IT DEV GROUP

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

The team's contributions have allowed us to focus on our own tasks without worrying about the frontend work. They also understand our objectives well enough to proactively provide recommendations. For example, if I have an idea that would take three weeks to implement but forgot that I had a conference in a few days, they would remind me of the time constraints and offer an alternative, faster solution.

Additionally, their team always gives good feedback. Because we haven’t worked with external developers much, we occasionally forget that external teams won't have an intimate knowledge of our product. As such, we’ve had a few issues describing certain tasks. Rather than moving forward blindly, they’ve been really good about reaching out to us for clarification, which has benefited us greatly.

How did IT DEV GROUP perform from a project management standpoint?

Their lead full-stack developer has done a great job at managing their team. While some developers understand our product and UX/UI vision better than others, they organize their team to their strengths. We work with the people who understand our project best and delegate smaller tasks to the others.

In terms of communication, we use Slack for day-to-day chats, inquiries, and jokes. It was important to me that IT DEV GROUP wasn’t just an external company. Rather, we wanted to know who their team members were and have a more personal relationship.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team is full of good people, and we’re able to communicate openly with everyone. The more time they spend with our product, the better they understand it. We gave them access to our previous system as well as screenshots of the new iteration. Initially, most of our documentation was in Danish, so they had no idea what they were working on. Both our teams and theirs have to communicate in a different language, which poses its own difficulties. Despite this, they’ve taken up the challenge and have even suggested new technologies for our product and ways to optimize our environment.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While we enjoy working with their developers, every now and then, one of them will go on vacation, and we’ll work with someone completely new. As a result, the code quality can suffer because they don’t have an in-depth understanding of our product and goals. We then have to revise a lot of the code, which takes time. We recognize that a person cannot learn everything in a week, but we do expect frontend experts to provide high-quality work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As with any external developer, do more documentation than you think you need.

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

When we finished, we had some little bugs, which they fixed right away once we told them. People stay on the website more than they did before. Traffic has more than doubled (about 2.2x) as soon as we launched the new site. This could also be partially due to some new design things we did, but still, conversion has gone up.

Other companies in competition with us could probably replicate our project in a year or 2, but compared to these other suppliers, we have a production process nobody else has. I don’t see any companies who can even compete with us in the market at this point.

How did IT Dev Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated through Trello. We used Yandex.ru, where you can send a link and they can see upcoming tasks with pictures. Unfortunately, because Ukraine and Russia had problems, the service was closed; we just changed to another one. That’s not IT Dev Group’s fault, but the government’s. We also used Skype to communicate, when we occasionally needed to actually speak with each other. Sometimes we’d send files via Skype as well. Everything was generally put through Trello, which was more convenient for us because we had already been using that application for a long time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We typically experience irresponsible vendors, but not with IT Dev Group. With other vendors, with projects big or small, we would have to increase our budget because they would never finish working on bugs. The only company who is still working with us to improve the finished product for no extra pay is IT Dev Group. That’s why I told them that if they need any feedback, I’ll be happy to help, because a company like them ought to be successful. I feel like I need to help.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If we could move their company to be here in the United States market, in order to have them closer, that would be the only improvement.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've used them for a number of projects during the last year and we're about to assign them another $1,000-2,000-worth of work. IT DEV GROUP has always delivered on time and they understand our projects.

How did IT DEV GROUP perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate through Skype, without the use of any project management tools.

What distinguishes IT DEV GROUP from other providers?

They do what they say and they deliver on time, which is not necessarily true of many people with whom we've attempted hiring through Upwork. Other collaborators have either not been capable of delivering what they promised, or missed their deadlines. Most other companies took weeks longer than originally promised in order to deliver. This was not the case for IT DEV GROUP.

Any potential customer should take the time to discuss everything as much as possible beforehand. IT DEV GROUP tends to encourage this in any case.