JetBridge

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO of Hotpot TV, a video streaming website. We focus on streaming Chinese entertainment with different translations, primarily English and Spanish.

What challenge were you trying to address with JetBridge?

We were focusing on building a mobile application as well as a dashboard for content management.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built both the native iOS and the native Android version of the app from scratch. The product is mainly used for video playback. They designed and implemented a home screen that handles a variety of different types of video thumbnails. The app also allows for horizontal and vertical scrolling.

The dashboard is for internal content management and analytics. We can use it to upload and process videos, as well as data about the videos. It helps us manage comments, reviews, reports, and other related content. We provided wireframes for the apps, but JetBridge did all of the design work for the CMS dashboard.

What is the team composition?

The team varied a little bit because we started off focusing entirely on the mobile apps. Towards the end, the team was about 7–8 people. Adam (CTO, JetBridge) was my main point of contact. He was both the lead developer for the iOS app and the main project manager.

Mischa (Co-Founder, JetBridge) was our backend specialist. He did the transcoding work for the video player. Adam, Mischa, and John (CEO, JetBridge) were the three main people that I interfaced with.

How did you come to work with JetBridge?

I was introduced to JetBridge via a friend from a different company. I chose them because of their people. I did a lot of video calls with other remote development teams, but none of them seemed as experienced or thoughtful about the work. From my first conversation with Adam, I could tell that he knew what he was talking about. Other companies tend to skirt around and deflect, but Adam was always direct and honest with me.

I also had multiple opportunities to meet with the CEO, John. He’s an ex-Silicon Valley entrepreneur, which is similar to my background, and we connected pretty immediately. It was surprising how transparent and professional they were. I didn’t expect that out of a remote development team. Being able to connect with them made me feel comfortable and confident that they would be able to fulfill their promises.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent somewhere between $120,000–$150,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2019 and finished in August 2019.

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

The application is completed, but we haven’t launched it yet. We’re still making some adjustments. It’s slated to launch before the end of the year.

In terms of feedback, everyone says that the look and feel are great. JetBridge was able to match every wireframe and deliver every feature that we asked for. They also helped us resolve some issues with a third-party vendor.

How did JetBridge perform from a project management standpoint?

I was extremely happy with Adam’s approach. He’s very experienced, but also extremely patient and understanding. Because of his knowledge, he was able to make accurate estimates for work hours and timelines.

He even took that a step further and helped to optimize some of our processes. Whenever we were going over wireframes, he would make helpful suggestions. A web designer created our first wireframes, and most of the UI/UX elements were web-centric. Adam walked us through how to translate those designs to a native mobile app, all while sticking to our schedule.

We did have a relatively rushed timeline, and, unfortunately, our internal project planning was not great. They had to work around our deficiencies there, and they were always helpful and patient, even with the short timelines that we gave them.

We had to make plenty of adjustments along the way, mainly because of the indecisiveness of our internal team. Even when it caused delays, JetBridge was always willing to listen and make changes to the original wireframe.  

We used JIRA at the beginning, but eventually, we moved to direct communication via Slack. JIRA added overhead, and Slack was better suited for our fast-paced environment. Also, Adam oversaw the engineers, and I was happy to let them handle the project management themselves. We started with weekly reports, through calls and our Slack channel, and those become more frequent as the project went on. By the end, we were talking almost every day.

JetBridge was extremely responsive during the last few weeks. There were some small bugs, but that’s to be expected, especially with a rushed timeline. Every few days, we would test the app and send them a list of issues, and JetBridge would fix them within a day or two.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What makes them stand out from the many other remote development teams that I've worked with—or still work with—is their integrity. All along the way, they've been extremely honest about pricing, their ability, and the promises that they make. Initially, I was skeptical, because I’ve worked with teams in the past who would overpromise and underdeliver, both in terms of what they knew and what they could build. JetBridge delivered exactly what they promised within the timeframe that they set.

Also, other software agencies I’ve worked with would push back when I came to them with bugs. JetBridge never did that. They would always acknowledge issues and fix them. Adaptability is critical, because every development project is going to have problems, and JetBridge was flexible throughout the project. Other teams get stuck and decide to stop working.

