KeenEthics

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a scale-up B2B SaaS business with small, medium and large corporate clients worldwide, developing a solution on MongoDB, NodeJS, React.

For what projects/services did your company hire KeenEthics, and what were your goals?

Since our platform is constantly growing, we hired a high-quality service to help us solve new challenges. As a result, we addressed KeenEthics and it seems to me, I wasn't mistaken. At that moment, we had 3 main challenges, including tech debt, DevOps services, and ISO27001 certification. When our project picked up speed streamlining all the processes, we noticed we needed additional efforts in evolving and maintaining our system. Now, our team always finds the balance between "what we need" and "what works".

DevOps adoption is beneficial. For me, effective DevOps culture does more than team collaboration. It's about continuous team development and transparency on the results. Lastly, it's critical for us to get ISO27001 certification to show the clients the best practices, tools, and technologies we implement.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

The company I work with recommended me KeenEthics as a quality service provider. I found a great team of professionals, and our true partnership still lasts.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

I am pleased with our partnership on our project. I like both the managerial and development components of KeenEthics expertise. We managed to find the right solutions and practices to handle our challenges. This was our first experience with KeenEthics, and I hope that it will not be the last one. Since we want to expand our project, we hope to address KeenEthics again.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The project involved 2 senior developers and 1 DevOps. All specialists proved their field of expertise and showed positive results.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Together with KeenEthics, we work according to the outstaffing business model. The company provided us with good professionals whom we’re managing now. Besides, we have made great progress on our ISO27001 certification and are confident we will achieve it with the support of KeenEthics

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They're a proactive team that communicates clearly and works hard to produce high-quality work.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

KeenEthics met my requirements, and I am pleased we reached a common understanding.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None I can think of.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a platform that provides enterprise customers with easy, frictionless access to marketing services, reducing the need for complex sourcing processes and managing a growing number of disparate service providers. I am CEO and as such responsible for the overall product and company strategy.

For what projects/services did your company hire KeenEthics, and what were your goals?

Our company addressed KeenEthics to create an entry portal for the platform. Our idea was to create a convenient site for clients where they can go, find the desired services, compare and understand prices, and decide upon the benefits for themselves. When clients want to invest in services, we take all responsibility. One of our best decisions was to implement price transparency. So, the information on the platform is very detailed to justify these figures.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I found the company through LinkedIn. We searched for a reliable partner whose competence would correspond to our goals and requirements. During our collaboration, I assured myself of the ethical approach and dedication to the work of the KeenEthics team.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Our project required several technologies, including React, Typescript, Styled-components, Next.js, Contentful (CMS admin panel).

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The team consisted of 8 developers, 2 QA specialists, and 1 project manager.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We achieved our main goal. KeenEthics was a great and reliable help for us to create a safe platform with needed functionalities and modules. At present, I'm satisfied with the results.

KeenEthics team provided a good working climate and high-quality work. KeenEthics offered us the SEO specialists who made a thorough analysis with items we should have fixed. We also chose two target languages of our platform, attracting audiences from more countries.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

KeenEthics was seamlessly integrated into our in-house team, so that project planning, effort estimations and resource planning worked on a short official channel. Our infrastructure was used, including GitHub, Jira and Slack, as well as Google Meet for video conferencing.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What I liked about our collaboration was that we didn't need to go into the weeds with task details. Telling what we wanted to achieve was enough. KeenEthics team themselves could break down our requirements into subtasks and decide upon how to implement them. Our teams managed to come to coordinated decisions, and that's mighty good.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

KeenEthics did an excellent job coordinating the team and the technical implementation. On rare occasions, it was a challenge to adjust the team size quickly enough to meet the growing demand. But again, KeenEthics has always strived to do everything possible to meet tight deadlines while maintaining high quality and integrating the right experts into our team.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Andrii Mandzhala, the founder of a B2B company ADS (Aluminium Decor System). For 10 years already, the company has manufactured aluminum furniture fittings and furniture facades. At some point, we decided it is high time to modernize our system. The main task was to automate particular processes to save time and effort of our distributors and, subsequently, buyers.

