Intrepid (acquired by Accenture)

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a startup direct-to-consumer hardware provider located in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our monitors can be installed in people’s electrical panel in order to log their energy consumption patterns. They can see that information through our app, which applies machine-learning technology through which we can identify unique devices in people’s homes. The app can detect fridges, microwaves, dishwashers, and so on, and relay the times when they’re turning off and on. We show what the behavioral usage of these apps is—how much energy they’re using. It’s a very powerful technology for understanding home energy consumption. We have 40 employees at the moment. I’m the principal product manager for the company, and I oversee consumer products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Intrepid?

We had gone through a design sprint and engaged in the user experience components. We were brainstorming ideas, with the main goal being the initial experience tied to our app. It’s already live, but there were things that we wanted to improve and update around a user’s first days and weeks with our app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with Intrepid in order to revisit our approach to UX. The design sprint was three days long. On Intrepid’s side, there were three people involved, including a project manager and two creative UX people. On our side, there was me, our VP of product, and our director of marketing. We used Sketch for the final output of the UX wireframes. After our sprint was wrapped up, we went through a final summary of the work. They gave us a PDF with the final output and documentation.

How did you come to work with Intrepid?

I wasn’t involved in this part of the process, but I believe that Intrepid reached out to us first. They were interested in our technology, so we had a conversation. We realized that they provided design work and talked about this possibility.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intrepid in mid-February 2017. The project had a one-week runtime.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I have nothing concrete in terms of analytics. We treated this project like another basic source of input into our product roadmap, making considerations on what we should and shouldn’t prioritize. My overall feedback is that Intrepid’s output was very good, and it gave us many new ideas on what we wanted to do with the product. We’re still in the process of implementing some of those ideas. There was nothing that we moved on immediately, but that was more on our part. We’ve had other priorities, but Intrepid’s output was everything we were hoping for.

The design process was expensive, not only in terms of the price we paid, but also because we’ve had to involve three people from our company for three whole days. It ended up being a commitment on our side, but it was well worth it in the end.

How did Intrepid perform from a project management standpoint?

The project was simple to manage, given its short duration and the fact that there was only one deliverable. Intrepid communicated very well, and we saw a polished end result.

What did you find most impressive about Intrepid?

There are many companies that offer design sprint services, but Intrepid stands out because of the team’s direct-to-consumer mobile expertise. The two designers who were part of our sprint were very sharp and talented. We were paying not only for them to lead this sprint, but also in order to use some of that talent in order to think about our product.

The other element was cultural. Intrepid is a small company with a startup vibe, compared to some of the bigger design firms, which tend to be a lot stiffer. They’re laid-back and have a nice office. We meshed nicely, which made it easy to have these sessions, come up with ideas, and collaborate.

Are there any areas Intrepid could improve?

I have no real criticisms about Intrepid.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are developing a software-as-a-service mechanical CAD platform similar to SOLIDWORKS. The difference in our case is that the solution is completely cloud-based, which makes it more collaborative than traditional systems and allows users to access the data from any browser or mobile device.

What challenge were you trying to address with Intrepid?

In the CAD space, traditional systems are file-based, which means that collaborations rely on emailing files around, so only one person has write access to a file at any time. Cloud platforms such as Google Docs have given teams the ability to work on files in parallel, and we wanted to do the same for manufacturing design. We wanted to make the solution available on all platforms and devices, without the need for installation, local storage, or significant local computing power. We started the work for browsers, with the idea that it would also be natively accessible from mobile devices.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intrepid was contracted to help us port our solution to mobile devices. We have a cloud-based server-client architecture, communicating to browser, iOS, and Android clients alike. At its peak, Intrepid assigned around eight developers. It was a joint project using both in-house and remote resources, with 10 people from Intrepid's team being used at peak capacity.

Intrepid was able to provide highly-skilled developers for Android and iOS, as well as mobile interface designers. This allowed us to scale up much more quickly than we would have been able to otherwise.

We started out with a couple of in-house resources, built a prototype, realized that it was feasible, and then brought Intrepid in for help with the development on both mobile platforms at the same time. As we hired more in-house developers, we scaled Intrepid's involvement down.

