Kodius

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Optilogic Design Studio is a cloud-based platform that enables operations research and data science professionals to collaborate on the cloud, power applications, and model at light-speed. I am the Product Owner for our Design applications.

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

Our real challenge was recruiting top development talent and building an in-house team to meet ambitious delivery timescales, so we looked for a long-term partner with both UX design and product development capabilities that could scale and grow with us.

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

We carried out a detailed evaluation of several short-listed companies after some initial research. Each company was given a funded evaluation project, where we deliberately provided limited detail on the requirements. We were looking for a true development partner that would ask 1000 questions, challenge our thinking/paradigms and bring their own inspiration/value to the deliverable.

Kodius where the only vendor that absolutely stood out on this front. Their ambitious, entrepreneurial culture was a great fit with ours and working together was fun (such an important criteria for success). It was a very clear decision to make Kodius our long term development partner for the years of innovation we have ahead of us.

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

This is a long-term product development journey, so we had multiple remote and on-site workshops to transfer knowledge and align on the “big picture” not just the detail. Kodius want to understand our customers and the business challenges, not just “what we need them to develop”. They challenged our thinking and made design suggestions that really helped us improve our overall product design.

The scope of the work is varied depending upon the Epic, we have built management screens, APIs, visual builders and also back-end infrastructure with our DevOps team. Kodius are able to handle a broad range of requirements. For each Epic their UX/UI designers mocked up both high and low fidelity wireframes. Once the UI designs and business analysis were completed as a collaborative process, we pretty much hand multiple weeks of work off to the team who take ownership of the deliverable.

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

We work closely with the CEO and COO that take time to keep aligned with our vision. Their COO is our key contact who takes full ownership but critically we work across the Kodius team with UI designers, developers and QA testers as required.

This is really important to us, you can’t tell the Optilogic and Kodius people when you walk in the room, we are a cohesive team. Currently there are 4 developers, 2 designers and share QA resource working on the project and this is expected to increase.

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

Kodius have successfully delivered multiple Epics on time and to specification. This is enabling us to engage with early adopter customers who are excited and providing great feedback on the progress we are making.

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

We follow an agile methodology; we have multiple stand ups per week with a Friday demo. Different members of the team present and demo depending upon who has worked on what. Critically the Kodius team will pro-actively raise anything that comes up during a sprint.

This has enabled us to head off any major rework or delays by dealing with any unforeseen challenges immediately as they arise. We use Jira, Bitbucket and Teams for collaboration.

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

The level of partnership. The entire team continually strive to bring value to what they are doing by truly understanding our vision and our customers, not “what we need them to develop”. This is what set Kodius apart from all the other vendors during the evaluation and it seems to be part of their DNA!

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

I think we collectively under-estimated QA resource requirements during our first development cycle. This was something we positively explored in retros and Kodius were able to secure the QA resource required going forward.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I have several companies. I’m the CEO and founder of Music Supervisor and We Get Music, the latter being a new project that we’re working on.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kodius?

It was an emergency situation. We’ve been around since 2005 and our platform was built on Ruby on Rails. When Rails did an update and took our whole site down due to no longer being able to support it, we contacted the programmer who had originally built our platform. He was busy with his new job, however, and couldn’t accommodate us, so he found Kodius to help us instead.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kodius came in to address our emergency situation. Our core functionality enables us to do licensing of music for film and TV, so having the site down was not an option. Kodius took the code and updated the entire system, which, for its scale, was not so simple. The team did testing on the weekends, and I was up in the middle of the night with Kresimir (CEO) going over everything. 

Once everything was finally operational again, we set up a plan where they would be our de facto maintenance team. Now, they conduct updates, fix bugs, and add a lot of new functionalities to the backend. We’re currently working on integrating a podcast into the site as well as some other cutting-edge features, like a custom payment solution. We’re also looking to enlist their help in building a music search engine for Music Supervisor. 

What is the team composition?

It’s a small group with some people drifting in and out. We currently have 4–5 members on board but we’re really interacting with only two people. The team will grow as we begin to work on the new project. 

How did you come to work with Kodius?

We were looking for agencies that could help us with the Rails update. We had several options and talked to all of them, but we hit it off really well with Kodius. They seemed like a good fit for us, and they knew how to work with what we’ve already got as opposed to rebuilding everything from scratch just to jack up their paycheck, so we hired them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested an amount within the $25,000–$30,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2019 and we still have them onboard.

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

Kodius helping us get the site back up and running, and as quickly as possible, is the biggest impact of this engagement. It doesn’t get any bigger than that. In addition to that, Kodius has also helped us plan out a complete site rebuild while keeping some of the broken pieces together in the meantime. 