For what projects/services did your company hire KeenEthics, and what were your goals?

We wanted to create a calculator making it easier for consultants to estimate the costs of our products and presenting an estimation to our partners. The main challenge of our business lies in the fact that we cooperate with dozens of small-scale companies that distribute our products daily. As a result, we also have to deal with numerous estimates and re-estimates daily. To put an end to never-ending phone calls and prevent mistakes in cost estimation, we decided to integrate a calculator into our platform. The main goal of this project was to create a solution that would automatize the process of estimating the costs of our products. We expected the calculator to give consultants the chance to estimate costs without our assistance. The only task for them would be to set necessary parameters, and the calculator would automatically estimate the price for their order. The calculator had to be quick, effective, and simple in use.

How did you select KeenEthics and what were the deciding factors?

Everything started when KeenEthics were integrating Asama, their other project, into our system. In the course of our communication, we realized that for more effective performance, we need more automation. While working on Asama, KeenEthics proved themselves to be a responsible, socially aware, dedicated, and highly experienced team. It played a huge role when we were choosing a vendor.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We chose React framework for the development of the front end, Figma was used for designing the interface. MongoDB database and Node.js environment were also applied in the development process.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

KeenEthics team consisted of:

• 1 Business Analyst
• 1 Designer
• 1 Developer responsible for back end and front end development.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The aim of the project was to introduce automation into our business processes. With KeenEthics help, we reached our goal, and now, we have a powerful and efficient calculating tool that performs a dozen of important functions instead of us. Moreover, it helps prevent estimation errors, which frequently happened because of the human factor.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The workflow is very effective: both ADS and KeenEthics believe that transparent communication is the foundation of prolific cooperation. On our project, we follow the same principle: we communicate regularly, discuss progress and challenges, and together choose the most effective solutions.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The quality that best describes KeenEthics' team is dedication. Apart from being professionals in software development, KeenEthics employees also demonstrate creativity in problem-solving and a genuine desire to help others turn their ideas into reality.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I believe that our cooperation runs smoothly and effectively. The only improvement I would suggest is related to the communication process. Sometimes, because of the excessive workload, we were unable to provide instant replies to each other. It would be perfect to think in advance about the questions that might arise and discuss them before they actually arise.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of Self Leaders, a virtual leadership training company.

What challenge were you trying to address with KeenEthics?

We needed someone to develop our custom platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

KeenEthics has been part of our journey in developing our digital tool from the start. The team designed and tested the first version and now are continuing to build and update it. 

It’s a software we use with clients. We focus on facilitating workshops and programs for managers and all employees in a company. The digital tool supports that whole process by doing pre-reflections before our workshop like reflecting on your personal values or strengths. We also use it during the workshops as a dialogue tool.

KeenEthics also supports us in creating a manager/facilitator portal tool where the managers can run workshops themselves with their teams. They continue to support us with continuous development of the platform.

They built the platform from scratch. We started with Meteor which is built on React. The foundation is React.

What is the team composition?

We now have a team of six dedicated full time developers from KeenEthics. We have a main point of contact and a lead developer. In addition we have strategic discussions with their CEO.

How did you come to work with KeenEthics?

We did quite a bit of research. We looked at different suppliers after deciding not to employ people in-house. We went through a lot of reviews and had interviews with a couple of different companies. We also did a test run. 

The reason we chose KeenEthics is because we got the impression that they could support us with the terms of how and having the capacity to really unlock this tool. They connected with us on a more why level. They really took the time to understand why we were building it. That was important to us.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost so far is $600,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2016 and the work is ongoing. They still are a key partner to us.

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

We’ve been able to build a true partnership with KeenEthics. They have really strong competence and they’ve been able to connect us with really strong developers and frontend designers. They have a strong IT infrastructure. 

