IT CRAFT

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the founder of a startup that developed a brand marketplace. Designers can offer unused brand concepts or specially researched and developed brands for sale to small and medium businesses. We’ve since sold it to another company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

I needed expertise in building everything from the front-end code to the backend development. We had made some high-fidelity mockups and wanted to make them a reality. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

IT Craft has been responsible for 95% of our development effort over the course of 4 years. The design was done by us in-house. IT Craft handled all the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript mock-ups. The site was built on a PHP platform created by IT Craft. We had a front-end system allowing users to upload designs, make edits, assign meta descriptions, and set their prices. We were able to review and approve uploads, notifying customers of their status. Users also had the ability to purchase domain names and logos sold by designers, distributing funds through PayPal or other platforms to our site.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

I chose IT Craft because they had good ratings. We gave them a smaller project to start with.

How much have you invested with IT Craft?

Our initial contract had a price of $30,000, but the overall development was between $100,000 and $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with IT Craft in the beginning of 2008 and worked together until the company was sold in 2011. Since then, I've used IT Craft on separate smaller freelance projects. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we sold the company, the site had close to 50,000 users from 55+ countries. Our total sales were in excess of $1,000,000. Any downtime was always server-based and not related to IT Craft's code. We had no issues or complaints, and the site was able to scale.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

Because IT Craft is a remote service, we needed to be more hands-on than when working with in-house developers. I never ran into any management issues. In fact, we worked with several developers from IT Craft over the course of that period and always received the same results. Our main contact was always easy to work with and spot-on in terms of estimates. IT Craft understood our goals. Even though they usually didn't come up with the same solutions we were thinking of, that ended up being a good thing.

What did you find most impressive about IT Craft?

I was always impressed by IT Craft's ability to get things done when I didn't think it would be possible. As an example, an arm of our company involved custom design work. We had an idea for a visual feedback tool that would allow users and designers to make comments on images. It was built into our project management system and was a fairly new solution at the time. We discussed what it could entail with IT Craft and the team was able to put it together in 48 hours. IT Craft didn't seem to have any glaring holes in their ability to build features.

Are there any areas IT Craft could improve?

The biggest feedback point was IT Craft's QA, which needed to be more extensive than it would be for an in-house team. This is standard, given that we didn't work in the same room with IT Craft.

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

Clients need to make sure that their goals and product are as well-defined as possible. IT Craft is great at executing what the customer is trying to achieve. But as with any remote worker, going in with a wishy-washy goal will lead to lesser results.

BACKGROUND

Please introduce your organization and what you do there.

Endurant builds apps for a custom platform. I am the director of information services in the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

We needed additional development resources to support project delivery. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

IT Craft has mostly been involved in coding. Their company doesn't have a very large design staff. I've had enough experience with vetting organizations in order to realize that a good development firm won't usually have good designers, and vice versa. The focus is usually on one or the other. It's also difficult to find designers who are skilled in frontend code.

We're currently using 3 developers and one sysadmin from IT Craft. We interact directly with them for most of the time, but also use a project manager. I have personal relationships with some of our developers and the sysadmin from IT Craft. I've visited them in Ukraine at least once a year.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

I found IT Craft on Elance, after ending our relationship with the previous developer. I have vetted developers over the last 6 years, and have used Elance in the past, so I didn't go through a regular selection process. IT Craft was the first company to respond to our project. I know that our specific platform is widely used in Eastern Europe, so I used it as a way of finding Eastern European developers.

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

The total cost of IT Craft's services has been around $350,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have an ongoing relationship with IT Craft. We've used IT Craft on around 20 projects over a 2-year relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

IT Craft has had a major impact on our success. We couldn't have achieved as much as a company without IT Craft's contribution. IT Craft helped us build an open-source CRM infrastructure, as well as building some custom mobile apps and a responsive web app. We're also working on an app which will run on both the web and mobile devices.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

I don't force developers to work within a timeline. Whenever I was asked how long something would take, I always defended them and opted to figure out the schedule as we went. I do make sure that we don't get locked into time constraints, but, as long as I trust that what IT Craft is doing is their best effort, I will be satisfied.