JetBridge was able to take so much off my hands. All I had to do was check-in with them from time to time. Other firms need a ton of guidance. Even when they ran into problems, they would come to me with multiple solutions, rather than just ask me for direction. That made my life so much easier and really differentiated them from others that I’ve worked with.

Another thing that impressed me was their ability to deliver on all of our designs. The video player feature was very complicated, and they made it work perfectly. With so many moving pieces, I was expecting something to force us to compromise. JetBridge got it done.

Towards the very end, we ran a little overboard because of some of the bugs, and they offered to resolve them for free. I thought that level of integrity was very impressive. Personally, I think building both a native iOS and a native Android app within three months—with very little prototyping and wireframing— is pretty remarkable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The communication structure could have been improved a bit. That’s partially my fault, because I nudged them in the direction of having a more ad hoc approach. Having some kind of milestone reporting would have helped me in meetings with non-technical partners.

In the end, I’m glad we took the route we took because it allowed us to move quickly. Adding project management tools will often slow projects down. That being said, we eventually had to give more detailed breakdowns of the project, due to requests from my business partner. With a larger company, JetBridge might fall short in the reporting department, but I thought it was sufficient for a small, agile startup.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust that they know what’s best for the project. In many ways, I felt like Adam, Mischa, and John genuinely cared about the project. They seemed to want to put their knowledge to use. I know there’s a temptation as a client to stick to the initial design, but try and keep an open mind.

JetBridge is a team of experts, and they’ll offer some excellent ideas and suggestions. Don’t be afraid to let them guide you, especially if you don’t have as a deep of an understanding of technology. I think that will result in a very smooth process.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Business Rocket, a business consultancy organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with JetBridge?

We hired them to clean up our CRM system, which had been developed by an outsourced company. We wanted them to audit it and make sure that the code was correct so that we wouldn’t have any errors when we tried to scale.

Beyond the CRM, we wanted someone to help us make sure that our software systems and products were compliant with contemporary platforms and tools. We also needed help with the infrastructure and flow of our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

JetBridge analyzed our existing system and guided us in developing new features, components, and strategies. They were able to resolve issues within a considerable portion of the code and then build on what they fixed. They completely redeveloped our system. At this point, we’re using very little of the old code.

They’ve also done designs for us, specifically for the flow of the admin interface. For example, they were able to take three to four pages of content and combine that into one page. They’re switching everything from PHP to Python right now. They’re also working on improving the functionality for users.

What is the team composition?

We have one senior developer, two junior developers, and two part-time UX/UI people.

How did you come to work with JetBridge?

I met with their CEO, and we clicked because he gave excellent advice. Afterward, we got on a conference call with more of the senior executives at JetBridge and decided to start working together.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $100,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2019, and the partnership is ongoing. We have them on retainer, and we’re continually giving them new work. They’re now our primary outsource agent.

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

They point out a lot of gaps that we’re trying to fix and help us measure where we’re losing money and why we’re losing money there. For example, they determined that we had subpar landing pages and recommended changes to improve our conversation rates. Since implementing their advice, we’ve seen our rates grow from 1% to 4.5%–5%.

We’re still in the testing phase for our website redesign, but they’ve helped us make improvements in other ways. We gave them our login information for our PPC analysis, and they found multiple practices that didn’t make sense. We brought their analysis to our PPC partner, and they apologized and fixed everything. JetBridge did this for free, and we ended up saving over $1,000 per month as a result.

How did JetBridge perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a well-thought-out communication infrastructure that helps us stay up-to-date with the project. They send us updates 2–3 times a week. We also have a scheduled weekly conference call, and they’re always on time. We use Slack and Zeplin to help us see what they’re doing on a weekly basis. Overall, we’ve been very happy with their team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The communication is great. Being a business owner that’s not a coding expert, there’s a lot of things that I might omit because I think they’re too hard to implement. What stands out with them is that they focus on our goals and prove to me that they’re reachable. They brought features to life that we thought were impossible. Also, as they’re coding, they always ask the right questions to keep us moving forward.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re doing a great job. I’m happy with their approach.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a very clear picture of what you want. It's best to go into the initial conversation as if you’re hiring someone in-house. Explain it to them in a way that will help them understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Being vague is going to hurt you. Know that you'll have to do a lot of legwork before you start to make the partnership successful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Inixy AS, a computer software company.