We feel connected on a strategic level. It’s not a transactional relationship. We have received a lot of feedback that it really supports the users to connect strongly with both themselves and others. The digital tool supports their own personal development as well as team development and orientation of culture.

How did KeenEthics perform from a project management standpoint?

If we need to make changes, they’ve been really responsive to that. We work in a scrum methodology. We have daily check-ins through video. We have sprint startups also by video. We also use Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve been able to continue working with some of the developers we had from the start. That is a strength of theirs.

They always strive to create value long term and deliver within all sprints. Also they have been able to connect us with other partner companies when suitable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re constantly thinking about how we can make it to where their developers feel they are part of KeenEthics as well as ours. When it comes to that partnership level, that’s something we continue to strengthen.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re reviewing different possible suppliers, I really recommend testing each of the suppliers on different levels - both in terms of delivering on the "how" of building a robust and user friendly system but also being able to connect to the more strategic "why". KeenEthics is really strong in being able to handle all of those.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Director of Production at StoryTerrace — a ghostwriting platform. We connect professional writers, editors, and people who need help with writing their book. Here, a person can find a suitable writer, organize and conduct interviews with them to share ideas and discuss the contents of the future book, review the book while it’s still in progress, choose illustrations and design, and finally, have it printed and delivered to their door.

For what projects/services did your company hire KeenEthics?

KeenEthics helped us develop the web platform for StoryTerrace since the very beginning. They developed both frontend and backend of our system using the means of JavaScript.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to make a convenient and responsive platform, which would make book writing easier for every user. At the same time, we pursued security since users entrusted us with their data, and we could not afford to have these data compromised.

How did you select this vendor?

A partner of StoryTerrace recommended us to hire KeenEthics. He was very satisfied with their performance, so we decided to give it a try. I am happy to say that we did not regret this decision.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

StoryTerrace is a ghostwriting platform. A user who wants to write a book but needs help doing it selects a writer. Then, they conduct interviews to share ideas and work together on the book contents. After that, the writer works on a book and the user reviews it on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, the user can upload pictures to include them as illustration or cover. After the book contents are ready, the book is worked upon by editors and designers. Once the user is satisfied with the final result, the book is printed and delivered to their doorstep.

What was the team composition?

The team composition included 1 PM, 1 QA, and 3 full-stack JS developers from the side of KeenEthics.

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

The project is already up and running. We have successfully implemented the idea and now are busy promoting it.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

In a software partner, I value liability, trustworthiness, and transparency the most. I can say that all three are present in KeenEthics. Our work was effective, and we definitely demonstrated a great deal of progress as the project grew larger.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most valuable thing about KeenEthics is their attitude, both to partners and to employees. Our cooperation has never been stained by conflicts or mistrust. By contrast, it was very transparent, friendly, and thus, effective.

Are there any areas for improvement?

At the very beginning, we failed to grasp the bigger picture of the project. The briefing should have been more profound and careful.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a lab director for a small tech company based in the US. We create hardware and software products.

For what projects/services did your company hire Keenethics?

We engaged Keenethics to update an existing Electron app’s UI and bug reporting system. They also fixed bugs and built new features.

What were your goals for this project?

We had a roadmap of features that we wanted the updated app to include. We needed a partner to guides us through what is possible within the Electron framework.

How did you select this vendor?

We searched on Google for firms with expertise in Electron. After interviewing multiple vendors via email as well as phone and video calls, we settled on Keenethics.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Keenethics took over an existing code base. After taking the time to understand it, they improved and refactored the code. The team then built new features in response to user feedback. Key features include saving files to a user’s local machine and an automated bug and crash reporting system to improve our feedback mechanisms and how users share information with us.

What was the team composition?

We collaborated with a business development team at the kickoff; now, we work with a developer who serves as our main point of contact and a project manager who handle invoicing and long-term planning.