We used Redmine for time tracking, Slack for daily communication, and Zoom for meetings. I have daily conferences with IT Craft, and we have 24/7 chats.

What distinguishes IT Craft from other providers?

IT Craft is unique in the world of PHP, which is the technology that they use extensively. I would highly recommend that any client looking to hire IT Craft, should use the same platform. 

Is there anything IT Craft could have improved or done differently?

No. I've gotten exactly what I wanted, and probably more. The benefit of IT Craft, compared to Indian and Asian companies, is that they can figure out what I need ahead of time, without requiring that I offer them all the details.

I don't know if other clients would be able to work with IT Craft in the same way as us. The usual process involves a project manager to step in-between. I have a unique relationship with IT Craft. They trust me and have told me that I'm a thousand times easier to work with than any other client. My recommendation to anyone else would be to try and become as technically-savvy as possible, learning how to be a developer advocate, not just a client. Any client should learn what IT Craft's strengths are, using the requirements and tools that will get the job done better and faster. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We build web applications and websites to provide digital marketing services for our clients.

What is your position?

I am the president and CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT CRAFT?

We needed to outsource development work due to a lack of local qualified talent. IT CRAFT became a good way of augmenting our staff and growing it at an affordable price.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We build web and mobile applications for our clients. The requirements vary from project to project. We have done a lot of work in the medical space, building HIPAA-compliant applications. We generally start with a web application which meets the specific business requirements, and then extend it to iOS and Android.

Most of our projects are multi-year, extending to seven years or more, as requirements continue to develop and grow. IT CRAFT is used for the majority of that development. There are 10-12 developers from their company working on our projects at any given moment.

How did you come to work with IT CRAFT?

We found IT CRAFT a long time ago, but I don't remember how we came to them originally. We were using other offshore development groups, particularly in Asia, with sub-par results and poor communication. We liked the Eastern European groups that we came across, so we contacted IT CRAFT. We passed one project to them, for which they were very responsive. We continued to grow the relationship from there.

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

A small project will reach around 500-1,000 hours, which will have a cost of $10,000-30,000. Prices continue to grow from there, when talking about multi-year work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2005. The relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The best case study I can offer is an in-house technology built by IT CRAFT, which we sell ourselves. It has been a 5-6 year ongoing project which uses Agile methodology. Their team has worked closely with us on a daily basis, defining new feature requests, growing the system for scalability, and bringing their insights along with ours into the project. We've worked very well together in assuring that we're not only developing what our customers need, but also creating something that makes sense technically, so that the product can be the best that it can be.

How did IT CRAFT perform from a project management standpoint?

From my experience in working with other groups, an offshore collaboration will always bring issues in terms of time zone and language barriers. IT CRAFT holds English classes for their developers in order for them to communicate better. Time zones will always create a problem, unless developers work through the night and sleep all day. Aside from this, I can say that communication is very good when there are fulltime developers completely committed to our project. Part-time developers will have multiple masters, so it will be harder for them to be as responsive and communicate as well as fulltime resources.

What distinguishes IT CRAFT from other providers?

One factor that has built a strong relationship with IT CRAFT is the longevity of our resources. We work with the same developers and project managers for years and years. Turnover is expensive, and it can be difficult to get a new person up to speed. When there has inevitably been turnover, IT CRAFT has been very accommodating in absorbing some of the costs associated with getting someone up-to-date.

Is there anything IT CRAFT could have improved or done differently?

We're constantly learning how to work and communicate better, more efficiently. If a project manager, solutions architect, or developer can't be in the same room with the product team or with the client, it will create a struggle which we have to deal with constantly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a manufacturing company specializing in nuts, bolts, springs and so on. We operate through 20 different manufacturing locations.

