InterVenture

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is called localsearch, and we are one of the biggest agencies for product advertising. We sell advertising for small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland. I'm responsible for vertical platforms including 55 comparison platforms and renovero, one of the leading craftsmen platforms in our country.

What challenge were you trying to address with InterVenture?

InterVenture helped us develop the entire renovero platform. We needed to implement certain functionality in it to get the results we wanted. On top of that, we needed to generate more revenue by making sure our product was appealing to craftsmen. They needed to see the value in our platform and be sure that they could find new customers using it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

InterVenture was in charge of building up the renovero’s platform almost from scratch. They’ve also been responsible for maintaining the platform and making sure we’re using accurate technologies.

We have a tasks system where users can publish the problems they need to fix on our platform, and, on the other side, the craftsmen can reply with offers for solving those problems. InterVenture has been helping us improve our task creation process.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with five engineers. Two of them are full-stack developers, and the other three are mainly focused on backend development. However, one of the backend engineers also works as a full-stack developer occasionally. As for their position in InterVenture, three of them are in a senior position, and the other two have an intermediate level. I also get in contact with the owner from time to time.

How did you come to work with InterVenture?

The former owner of renovero had been working with InterVenture years before I was responsible for the project. They had worked with over 300 engineers from InterVenture already, and they had the best experience with them. It was clear to us that we were going to continue to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around May 2016, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

The tasks system is one of the most important KPIs of renovero’s platform. Thanks to InterVenture’s work, we’ve been able to generate more than 50,000 tasks in one year. At the beginning of our engagement, we were only generating 10,000 tasks per year — they’ve been able to increase our tasks' count more than five times.

They’ve also helped us improve our platform's traffic. We now have over 1 million users per year. We’ve also been able to increase our revenue in the last two years.

How did InterVenture perform from a project management standpoint?

InterVenture’s engineers are now considered our localsearch’s team members. In engineering projects, there are always delays, but, most of the time, they're meeting the deadlines. I’m absolutely satisfied with their work. The support provided by their HR department when I need to recruit more people is also great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

InterVenture is one of the leading companies for nearshoring and engineering projects in Serbia.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing InterVenture could improve — I’m absolutely satisfied with them. Maybe they could lower their prices even more, but that’s not even realistic.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you integrate the people you recruit from InterVenture into your team. Once they feel like part of your team, their performance increases even more. For the engineers, it’s especially important to have fun in their work, so don’t consider them an external provider that just needs to deliver their work.

The work environment is important for the performance of InterVenture’s people. Treat them the way you would treat your own employees. It doesn’t matter if they’re sitting in another part of the world.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Head of Delivery at Ricardo, the leading Swiss online marketplace. I focus on supporting our product engineering teams .

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

We wanted to hire new talents who fit our organisational culture and engineering vision to expand our product engineering teams beyond our existing locations in Switzerland and France. We were operating a transition from monolith to microservices using cloud native technologies and reorganising our teams to have remote cross functional teams on several locations. We also most recently used the freelance service from interventure for dedicated projects where we required specialist skills.

How did you select InterVenture and what were the deciding factors?

Interventure had been selected as our partner for expanding our services abroad. They went through a thorough due diligence process and won the partnership to support our group to expand their activities abroad. Mainly focused on engineering then we also extended to other services such as hiring, marketing, product management support.

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

We had a kick off meeting to align on our needs and how we'd setup our hiring process. Along the way we constantly exchanged feedback to improve the feedback, build up our brand and understand better the local market. Interventure partnered with us every step of this journey from pitching our company values, engineering culture and vision to the onboarding program for our teams and make sure each engineer felt part of our organisation.

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

We had 1 main contact to coordinate our recruitment efforts. We also worked directly with several others people (5-6) from the team from the CEO to their accountant.

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

We hired our complete staff in a record time, it took us 5 months from the first hire to complete our team setup. Everything went smoothly on our side. We still have the same first hires around, fully integrated into our organization and they've been a high impact from day 1.

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

At first, we had weekly check-ins to adjust our process, lot of direct communication (calls or slack). It's rather lean in terms of process and Interventure takes on most of the work. They act as an extension of your own organization and provide you with a tailored service.