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

Keenethics has so far transformed our prototype into a production-ready application. They also helped us move to a more automated system of bug and crash reporting from our users.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

At the project’s start, the project management team established a toolchain for communication, task reporting, invoicing and payment, QA, and other functions. All we needed to do was log in and get started. The toolchain, as well as the developer’s consistent and direct communication, work effectively; we rarely need to bring in the project manager.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Keenethics is highly flexible. They worked with us even when we lacked a complete budget and timeline for the project at first. When a change in developers occurred, they oversaw a seamless transition. The developers we have worked with complete tasks quickly without sacrificing quality. They get to work on features as soon as they process our requests, and they remind us when features are ready for QA that we may have forgotten about, showing both initiative and diligence in completing this project. Overall, the team is highly professional; they communicate clearly and produce high-quality code.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the COO and co-founder of WorldLabs. It is a one-stop collaboration platform that simplifies how organizations engage with their members, while simultaneously tapping into a global community of innovators.

For what projects/services did your company hire Keenethics?

We are creating a comprehensive web platform with limited resources, so we needed to rely on a highly efficient yet small team.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a platform with quality code that is reliable and scalable with the specs we defined.

How did you select this vendor?

Keenethics completed our trial period. They were ideal as a software development partner, giving us the additional resources we needed.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Keenethics provides software development and QA services.

What was the team composition?

Their team includes a project manager, various developers, and a QA tester.

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

Keenethics is instrumental in the development and launch of our project providing all the resources we need.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Their dedicated project manager makes sure that all tasks are efficiently coordinated. The communication runs smoothly between our companies.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Keenethics delivers the required tasks within the time frame and at high quality. Their expertise in software development and their dedication to our company has helped WorldLabs launch a fully functional product. Keenethics’ cost-effective and hands-on approach was an integral part of our early growth.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

There’s nothing to mention at this point.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technical lead at Isapiens srl, an e-learning company. We provide services to corporations in Italy.

What challenge were you trying to address with Keenethics?

Our one-developer team needed extra resources to meet three deadlines for building a software application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a partially-developed application that collected information from a learning management system and displayed it in a dashboard for clients to read, modify, and extract reports from. Before Keenethics became involved, the app had back- and frontend basis, a small dashboard, and a project page. Keenethics added more features and pages. They built and helped launch a training progress page that shows each student’s progress and a general overview of Italy’s geographical regions. They also implemented a system to track how each administrator creates or modifies information.

Keenethics developed the application in Node.js. The backend—built on Express.js—functions as an API and is completed divided from the frontend—built on Angular.js 5. The app uses modules such as Passport.js for authentication among other functions.

What is the team composition?

We worked primarily with 2–3 developers depending on the project’s needs.

How did you come to work with Keenethics?

We found them by posting a job offer on Upwork. We narrowed 50–60 proposals down to four companies. Keenethics was close to our time zone, and their team of developers and project managers provided valuable insights into how the project should continue.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $24,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August–October 2018.

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

The Keenethics team performed well alongside our internal team. Their intermediate developers produced high-quality code and efficient scripts that emphasized the app’s performance.

How did Keenethics perform from a project management standpoint?

The team was highly accessible and responded to any inquiries within 30 minutes. We communicated and held meetings via Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Keenethics accommodated two weeks of 10–12-hour days to help us meet our strict deadlines. They truly invested themselves in the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They write clear code, but it could use more comments.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Because I had a technical background, I interfaced directly with developers rather than with the project manager. Keenethics made the process simple for me, but their project managers are excellent if you prefer a more traditional approach.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a founder of BankerAdvisor, which is a website and ratings platform aimed at the investment banking and banking industries that is in many ways similar to Clutch. We hope to be live within the next 30 days.

What challenge were you trying to address with KeenEthics?

I hired KeenEthics to create the platform that would function as the core part of our business. My background is in finance, and although I understood the company I wanted to build and the type of website and application I wanted, we needed additional technical resources.

What was the scope of their involvement?

