IWebDev

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We're a medical device company mainly targeting physical therapy for animals and humans. It was started in 2004 after an injury set the owner back, and he experienced great results from the therapy that our device provides. From there, he's grown his company into an international medical device company that serves North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and we're making inroads in Australia now.

What is your position?

I am the marketing director on an interim basis. I'm transitioning into digital marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with iWebDev?

We were trying to implement a new program by which our medical device could be used on a pay-as-you-go basis. Not a lease or financed purchase, but a pay-per-treatment type of basis. It's done quite a bit overseas with MRIs and large ticket equipment. We thought it would apply well in the U.S. and Canada and planned to expand it out to the rest of the world later. It was a challenge because it involved e-commerce and a proprietary database, and it also required single sign on across a couple of platforms for users. It actually connects via Wi-Fi with the device itself to track treatments, allow people to make purchases on device and more. It was a pretty intensive project.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The app they developed can be used on mobile and web. In order to pay for the treatments and have them recorded and used by the device, it has to talk with a web API [application programming interface] constantly. The device itself is connected to Wi-Fi through a secure connection and talks with the database that iWebDev built. We built the software for the device to be able to connect to the Internet. They built the web-based API app for us to communicate with the laser and be user friendly. We spec'd it out for them, and they made it happen. It works on iOS, Android, and web. It's a responsive web app that works and functions the same way on those devices.

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

The initial specs were between $10,000 and $50,000. It would have been much more than that with some of the other companies that we interviewed. In the U.S., it would have cost us somewhere north of six digits.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in July 2014. I came on board in October. We're adding the international portion to it right now. The initial project was completed about a month ago. The core project was completed in December 2014. We've been tweaking it since.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did iWebDev perform from a project management standpoint?

They are extremely responsive. They have normal business hours, which can be a challenge sometimes. There are times when I woke up at 3 in the morning to ask them to work on a certain project that day. Or, started my day at 5:30 a.m. talking about what was going on. If you send an email within 12 to 14 hours the work would be started, and done if it was approved. Or, if you needed to have a discussion that would happen sooner than that. They met all our deadlines. They launched on time. It was a combination of Agile and waterfall methodology. We had a structured scope going forward in the beginning. And then as we found we needed to modify things we would do sprints and get things completed one piece at a time. That seemed to have worked best and most economically. 

What distinguishes iWebDev from other providers?

iWebDev is personable, but professional. That's not to say they're emotionless, but if I was talking with them about a project, they would analyze our needs and give us a full report on it. They were very consultative in terms of feedback. They're no nonsense in terms of their business ethic. They have the good old-fashioned America 1970s Baby Boomer/Gen X work ethic, which is really refreshing. It's very straight forward engineering. You do need to know what you want. I've worked with six teams other than this company in either Malaysia or India. Two of them were phenomenal and the other four were just straightforward engineering.

Is there anything iWebDev could have improved or done differently?

These guys had regular business hours. They were very accommodating. They would stop what they were doing on weekends and help us out. They have a good system of covering when the project manager was out. European vacations are much longer than U.S. vacations. There would be two weeks at a time when I wouldn't have a project manager, but I really didn't notice the difference. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a nonpartisan social network based in Boston, Massachusetts. Our goal is to help people learn more about the things they care about in their lives, and give them the ability to connect to politicians in order to inform meaningful change about those things that they care about in their lives. The project is live, but it is an ongoing development project. We're actually preparing for our beta launch this week.

What is your position?

I am the founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with iWebDev?

Although we had a great idea and a great team to go about implementing this idea, we were challenged with a lack of internal software engineering talent. Eventually, we had to outsource, and we still currently outsource all of our engineering talent, both to iWebDev and then to a small group of software engineers here. The small software consulting firm in Cambridge serves as the technical lead of the project. They are doing more of the technical interaction with the people at iWebDev.

I approached them specifically to manage our outsource developers at iWebDev. I initially found iWebDev, but then almost simultaneously I found this small consulting firm here in Boston, and I saw an opportunity to work with both of them. iWebDev is great for many reasons. One of the reasons is they're very affordable when compared to similar firms and paying developers here in the U.S. It becomes very affordable to build an entire app using resources like those available at iWebDev.

The idea with using iWebDev, and this group here in Cambridge as well, is that once iWebDev built the majority of the application, we'd have the general launch should take place sometime at the end of this calendar year. At that point, the idea is to hand the majority of the software engineering to the firm here in Cambridge while, simultaneously, bringing additional technical resources in-house to reAssemble. So, hiring some engineers of our own, but then still using iWebDev for some of the more rudimentary legwork – involving iWebDev on a different level once we have the general launch. They will be in more of an ongoing maintenance and support capacity with us.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Initially, iWebDev was talking about using a .NET stack. We had some discussions internally, and also talking with one of our mentors and engaging the engineers in Cambridge, we decided to go with a LAMP stack for this app. iWebDev is providing really everything, from beginning to end, in terms of project managers, QA [quality assurance], software engineers; everything from start to finish, to build it all. We are using an Agile method for the development process.

The local engineers have been functioning as technical intermediaries, helping us to understand some of the work that the engineers at iWebDev are doing better. Our engineers here in Cambridge performed all of the migrations. Once the product was at a state where it was ready to migrate from servers in Europe to Amazon Web services here in the U.S., our engineers in Cambridge did that migration for us. Now, the entire app is running on AWS servers here in the U.S.

As far as QA [quality assurance] is concerned, iWebDev performs the first level or first round of QA testing, and then we run our own QA testing here internally. We are able to do a fair amount of QA testing internally, and then the engineers in Cambridge are doing testing of their own as well. 

The quality of the code is outstanding. Our local engineers are great. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to have them involved, so that they could provide something like a sanity check, just to be sure of the quality of the code going forward. We've had no problems whatsoever. All of iWebDev's work has been top notch.

How did you come to work with iWebDev?

I just started doing some general research on my own for potential outsourcing partners, and then began to engage other people, close friends, and professional colleagues who I trust for advice. I asked about their experience with different outsourcers, and quite frankly, most everyone I know has outsourced with groups that are based in India. No one I talked with on my own had any experience with iWebDev, but as I narrowed my search and came down to a list of two or three potential partners, they were just very professional and easy to deal with.

My account rep was great, very helpful. It's difficult to quantify, I suppose. I felt comfortable working with them, and the scope of their work in terms of previous engagements seemed impressive. They seemed to have an ability to complete projects consistently on time and within budget, and that was huge. I just felt good working with iWebDev, and that has always been the case. They're very easy to work with and very helpful.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We used UserTesting.com for our first round of user testing, and the feedback there was really spectacular. Our chief design officer, who has been working on UX [user experience] design for 20 years, was astounded by the feedback and the responses that we received from our UserTesting.com testers.

All the internal stakeholders and the external stakeholders, in terms of the engineers in Cambridge, everyone has been pleased. Quite frankly, one of my biggest concerns was the language barrier, but that really hasn't been a problem at all. Generally speaking, we are very happy.

How did iWebDev perform from a project management standpoint?

We did a good job initially of setting expectations and understanding those expectations in a very synchronous way. That has helped quite a bit. The language barrier has been the biggest challenge but, by allowing for some flexibility and tolerance there, it's been easy to overcome that.

What distinguishes iWebDev from other providers?

I wish I could say more to that, but this is my first startup and the first time I've used outsourced developers, so my frame of reference is very limited.

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

I can't come up with anything, actually. The experience with them has been that positive.