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

Their ability to capture and share our culture and vision for a modern engineering organization impress us. They truly act as an extension of our own organisation and helped us to improve our internal process and practices. They have a continuous direct feedback culture which helps you to move things forward constantly by having transparent conversation about what should be improved.

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

On their new service offering (freelancers), they could probably do an earlier sales pitch to us even when the service is not fully ready. Can't really think of anything major.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the support and operations manager for a payment and enterprise solutions provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with InterVenture?

We were struggling to find good quality software engineers in the UK. We thought we’d try and spread our wings and find help elsewhere.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project they work on is a real-time payment product. It sits between a bank and a clearing house to enable those real-time payments to take place.

What is the team composition?

We work with eight engineers from their team.

How did you come to work with InterVenture?

Previously we had used a different company, but it was a large company and we weren’t getting the best talent for our project. I’d worked with Serbian partners in the past and wanted to work with another Serbian company. We found InterVenture and they looked like they’d be a similar size to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around €550,000 euros per year (approximately $618,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in January 2019, and our work is ongoing.

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

Every six months, all of our engineers get a peer review. Every one of them has received exceptional feedback.

How did InterVenture perform from a project management standpoint?

It all worked really well. We have standups every morning, and we connect via Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The best part about working together is the engineers. They feel like part of the team. They really buy into our company and to us. It’s seamless how perfectly well they fit in.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not at the moment. Everything is working like clockwork.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to engage with the engineers on a regular basis. Incorporate them into your team and make them feel like part of your company; if you can do that, the process will be seamless and you’ll have a happy partnership.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Head of Engineering of renovero.ch, the leading swiss online platform for handyman with over 2000 companies listed and around 120M Gross Market Volume handled over the platform.

For what projects/services did your company hire InterVenture?

In the search of talent for extending our software development team, we cooperated with Interventure for gaining access to the Serbian developer market.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to extend the development team with top qualified members with the right mindset in order to keep evolving the online platform.

How did you select this vendor?

We were very interested in the "extended team model" that Interventure offered, allowing us to find developers who fit our culture perfectly and quickly became first class citizens of our team. We were not interested in other more classic "service provider" oriented approaches from other vendors. Besides Serbia is in the same time zone with several flight connections every day.

Describe the project in detail.

First, we wanted to evolve the online platform into a modern technology stack, which would allow for a smoother maintenance and further development. When this was accomplished we aimed for a high performing agile team delivering business value with a minimal time to market.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of 6 developers (3 in Serbia and 3 in Switzerland), 2 Product Managers, 2 Marketing, 2 Support and the head of renovero. All of them collaborated closely to deliver best value to our customers.

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

After the first half a year the team and software quality improved in such a way that it was possible to deliver business value to our customers within a very short period of time. The look and feel and usability of the platform improved a lot, and this lead to a steady increase of the KPIs we were aiming for. In a second stage the same team was able to deliver a new online platform built from scratch within few months, as a part of a turnaround project.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Developers were embedded in the team as any other on-site developer. All of them used the usual software development tools and processes: Jira, Confluence, git, etc...

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Thanks to Interventure we gained access to probably some of the best developers available in the Serbian market in a very easy and uncomplicated manner. They make sure that the collaboration works as smooth and seamless as possible, and relieve clients of the whole administrative burden.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is always room for improvement, but in this case nothing really worth mentioning. We were very satisfied with the people we found thanks to Interventure.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at tutti.ch, a Swiss classifieds website. We reach about 4 million people in Switzerland, which is about half of the population.

What challenge were you trying to address with InterVenture?

We needed software development resources.

What was the scope of their involvement?

InterVenture provides us with software development support, hiring resources based on our needs. Their team works alongside our in-house team, working on our custom software. They built a platform in C#, and we’re now moving to Go for the backend. For the frontend of the software, the team uses React Native, as the apps are built natively for both iOS and Android.

We use Elasticsearch for our search technology, though we’re moving into more modern tools now.

What is the team composition?

They provide a team of six dedicated, remote resources. There are 1-2 frontend developers, iOS and Android developers, one backend, and one tester. 

How did you come to work with InterVenture?

tutti.ch belongs to a media group, the TX Group, which opted for InterVenture in 2016. After the successful launch of the cooperation with the central teams, InterVenture was introduced and recommended throughout the TX Group. We were one of the first subsidiary companies to participate immediately.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about €600,000 (approximately $650,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2017 and the work is ongoing.