BankerAdvisor is intended to be a comprehensive directory and review application for learning about investment banking and merger and acquisition advisory firms. At the beginning, I provided KeenEthics with a detailed specifications document from which they then worked. They managed the user interface design and branding, as well as the app development. One vital feature that we requested specifically was a multi-varied search capability, which needed to include the use of tags for industry sector experiences and the nature of services for search refining purposes. We also wanted a way to provide prioritization for premium app registrants versus basic registrants in the database. They did their work using Node.js on the backend and JavaScript and HTML5 on the frontend.

The project is not yet finished, although phase one is close to being complete. I have already written the specification document for phase two, to which I have added commercial banking and investment management to the initial minimum viable offering. The plan is to slowly expand our range of offerings as our user base grows, so we are currently planning ahead, and I intend to keep KeenEthics on board for this further work.

What is the team composition?

Our primary code team involved three people—Yura G., our primary full stack developer; Alina K.; and Vlad O.—and our UI team involved at least two designers at any given time.

How did you come to work with KeenEthics?

When I was ready to begin the project, I conducted a series of interviews with development shops and found the KeenEthics team. Since I did not want to deal with fielding responses from a wide variety of firms, I emailed them directly to ask if they had the requisite skills for which I had been searching. KeenEthics fit the skillset in the particular technology stack I wanted.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we have invested US$30,000, but we plan on spending another US$10,000-20,000 depending on the progress of phase two.

What is the status of this engagement?

We engaged their services in May of 2017 and the work is ongoing.

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

Since the project is not yet finished, we do not have any concrete metrics to demonstrate the impact. However, I am very pleased with both the site and the app’s functionality.

How did KeenEthics perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed extremely well in terms of communication and working with the project manager on invoicing and understanding changes as the work progressed. From my perspective, they did an excellent job of setting expectations. I was often to blame for scope expansion, and how they adjusted and responded to the changes was excellent. We communicated primarily through email correspondence, although we also used Skype for video conferencing and Google Docs. Our regular work schedule involved weekly appointments to touch base with KeenEthics, and in between they were very responsive through both email and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I found their sophistication on technology and keen business judgment particularly impressive, especially for a younger organization. The code itself has been very reliable, tight, and reflective of their knowledge of the technology stack and of coding best practices. They have been patient working with a non-product manager who is a domain expert but not a product management or product design expert. Additionally, their command of the English language truly blew me away. The language difference has been a complete non-issue in working with KeenEthics.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are fairly understated in their skills versus their profile. Since I believe that this firm is going to grow, my recommendation to them would be to get the word out about themselves more effectively.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Writing a detailed specification about a project and boiling down precisely what you do will make it a lot easier for the development team and project manager to understand what your goals are for the collaboration.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief technology officer (CTO) at a technology consulting and strategy firm. We develop custom software and implement custom solutions for our clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Keenethics?

We were looking for supplemental additional resources in the MeteorJS framework, which is a JavaScript web application framework.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Keenethics helped integrate Stripe, a payment processing application. Stripe was integrated to one of our applications that we were building to allow for customers to subscribe to paid software. They helped implement that functionality within our application

The technologies that Keenethics used were primarily MeatorJS, HTML, and CSS. There was also NodeJS and MongoDB. 

What is the team dynamic?

I’ve interacted with a total of three individuals.

How did you come to work with Keenethics?

We found Keenethics through a third-party freelancer network. We were considering three companies in total before deciding on going with Keenethics.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $10,000 to $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been working with Keenethics for off and on for just about a year. We started working August 2016 and the project was finished February 2017.

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

The quality of work was good. We relied on Keenethics to make sure that we were able to meet some of our tighter schedules. They were able to complete things on time and on budget which was good. The proficiency and skills that Keenethics has were good. I was overall pleased with everything that they did.

How did Keenethics perform from a project management standpoint?

It wasn’t really a complex large project that required heavy project management. We were able to give them the requirements and they were able to manage communication back to us. Any necessary follow-ups were completed using e-mail and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

For an offshore resource, they were very friendly and personable. They did a nice job of taking interest and ownership of the work that they did. They also provided additional support when we have a few issues. Overall, Keenethics’ personal touch was a highlight for me.