What is your position?

I am a business analyst in the company. I work on reports and other areas that have to do with business/technology applications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

We had a need for creating a custom program, but only had a couple of applications developers in the company. We didn't have the necessary time for coding it from scratch. These circumstances convinced me to approach another company that could help us develop our app. IT Craft was one such company.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

IT Craft worked exclusively with me. I act as the analyst on our company's end, providing the specifications for our solution. We went through the requirements, gathering together and clarifying a few items, but I was mainly responsible for drafting the documentation.

We needed a feature for calculating the total weight of the material used for our products. IT Craft featured in the variables given by us, such as height and weight, and translated them into total amounts. One of the tricky parts was counting the total parts that could be cut out of a sheet. We needed do know how many 1 by 2s or one and a halves could be cut out of a 5 by 5 piece. This sometimes involved switching the orientation in order to fit more parts. The team provided for us consisted of around three developers.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

I'd worked with their team years ago when I was trying to develop a separate website for myself. I kept in touch with IT Craft on Elance. They had a great team and were very detail-oriented. When there was a need for an additional resource, we connected again.

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

The total development cost has been $4,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

IT Craft came up with questions concerning our requirements right away. There were only a few formulas that didn't make sense, so I was able to correct the work. We had a very good process. Their team understood what I needed and were able to pick out the details that weren't clearly described and needed further explanation. They delivered right on time and addressed any issues within a day. We also had a good turnaround time for the features that needed to be implemented after the release.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always able to deliver on time and within budget. The project had a flat fee and everything that was delivered afterward was done at no additional cost. We were given a phenomenal project manager. He handled the business quickly and anticipated the changes that we asked for after delivery.

I sent them requirements on Word documents, and we communicated primarily through Skype. We didn't use any other project management tools.

What distinguishes IT Craft from other providers?

I was very impressed with the quality of work delivered by IT Craft. The application had no bugs, excepting a few items that weren't made clear in the requirements. I was impressed with the thoroughness of the testing done by them. Any modifications that needed to be made were done within the day. They were very professional and knowledgeable overall. We will definitely be sending more business to them.

Is there anything IT Craft could have improved or done differently?

I didn't find any shortcomings.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We have developed an iOS mobile app called Sketchpad that allows users to make calls, and at the same time, make real-time sketches and share information with each other. It's a kind of whiteboard sharing app aimed at mobile devices, instead of desktop computers.

What is your position?

I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

We needed a company that could develop our product. We have no technical staff yet so it was important to get some reliable and experienced developers.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

IT Craft has developed our functional application and they also serve as our systems administrator, managing our Amazon Web Services account.

We were assigned one project manager, one systems admin, as well as one web and one iOS developer. We collaborated closely on the design, development, and launch preparation.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

We found them through Elance.com. We considered a few other companies, but IT Craft was more approachable and seemed able to provide a better service than the other vendors that we contacted previously.

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

The total development cost was around $30,000-40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The app was completed in 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Within the first six months of the product launch we had around 1,000 downloads, which we consider to be pretty good. We are still considering what the revenue model of the application should be.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

We always discussed the budget in detail before starting the work. IT Craft has been the only company that has not charged us for small variations in the requirements.

We use Redmine for issue tracking, as well as other testing and debugging tools.

What distinguishes IT Craft from other providers?

I first came to IT Craft with an idea for my application. They helped run me through the initial prototyping stage and have put a fair bit of effort into developing it. They've been very receptive to new ideas and approaches during the thee prototyping stages.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Metapage is a Swiss-based startup providing a platform that enables employers to recruit directly from their own career site. Almost 800 of the most important Swiss employers are members our platform. Each company has a company profile where we show all job offers, traineeships, and graduate programs they have on their website.

What is your position and responsibilities?