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

We assess their quality by the quality of their resources. InterVenture has consistently delivered. We’ve promoted one of their developers, who has become a team lead to our team here. Their team works seamlessly alongside ours. We’re very happy with them.

How did InterVenture perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Google Office products mostly. We also use Slack, Jira, and GitHub. Everyone is working remotely now due to the virus, so we feel even less of a difference between their people and ours. Prior to the virus, we would go to their office or they’d come to ours at least once a month.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really go the extra mile. InterVenture doesn’t just provide candidates with the skills we want, they find ones who will fit within our culture. We haven’t had a single person leave the company since we’ve worked with them. They understand our business, so they can think about our success in the long-term.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could benefit from providing more short-term peak resources. Also, they’re fantastic software developers, but it would be nice if they could provide the same services in other disciplines, like accounting or customer services. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do it long-term. If you’re not aiming for a long-term solution, the whole effort isn’t worth it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a product owner at a software company. We provide quality management systems for healthcare institutions in Switzerland.

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

Our web applications were created many years back and had become outdated. Since progressing to a SaaS provider required investments into Cloud-First technologies, we hired a team of developers to implement our needs and ideas.

We were hoping to get a new product to market meanwhile we maintain the current web applications.

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

The research of various nearshoring companies led us to Interventure in Belgrade. Since several Swiss companies have already worked with Interventure and the feedback was consistently positive, and since Interventure also maintains intensive connections in Switzerland, they were ultimately the first choice for us.

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

We had an onboarding phase of the remote team to get them familiar with the products and services we provide. After that we discussed the goals and objectives of the project as well as the development process and setup.

The next few months were dedicated on building a Cloud-First development organization and a microservice infrastructure as foundation of the coming web applications. The team designed and implemented the requirements using technologies like Kubernetes and Docker on Azure.

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

We are in contact with the whole team which consists of 2 frontend and 2 backend developers.

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

Since the project is still ongoing, no comments about the outcomes can be made.

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

We have daily written communication with the team as well as weekly review and retrospective meetings via Teams.

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

Their immense network of partners and their willingness to help are very impressive. If you have a question that needs an answer, they will likely be able to provide it or find someone who can.

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

So far I can't see what could be done differently.

Please describe your company and your position there.

InsureQ is an insuretech startup that offers insurance tailored to SMEs', freelancers', and startups' needs. It eliminates the complexity and creates a simple solution that will save small businesses both time and money. I'm one of the founders and CTO.

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

InsureQ wanted to hire motivated, open, flexible, and talented software engineers who work on the insureQ digital platform combined with the intention of building an insurance ecosystem with webpage, clickfunnel, portal, CRM, business intelligence, artificial intelligence, partner integrations, and Software as a service (SaaS).

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

Interventure was recommended by a friend's company who already works together with Interventure and is very happy with Interventure. Interventure tried to understand insureQ's company culture and expectations in more than 2 meetings.

During the discussions, I realized that they understood the needs of software engineers very well and have a network of talented engineers. They convinced me that they can find suitable software engineers for us.

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

We had a kick-off meeting to discuss our goals and objectives, Integrventure understood the insureq’s company culture and values very well. They helped Insureq find candidates, do the first getting-to-know interviews, organise appointments for the second interviews, and remote projects.

Integrventure has regular meetings with software engineers and exchanges feedbacks to me. Integrventure organises team events for software engineers so that they are motivated and happy.

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

A partner manager coordinated all the meetings, collects feedback from software engineers, and makes the exchange with me. A recruiter helped me review the candidates and do the first interviews. 3 software engineers take over mid-size projects in backend and frontend, maintenance tasks, and improve DevOps at insureQ.

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

All the meetings were very effective. We hired three talented and motivated engineers within about 5 weeks. They always responded rapidly and solved misunderstandings and small conflicts in a smooth and professional way. The software engineers are very open, flexible, and perform outstandingly.

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

It's agile, a mixture of scrum and kanban. Business kickoff meetings, refinement meetings, technical workshops, daily meetings, and retrospective meetings are provided. Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, and Confluence are the main communication tools.

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

I'm impressed with their professionalism, speed, and ability to scale and hire high-quality individuals into development processes and teams.

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

Nothing comes to mind.