What challenge were you trying to address with JetBridge?

We needed someone to develop and maintain our software. We wanted to leverage someone’s knowledge to make fewer mistakes down the road.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are our core software team and we trust their competence to do the work. They handle both back- and frontend development. They are also involved in deciding which feature set we should prioritize and focus on. They did the design and architecture of the code structure of mobile application development. They used Python mainly for the backend. The frontend is mainly React Native.

An example of the functionality of our software would be when one of our customers—for example, a cleaning company—receives an order to have a house cleaned. It can now be done automatically and not done manually. We can see which staff member is available and which staff members are cleaning where so that when an order comes in, we automatically route it to the employee who can fulfill the order as quickly as possible.

What is the team composition?

There are three or four people I’m in contact with on a regular basis. The main point of contact from a technical perspective is Adam (CTO, JetBridge). The main point of contact business-wise is John (CEO, JetBridge). There are also other people involved in the project.

How did you come to work with JetBridge?

I met John when he was visiting Norway a couple of years ago. We maintained a business relationship and when we entered a position to partner with them, it was a natural choice for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $500,000—$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2018 and the work is ongoing.

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

They demonstrated the app to us last week. We’re pleased with the app and we’re going to onboard our first customer in a week.

How did JetBridge perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is good. They own the project and I don’t have to be extremely detailed in planning. When I set a deadline, they meet it, which hasn’t been my experience in the past.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Other companies I worked with had to be followed up with on a daily basis and I had to be very specific on how things should be. With JetBridge, they’ve taken much more ownership of the project, which has allowed me to actually hand over responsibility to them where I can focus on all the other tasks that are necessary for running a company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is no specific point I can think of for them to improve. But when thinking extra hard on the question, the only thing I can think of that was a challenge sometimes was the culture, time, and geographic differences, but this challenge you have with outsourcing teams outside your own country, and my experience with JetBridge also here is far better than my previous experiences with similar companies on other projects. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that they understand the product because they have a lot of knowledge themselves on how to market work. Spend extra time making sure that they understand the real and actual value of your product. You’ll then have a better partnership with them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a technology-centric e-commerce fulfillment company. I'm the CEO.

For what projects/services did your company hire JetBridge Software?

We needed development services for our internal fulfillment platform.

What were your goals for this project?

To augment the development capabilities of our in-house development team.

How did you select this vendor?

They were recommended to us by fellow founders.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We run fully on our internal technology platform, with time-sensitive, mission-critical initiatives that we need to continuously execute on time and on budget. As we bring on new clients with unique needs, we need to rapidly evolve our platform to address their requirements. In order to accelerate our engineering pipeline, Jetbridge augmented our in-house team with additional full-stack developers.

What was the team composition?

The team was two senior developers, one senior mobile developer, one mid-level designer, one mid-level frontend developer, and one senior product manager.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Their talented team made it possible to achieve our goals within the aggressive timelines. That enabled us to execute on our sales pipeline quicker than expected and achieve our revenue milestones, leading to a successful round of venture capital.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was done directly with the senior developers and was very efficient. We didn’t need any added layers of management that would have slowed us down.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They acted like an extension of our team, rather than as outsourcers. That meant that they treated our project like it was within their own company.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Their development team tended to challenge us if they felt like there was a better or more efficient way of doing things. It worked well for us, but I can see how it may initially surprise more passive teams. That said, any team will recognize that their challenges stem from wanting the best possible outcome for the project—it’s a positive trait in the long term.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our platform leverages both AI and real specialists to provide dermatology automation analysis for web and mobile. We have APIs for third parties.

For what projects/services did your company hire JetBridge Software?

We needed mobile app developers to add to our existing core team.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted help in evolving our platform more quickly.

How did you select this vendor?

The investors behind JetBridge have also invested in First Derm.

Describe the project in detail.

They provided software and mobile app engineering.

What was the team composition?

We worked with Mischa (Co-Founder, JetBridge Software) and Adam (CTO).

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

Their work ensured we could quickly add new features to our mobile and AI platforms.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We communicated directly with their engineering team leader to ensure we got the project done on time.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They acted like they owned the project. They were passionate about our success.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can’t think of anything.