I'm cofounder and chief operating officer. I'm responsible for company strategy, platform content, and all business processes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

To get a high-quality index of job offers, we depend on a partner with high skills and experience in programming web crawlers. A big challenge was that each company website is different in terms of technology and design and often changes from one day to another.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

IT Craft builds and maintains hundreds of different web crawlers that provide important data for our business. They master all the different technologies, and they react when a web crawler is broken instantly because a company changed their website. Furthermore, they work perfectly together with our main developer.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

We were looking for a reliable company on Elance. They were on our short list of about five potential partners. After the final evaluation, we decided to start doing business with them and have never regretted it.

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

Until now, it's about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We started the engagement in October 2014. Since then, they built more than 1,000 web crawlers.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

It's very comfortable to work with IT Craft. We send them tickets in Redmine, and they solve it within hours. They're highly professional and communicative.

What distinguishes IT Craft from other providers?

They offer good developers with solid communication skills at a very reasonable price. That's very important for us because we don't want to make things complicated by talking to an unnecessary business intermediary when we can simply communicate with developer.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Smart Navigation Systems (SNS) is UAE based start-up focusing in developing location-based solutions. Smart Navigation Systems currently is developing indoor positioning system (IPS) wherein users with the help of a smartphone can receive indoor voice guided navigation and location-based informational alerts to make it easier to find and explore places and items in places like shopping malls, museums or other “big” buildings catering to the needs of visitors.

What is your position [and responsibilities]?

I’m the founder and chief executive officer. I’m responsible for company strategy, plans, applications designs and supervising the development of our solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

IT Craft is currently developing a mobile based Indoor navigation application for SNS. The application idea, design and functional specifications were taken care of by SNS and got mutually enhanced in cooperation with IT Craft. The application is meant to solve the problems of residents of many cities who often have problems finding their way inside large, complex buildings. And once they are there, they may not find enough information about the attraction point, leaving them vaguely guessing about their item of interest.

Smart Navigation Systems’ IPS solutions will solve these problems by providing an intelligent indoor navigation system that helps users easily identify and reach indoor attractions and in the city using their smartphones, as well as receiving detailed information about things that they are interested in. The system will assist visitors through voice guidance inside buildings.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

The scope of work assigned to IT Craft was to do the development of a Software Application As Service (SaaS) solution for a customer that includes:

• A web admin panel with API for venue owners to manage facilities information, locations and data in their venues
• iOS and Android-specific indoor positioning and navigation applications for mobile devices and tablets.
• Using GPS the system should determine the position of a user and which shopping mall is the closest to that user and upload the required files for him.
• The standard system roles are as follows: User, Shop Administrator, Shopping Mall Administrator, Super Administrator.
• Set of functions accessible for users and shopping mall owners as well as for shop owners and administrators through developing modules and tasks such as:

1. Integrated positioning engine SDK into the mobile applications, functionality for the admin in web-panel.
2. Iterations of an application (iOS, Android) builds with main UI elements and navigation feature, push notifications; manage products and statistics feature on web-backend, social networks integration, parking, part of friends and children features in mobile app; voice guide features in mobile app; final application build.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

We came to work with IT craft by getting their information from the Internet. They were one of several potential companies under consideration for our project work, but they ended up being the best fit.

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

The size of this initiative is in the range of $90,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We are in the final stages of the application development

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We have started the project that includes around 3500 hours of code development by IT Craft in April 2015. We have received 17 iterations of development each concluded with IOS and Android builds. We tested the builds and gave them feedback in our weekly Skype meetings. We have visited the company in August 2015. The application works as expected and all milestones have been met. The feedback we get from internal stakeholders and our testing unit has always been positive. We are very impressed with their performance.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

IT Craft has managed the project in a very efficient manner with a high degree of professionalism and responsiveness. We really have not experienced any unexpected issues with them.

What distinguishes IT Craft from other providers?

IT Craft was distinguished by their wonderful sincerity, professionalism, attitude, punctuality, and effective commutation. Their involvement has been crucial to the improvement of our solutions.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve, or things you might do differently?