How did you come to work with Intrepid?

Intrepid's CEO knew the founder of our company. We had used Intrepid for business advice, and when we came to the point of needing mobile resources, we contacted them.

How much have you invested with Intrepid?

The cost of Intrepid's work was above $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intrepid three and a half years ago. The collaboration continued for two and a half years, only scaling down because using contractors is always more expensive than using internal employees.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Having interactive CAD design on a phone or tablet had never been done. We provide the only system in the world which can do this, and Intrepid was a big part of making that a reality. There are hundreds of thousands of active mobile sessions within our platform every year.

How did Intrepid perform from a project management standpoint?

We used our own processes and tools such as of JIRA, Slack, and GitHub. Intrepid adapted to them and became a part of our company.

What did you find most impressive about Intrepid?

I've used many other consulting agencies and technical contractors, but I hadn't worked with any for mobile development. Intrepid stood out because of the high level of expertise they were able to provide in this area. For us, the ability to scale up quickly was very valuable. The architectural aspects of what we did were mostly defined on our side, but Intrepid assigned principal engineer-level people who gave us mobile expertise.

Are there any areas Intrepid could improve?

No. I was very satisfied.

Please describe your organization.

We are a network connecting small-business owners to each other, locally, vertically, as well as around topics of interest. The primary use case for businesses and business owners to connect to each other are referrals, either for customers, hires, and also for advice of any kind.

What is your position?

I am one of the company's 2 founders.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Intrepid?

We have a web platform and a responsive web application, but we wanted to migrate towards a hybrid app with some native features, such as messaging. The goal was to drive engagement, for which having a mobile platform is really useful. 

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Intrepid was tasked with bringing the interactions and high-engagement features on our mobile platform into our web app. Our approach was to go from mobile back to the existing desktop application, in terms of design. Our project with Intrepid didn't include the development itself.

From a purely business perspective, we monetize our app in a bunch of different ways. We give people a default radius for connecting with businesses; if they want to increase their access on the platform, they will need to pay for the feature.

We've worked with a talented group of product managers and designers from Intrepid's team, who did a nice job of understanding our requirements and helping us sharpen what the mobile platform needed to do. Intrepid has taken us through a similar approach to the Google design exercise, out of which came a nice vision for how the app should behave, and how its elements would translate into a web form.

How did you come to work with Intrepid?

One of our seed investors introduced us to Intrepid's founder. I believe that they may have been an Intrepid investor as well. We didn't use their services until recently, but had known the company for a while. When we first contacted Intrepid, they had around 20 employees, but they've grown significantly. The timing was right for us.

We're in the middle of a second project with Intrepid, but we started out with a much smaller scope, just to see how things would work. We've worked with a number of people in the past, and went through a discovery process with Intrepid, from which we found them to be more app-oriented. Many design houses tend to be stuck on the design side of things, even though they're good at what they do. We needed for our partner to have an understanding of applications, workflows, users and interactions, which was the case for Intrepid.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The cost of Intrepid's work has been between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intrepid a few months ago, in 2016. We're finishing off the project at the moment. 

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Intrepid has helped us with a couple of things, like getting an outsider's perspective of which feature we needed to keep and focus on for the mobile app; the desktop version will be significantly richer by default.

As we thought through all the capabilities we have under the hood, Intrepid helped us leapfrog to the next experience we wanted to reach. We have a large user base already, and we had concepts in our head for the direction we wanted to take, but Intrepid helped us crystalize how a future product experience should look.

How did Intrepid perform from a project management standpoint?

Intrepid's team has been predictable at meeting deadlines. We put together a high project plan and have stuck to it. We primarily use Slack for communication, and email for scheduling.

What distinguishes Intrepid from other providers?

The key strength of Intrepid, compared to many design and development shops, is their understanding of UX from an application perspective.

Is there anything Intrepid could have improved or done differently?

I've been pretty happy with Intrepid.

Do you have any recommendations for others considering working with Intrepid?

