a VP of Business Development in a Germany-based company providing IP television services and media products worldwide.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired *instinctools to make the customization of ERP software according to our business needs. The main goal was to integrate the Odoo system to match our business processes and connect the Business Intelligence tool for data analysis and visualization.

SOLUTION

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

After a thorough analysis of our project, they’ve provided us with a profound project estimate, work scope, and roadmap. The company also had the resources we needed for the ERP system development. That’s why we decided to cooperate with *instinctools.

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

The two key deliverables for this project were the development and customization of Odoo ERP software and BI integration for analytics and data visualization. The *instinctools team analyzed the Odoo business model to make it perfectly match our company's business processes.

For data visualization, the *instinctools team connected various data sources to the ERP system, developed a BI connector for the integration with Odoo, and built custom dashboards for different types of reports in Tableau.

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

It’s been almost two years as we are working with a close-knit and stable dedicated team at *instinctools. We have:

• a project manager
• business analysts
• a UX designer
• a solution architect
• backend and frontend engineers
• quality assurance specialists
• a business intelligence consultant

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Though the project is not yet finished, we can speak about some functional outcomes valuable for us at the moment. They have already structured and optimized the processes in sales, finances, logistics, and other departments, making it possible to run these processes “under one roof” of an ERP system.

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

We were very satisfied with their project management and delivery approach. Working with *instinctools agile development team, having transparent processes and clear communication, we’ve managed to finish delivery phases on time. They also participated in decision-making processes, being a part of our internal team.

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

They are very responsive and effective in customizing the system, trying to engineer and offer the best fit solution.

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

I wouldn’t remember anything specific about our cooperation, as we always discuss some minor issues and try to resolve them ad hoc. Maybe they could have optimized the process of developers’ change on the project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of fintech company in Russia acting in favour of banks, insurance and leasing companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We need to make the update of existing mobile app exclude extra-libraries and to convert in to native code.

SOLUTION

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

we looked through the list and hired the more reactive company with better price.

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

the task was discussed as to develop the same app as existing on native code excluding extra libraries.

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

A project manager and code programmer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

According to the contract new app to be submitted by mid-January 2021 - it didn't happen. By March-April - the representative of the company said that they won't proceed with native code but do it with extra libraries. If I dislike it - I can fill the sue or do whatever I want as it wasn't clearly stated in the contract. The code they submitted has a lot of bags - a number of phones didn't work properly.

Instincttools said - they don't care about it as they consider several phones is enough to make sure the job was done. As result, a more or less stable application was submitted with 6 months delay. After releasing on commercial traffic - there appeared another amount of bags - which Instincttool declined to fix - asking for extra payments.

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

It's not a professional software company - it's several sales managers with resale yesterday SW development students which they hired as chip as possible. After a month or two you will not face the same code developers as before - so the result is inappropriate.

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

They delivered low-quality work and lacked discipline.

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

Follow the commitments

Company Responses

The vendor responded on November 17, 2021.

Thank you for your review. I'm sorry to hear you had a frustrating experience. We're normally known for our exceptional attention to detail, and we regret that we missed the mark of your expectations. *instinctools maintains high-quality standards, and your project has never been an exception from our side.

After the app was released and passed acceptance testing, you've signed the acceptance protocol and successfully worked with the app for more than six months. Our company is glad to provide maintenance and support service for a special attractive rate as discussed with you. Unfortunately, we cannot modify the product or make changes for free after the warranty period.

I'm sincerely sorry to hear that our disagreement caused this negative review.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project manager at a digital agency with over 250 employees. We mostly do mobile and web app development as well as design.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with *instinctools?

Our company was growing very fast. We were taking on a lot of work with a few big projects, but we didn’t have the resources to scale up our team. *instinctools came in like a savior to increase our delivery capabilities toward our clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

For the past three years, *instinctools has been our most solid partner when it comes to scaling up our capabilities. We basically try to integrate them within our own development teams, though they’re also running point on a few projects. 