They could potentially extend their services to include 3D location based solutions.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an infrastructure and broadband services firm.

What is your position?

I am the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

We were looking for an economical development solution for our product. We didn't have the necessary skills to build our product, so we decided to outsource the actual development itself.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

They have developed an MVP [minimum viable product] for us using different technologies, from PHP to JavaScript. The product is web-based. Not including the project manager, IT Craft provided us with a six-person team. We left it up to them to delegate developers for us. We interface with the project manager and the quality assurance team on a regular basis.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

We found them through an online marketplace. There were other vendors that we approached, but decided to choose IT Craft for their pricing and because we were happy with the arrangement we could make.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have an ongoing relationship that we have no plans of ending.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The project is ongoing and hasn't been fully released yet. We are still doing tests and making modifications.

They have been very responsive in terms of our feedback to them. Whenever I see any problems based on either my own or my team's testing, we will compile a report to them that they will itemize and make sure that each concern is addressed. Based on each item's prioritization, they can be addressed right away or can take longer to solve. Communication has been smooth, and they are very good at accommodation our needs as a startup.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

They've always delivered within budget. Software development has its own cycles. Sometimes, a definition may not be clear or the architecture unfit for the approach taken. We have reevaluated steps, but budget has never been an issue, and IT Craft has always abided by what we agreed upon.

We use bug-tracking tools proposed by IT Craft, which give us a lot more confidence when working across the project.

What distinguishes IT Craft from other providers?

The value that they give is what sets them apart. They are experts at what they do. If a client contracts a big enough team from them and defines the problem clearly, IT Craft will get the work done.

Is there anything IT Craft could have improved or done differently?

The nature of the project itself is complicated. There were times when critical information was missed, either because we didn't communicate it well or because they didn't understand it well. Whenever they delivered something that was not what it should have been, it was resolved right away. Once we've made requirements as clear as they need to be, their delivered product was impeccable.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an education technology startup that serves both individuals and schools. We have customers around the world, but our biggest market is the United States. We have become a stable and fast-growing business with 10-plus full-time employees.

What is your position?

I am a founder and am responsible for the product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

We saw a large market opportunity within education that we felt very passionate about. As a first-time, nontechnical founder, I was looking for an outsourcing firm to help build our first functional prototype. The thinking was that I would find a technical cofounder at a later date but, now, I needed a team of qualified engineers capable of building the solution in the first place.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

In our work, we generally provide them with scenarios, mockups, design, and stories. Their project manager fleshes it out, and they have handled all development. We work in two-week sprints on an agile basis, which lets us respond quickly to changing needs and customer requests.

It has been more than four years now, and our partnership is ongoing. Because they have proven themselves, our billing is also based on agile. We have several full-time developers, and we have ongoing stack of tasks that need to be done. I think this is a testament to how well they have been able to work with us.

How did you come to work with IT Craft? 

We vetted firms on popular outsourcing websites like Elance and oDesk carefully. They were not the cheapest provider, but their proposal and communications showed that they were seriously thinking about the project and thinking through the potential issues. Their code was also very clean and well written.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback from this engagement?

If our site ever experiences serious issues, they have been available, even on the weekend, to resolve them. They are exceptionally honest and reliable. Here are two examples:

1. I gave them a form contract as we began our project. They offered another contract that was a much better fit for our situation and provided much better protection for our IP [Internet protocol].
2. I asked that they add another developer to the team at one point. It took them a few months to do so because the developers that they were looking to hire were not passing their rigorous training successfully. They were not looking for a body to put in a seat so that they could charge us more money. They were looking for a high-quality developer who they would also enjoy working with and were sure could perform to our high standards.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management perspective?

IT Craft always delivers what they promise. They do not overpromise, and they tend to overdeliver. The code is always very good. I no longer consider them an outsourcing firm, but a core business partner. Their project managers are especially good. I am always impressed with the intelligent questions and suggestions that they have for our stories.