Each engagement is only as good as the people working on it. In Intrepid's case, we've liked the people working for us a lot. I can't speak to the rest of the team, but Intrepid's founder is a smart guy, and the team we've had has been fantastic.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a Boston-based digital healthcare company which provides 30-day post-discharge monitoring services for patients recovering from various procedures and conditions for readmissions subject hospitals to Medicare/ Medicaid payment penalties.

I manage product development, sales and business development as an executive of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Intrepid?

We needed to develop an MVP for the technical side of our service, involving both web and mobile applications.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intrepid spec'd and developed our solution over the span of several months. Our hardware interfaces with the mobile app, which needed to securely transmit readings to the web monitoring portal used by our staff.

The mobile app was built for iOS and the web app using Ruby on Rails. We worked with one designer, two mobile engineers, and back-end developers, as well as a project manager and a creative lead who helped define the initial scope of our project.

How did you come to work with Intrepid?

We interviewed six or seven firms in Boston and New York City looking for back-end and mobile app engineering, as well as healthcare experience. HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] compliance was a big consideration given that we are dealing with medical data. We weren't committed to finding a one-stop-shop and were completely willing to use one agency for design and another for development. Intrepid seemed to have a solid grasp on all aspects of our project and came highly recommended by a number of people whose opinions I value. We had a great fit personality-wise, and Intrepid could do everything that we needed in order to knock our MVP out of the park. Price was definitely a consideration but Intrepid was competitive and not the most expensive firm we spoke with.

How much have you invested with Intrepid?

The total cost of our project with Intrepid was well over $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our collaboration with Intrepid in mid-November 2016, and worked full time through to March 2016. We continued working with them on a scaled-back basis through June 2016 until we had accomplished around 90% of what we needed. Intrepid helped us transition to an in-house engineering team to bring our service to market.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We're currently waiting for a partner hospital to undergo legal reviews of our proposal, so I have no metrics yet.

That said, the feedback received from everyone who has seen or used the app has been overwhelmingly positive. We've had some code reviews performed by independent Ruby on Rails engineers with 20+ years of development experience who described the work as, “one of the cleanest code bases [they had] ever seen.”

The iOS codebase was developed by more junior engineers due to the app’s simplicity; Everything works, and we're thrilled with the overall quality of our product.

How did Intrepid perform from a project management standpoint?

Intrepid was very efficient; good communication was key. Our team engaged with theirs on an almost-daily basis, which may be easier to coordinate with a small team like ours than some of their larger clients. Intrepid was open to working as closely with us as we wanted for this project and it worked out well.​

What did you find most impressive about Intrepid?

We never felt that Intrepid was price-gouging. The agreed-upon work got done within the timeline. Intrepid was very good at setting expectations and hitting targets. They came in under budget and faster than we expected. It was an overall seamless, honest experience. Intrepid was trustworthy and genuine in all of our interactions.

Are there any areas Intrepid could improve?

Ours was one of the first healthcare applications done by Intrepid, so there was some learning that happened on-the-fly. I don't really have anything negative to say about our experience with Intrepid; they were committed to our project and I've never worked with a contracting firm that made me feel I'd gotten the full value of every dollar paid. This is probably the main reason that everyone speaks so highly of them.​

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Intrepid?

If the client wants a good product, they need to be involved in the planning, strategy, and development process, but also trust the software engineers building it. The advice coming from Intrepid is usually sound and thoughtful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

GlucoVista makes a non-invasive glucometer. It’s a way to measure blood sugar without pricking your finger.

I’m helping GlucoVista bring the product to market, moving from a R&D [research and development] phase to a commercialization phase. My title is Product Advisor.

What challenge were you trying to address with Intrepid?

We want to end finger pricking for diabetics.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The device is going to communicate to an app on a smartphone. Intrepid built us a prototype of the app that we used for demonstration purposes. It’ll be available across all platforms.

How did you come to work with Intrepid?

We looked at three kinds of options - local, remote, and a combination of management here and remote engineering. We chose Intrepid because they offered the best design services. The other companies wanted us to design the project and they’d implement it. I was looking for heavy design interaction rather than coming with a final product.

How much have you invested with Intrepid?