The biggest project they’ve taken the lead on has been a healthcare app for a telecom provider. It’s obvious that they’re doing a very good job there. The team is in direct communication with the client, and we’re confident that they’ll deliver whatever work we give them.

What is the team composition? 

We typically send them an overview of the skill sets that we need for a specific project, and they respond if they have suitable candidates. From there, we do a short interview to see who’s a good fit for our team before signing them on. At our highest point, we’ve onboarded around six people, but the average is 3–5. 

The team breaks down into project managers, business development managers, an iOS engineer, an Android engineer, and a JavaScript engineer. We’ve also worked with a WordPress engineer, but I’m not involved with that project.

How did you come to work with *instinctools?

We were reaching out to European companies to participate in our part-time program, and *instinctools was one of the first to respond. They shared the same work culture as us in the sense that everything was based on performance. Their team understood that it was important for us to be able to trust our partners in terms of both the quality of work and atmosphere, and they matched those needs.

Moreover, they had strong communication skills and were willing to improve on them. That was crucial because all of our developers speak directly to our clients, so we wanted to make sure that our partner could communicate as needed. A lot has changed in the three years we’ve been working together, and they’ve been flexible enough to make changes on their side to fit with our processes.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over €150,000 (approximately $181,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in the spring of 2017, and the work is ongoing. We’ve actually signed a contract for 2021 to continue working with the same people and development leads.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s hard to put direct metrics on their success since they change from person to person. But, I’d take into account that we’ve been working with them for three years strong and have signed another contract.

We also check to see if our clients are happy. Each quarter, we conduct client satisfaction surveys on their work, and they’ve scored 4.6–4.8 out of five for the last two years. It’s clear that our clients are very satisfied with the work *instinctool has done.

How did *instinctools perform from a project management standpoint?

*instinctools’ solid project management team is one of the reasons why we like working with their team. Their developers fit well into our own organizations and deliver all requirements without missing a deadline. If a deadline was moved, it was mostly due to the clients’ own restrictions.

I’d also add that they’ve been extremely flexible and understanding in every situation that we’ve encountered. During COVID-19, we had to adjust our expectations for our clients, and there was an overall uncertainty about what was going to happen. *instinctools stayed adaptable so that we could scale up or down depending on the work. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their willingness to learn constantly. We’re an agile company that regularly works with new technologies. I’ve noticed that even if we suddenly decide to change a tech stack, I’m met with a proactive attitude rather than resistance. They want to know how something works, what we can do with it, and how it will help us grow. To this day, they’re still willing to adapt and move forward in the face of problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’m very happy with the way they perform. They’re always responsive and are never shy about suggesting improvements. It’s an awesome relationship.

There was one case when we needed a developer to work on his spoken English skills, so we mentioned that to their team. They sent him to do a crash course in English, and his speaking skills improved by 40% in just two months. It was something that they reacted to very positively.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Treat their developers as part of your own team. It’s not “us” and “them” — it’s the team and what needs to be delivered. *instictools is incredibly responsive to that perspective. Put in the extra effort there, and you’ll see a multitude in your returns. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Digital Marketing Team of a nonprofit

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired two developers from *instinctools to support our internal full stack developers. The project was the launch of a new website based on React technology. The website had to launch on a specific date in October 2020.

SOLUTION

How did you select *instinctools and what were the deciding factors?

I was contacted by *instinctools after a linkedin post of my own. We selected them due to the high development skills, availability and references we got.

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

*instinctools was introduced to the team and architecture and got into it very quickly. After that we explained the details of the epics and user stories. Up from then the assigned GitHub issues were developed independently with help via Slack and calls. The technology used was React and the known web development stack.

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

1 Senior and 1 Middle Developer Profile

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was launched on time and in budget. The cooperation was very helpful and we extended it with the senior dev till Mai 2021 at least.

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

Very well organized with clear summary of the tasks and time used. Their communication was very direct, helpful, and pleasant.

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

How everything is organized and communicated, the affordable costs, skills, reliability and availability.

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

No