Is there anything that distinguishes them from other providers?

IT Craft has great talent and a fantastic approach to test-driven development. We appreciate that they go out of their way to ensure that we have only the best developers working on our project. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a business specialized in an emerging technology, namely crowdsourcing and crowdfunding novels.

What is your position?

I'm the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with IT Craft?

Part of our strategy involved developing a leading information portal as a way of branding ourselves as an establishing network. I hired IT Craft to build our web-based information portal. It included a large element of crowdsourcing information. There was a lot of technology built into the platform to allow the community to upload content. It was a sort of collaborative information sharing portal. It later established itself as the leading portal in this space.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

The technology they used was PHP, if I remember correctly, with MySQL databases. There was a team of six to eight people at its peak. They had a typical project team, consisting of a project manager, developers, and engineers for building the internal code, designers, and QA [quality assurance] testers. We then had an account manager, Tanya. We had Alex, the project manager, and he was very head on. We would speak to him on a regular basis. They would bring different people into the project, depending on what the current issue was.

We were based in Los Angeles, and they were in Kiev. Obviously, there was a big time difference. That was a limiting factor at times in the beginning, but we eventually got into a good workflow and it was fine.

How did you come to work with IT Craft?

I have a professional consulting background, with many years' experience in helping large companies make procurement decisions, mostly in IT [information technology]. I applied the sort of methodology that we deployed for those large companies. I contacted about eight contractors, selected four, out of which IT Craft and one or two others bid for the actual work.

I've had alot of experience in terms of how to manage the process, and how to sift the potential candidates.

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

It was around $150.000.

What is the status of this engagement?

They only worked on the portal. However, the project's about five years old, and they've supported us from day one. They were involved from the conceptual design to the creation of a very detailed system management specification. We've also had a major facelift, which was another big piece of work. They've continued to support, maintain, and enhance it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The first thing to talk about would be my experience with them as a vendor. I was a professional purchaser coming into this, so I have high standards in terms of what I want. When we started the process, it was very structured. They built a 150-page document that very clearly outlined the details of the project from a design and engineering point of view. When our relationship was new, it was regimented around that. As time progressed, my confidence in them grew very high, and we moved to an agile development methodology. Progressively, I felt that they're an efficient company, and everything they built always worked. I can't remember anything that they built and didn't work after their extensive testing. They were very flexible with us after changing our minds on certain items. After a couple of years, I came to trust them so much that we didn't even go through specifications in a formal way. We were literally using agile techniques to build as we went.

Everything worked. They were certainly able to manage the time differences, so that never became an issue. They tend to start late in the day, and work late into the evening, so they found a good working window. They're very accessible.

They have an interesting style and culture. They don't move on until they understand exactly what you want. They took things very seriously. Sometimes, they felt like they might have misunderstood something, so they would keep my team on the phone until they'd understood it thoroughly.

How did IT Craft perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything was delivered before the project deadlines, and I don't believe they ever overbilled me. They've been very efficient with their time, and they always have very good justification for the work they do.

I can't remember specific names of tools we used, but we had ticketing systems. They're very regimented. They have a release methodology, and you're able to see the product in testing, before going into production.

At this scale, there are many entrepreneurs trying to build platforms, who have little experience with the technical work itself and with managing vendors. In this instance, even though I had much experience to apply, they'd be a good find for someone less so than me, in so much as the controls and methodology they use provide a framework within which lesser-experienced people can understand the work and watch its progression.

Is there anything IT Craft could have improved or done differently?

It's been some time since our last collaboration. Our relationship, at the moment, is minimal. I don't have a vested interest in overselling them but, apart from the fact that they have no sense of humor at all (which is sometimes not a bad thing because you know they're focused on the work), there isn't a lot I could say to criticize them. They've been very flexible, and they stayed with the business through bad times and good. They deliver what they say they will and don't overcharge you. I can't make up something bad to say.