It cost between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The prototype took one month and it was finished on time.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It helped us raise $6.5 million. It was part of our road show.

What did you find most impressive about Intrepid?

Intrepid was incredibly responsive and used common sense when solving problems. There was never any back and forth fighting about money. They over delivered and they did a fantastic job.

Are there any areas Intrepid could improve?

Not at all. It was a fantastic month. I’ve worked with many engineering teams. This was an incredibly efficient, well-run project. It could’ve doubled if they didn’t know what they were doing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Luminopia is a virtual reality medical software to treat underserved visual disorders starting with lazy eye. I am CEO [Chief Executive Officer] and founder.

What challenge were you trying to address with Intrepid?

We had very strong scientific elements throughout our application, which was on iOS at the time and still is. The problem was presenting the scientific elements in a user friendly way - a way that didn’t make it seem like a cold and clinical device, but rather a warm, inviting entertainment type of device. Our design team did an outstanding job of turning the scientific application into something that’s really consumer faced and easy to use.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They redesigned the entire thing. It was engineered within Luminopia.

How did you come to work with Intrepid?

I knew the CEO of Intrepid. It seemed like a very good fit. It seemed like the culture at Intrepid meshed well with what we have at our company. We felt that when we began, that it would be a good experience.

How much have you invested with Intrepid?

We have spent $34,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project took three weeks.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

When we started, we had problems with people being able to use the scientific elements properly. Now, after having distributed the app to all of our advisors and testers, it’s very smooth. It’s intuitive and engaging. There are no quantitative measurements yet. We’re very happy with how it turned out.

What did you find most impressive about Intrepid?

They’re [Intrepid] very flexible. They have a great group of talent. They do it in a fun way. It’s not a cold corporation. It’s a really engaged process throughout, where everything is tailored to your needs in a friendly way.

Are there any areas Intrepid could improve?

It was my first experience with a company like them and it went very well. I wouldn’t have wanted anything different. The designers worked very hard on the project and we got some really great results at the end of it. I imagine we pushed them harder than some projects would because it’s not a normal social media app. It has some very important scientific elements to it, and they handled that very well.

Please describe your organization.

We're a dating app for women, with the premise of encouraging women to introduce their best male friends to other women they believe will be a good fit.

What is your position?

I'm the co-founder of the startup.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Intrepid?

We only had website presence. We needed to bring our online experience to mobile, and needed to do it in a way that was mobile first.

Can you describe the scope of Intrepid’s work?

Intrepid provided an iOS application for our team that is now available on the app store.

How did you come to work with Intrepid?

We considered other agencies. We also considered doing the development in-house, and we ultimately landed on Intrepid because, obviously they're very talented, but also have a very good reputation in the Boston area. We felt that Intrepid really walked the walk and talked the talk. They really dug into the strategy aspects and understood how to build our product. I just believed that they would deliver on the app and they did.

We sensed that other agencies felt very much like an agency. Intrepid felt like a true partner. That's the real reason why we went with them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Our iOS app was between $100,000 to $200,000.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The people love it! They're in love with the user interface [UI] and the design. We’ve had very strong engagement; that's the best way we're measuring things. We get comments about the UI all the time, and that was actually designed directly by Intrepid.

The app is working. We have some things to fix, which is normal, but fundamentally our app is working.

What distinguishes Intrepid from other providers?

The people at Intrepid are good human beings and great to work with. Very enjoyable to be with, and they are very creative and interesting. I really enjoy spending time with them, as people and as partners. Working with them is very easy because they act and behave like a true partner.

A lot of times, people say “they’re a true partner” and it's very cliché and not really true. Intrepid was a true partner and they went to bat for us when we really needed it.

Is there anything Intrepid could have improved or done differently?

No. I think that the only constructive criticism I have for them, is criticism for me too. We needed to build out a lot on our side, so we built out the API [application program interface] and some of the development on our side. We really didn't have anything to start with, so we were doing that work in parallel to the app development that their team was doing. There were some challenges due to the parallel development process. I was not experienced enough to be able to foresee those ahead of time. The only other constructive criticism I would have is that I would have loved some guidance on those potential issues ahead of time.