How did Kodius perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly scrum calls with the tech team via Zoom, and there’s also a constant exchange of emails between us. We also meet once a week with the bug testing group to go over reports, fixes, and everything else. There have been instances where we've had to jump on a call to better communicate certain aspects of the project, such as the design. 

We have a Google Drive where we compile all the features that we want for the MVP that we're launching. Kodius has been receptive on that front especially since we are working on a tight timeline, what with the events and festivals we have lined up. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m really impressed with the level of service. Kresimir shares my sentiment that nobody is too big to get their hands dirty when there’s an emergency. 

There has been an instance where my client ended up paying me late, so I ended up paying Kodius late as well. They’ve been really cool and amenable about that, which is one of the reasons they’re so great to work with.

On top of that, their English is impeccable; the fact that we can joke around means that they’re really proficient in it. I would recommend Kodius to anybody, regardless of the team’s location.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really. I think they do a great job. They're offering this new service, so I think they're growing and expanding just as they should. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you can articulate your needs. The good thing about working with Kodius is that they're comfortable with doing a piece or taking over the whole thing. You never get the impression that they want the whole gig or nothing at all. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a company which is one of the longest tenured yacht chartering compaines on the market.

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

The development of our business required significant changes to specific pages of our website (landing page and product search) both from UX and technical (indexing and backend rendering) perspective.

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

We were looking for a vendor which is well respeced and experienced in Vue.js and to which we could quickly transfer the complex requirements and structure of our existing system.

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

After a kick-off meeting we shared a detailed system specification to to Kodius and asked them to give us a SoW for the UX changes to the website main landing page (Vue.js, .Net framework and MSSQL). After getting their input we decided to go forward with the project and finished that part by the end of October 2020. When the changes were pushed live in late November (due to testing on our end) we started working on the SoW and a contract for backend rednering, indexing and UX changes. We had the Sprints defined during December and the work started Jaunuary 14th. The work was finished in 2 sprints by mid-March and expanded on with additional functionalities which were pushed live May 6th.

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

The vendor had a Project manager, frontend and two backend developers involved.

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

After the launch of the final segment of the product, we saw a 50% increase in our lead generation and significant (200%) increase to the number of pages indexed on Google.

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

We had weekly status reports and communicated through Mattermost.

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

Their ability to adapt to a high-paced market and technology demands was the most impressive thing about them.

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

We are currently completely satisfied with their output.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tim Novak d.o.o. is a family company that offers our customers a wide selection of top-notch quality products, including carefully selected bathroom equipment, hundreds of types of ceramic and gres tiles, a top wellness program and the most reliable modern installation materials. I am the director at Tim Novak

For what projects/services did your company hire Kodius?

The main pain and cause of headaches was the outdated and slow website.Our primary goal was to have someone redesign, enrich and optimize our existing web presence.

Our website servers as a sort of reference catalog for our customers meaning they can find details about our offerings/products - the equipment we sell/provide, the various brands we have at our disposal, etc.,

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

Through a recommendation and personal friend .

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Kodius did a detailed analysis of the current web presence so as to identify our main pain points and define viable solutions and goals. Their proposal included using an open data platform CMS (Directus) for managing our content ourselves (something we had not been doing before).

This meant we could also do small fixes, as well as updates and content additions on our own. After confirmation of the new design the Kodius team jumped onto the development phase. They set up a staging/testing environment where we had access to the content management, set up the entire infrastructure for the new project and handled all the devops on their own as well domain management and such.

The site is hosted by Kodius's own in-house cloud.

How many resources from the Kodius team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We communicated mostly with the Project manager, and in some cases with the CEO. They even came to our office, maintained active communication and shared all updates. At the beginning of the project, we spoke with their designer and lead developer about the technical aspect of our cooperation.

Apart from that, I believe there were about 3 other developers as well.

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

The new website is significantly faster and more performant than the old one. It’s almost impossible not to notice it. It is entirely custom and tailored to our needs but at the same time offers us full flexibility in changing/updating and adding content with an easy-to-use interface.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were like an open book from the very start. At the beginning of the project, they shared the timeline and adhered to it. They pinged us for material and content very often.

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

The main communication channel was directly via cellphone and email so as to prevent any miscommunication. They were a small team working, but they work as one.

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

Stay proffesional like this

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of talent at a software development and digital agency in Croatia. We provide services to over 20 countries around the world and have around 180 people working on different projects. We cover most of the contemporary technologies for web and mobile development as well as UI/UX design. Additionally, we work on VR/AR and other projects.

I’m part of the larger HR team and my focus is attracting the best talent in Croatia to our company. I’m also an account manager for some of our projects, in terms of client communication and project management, especially for dedicated teams.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kodius?

One of our clients was looking for Ruby on Rails development, which isn’t a very popular technology and has limited resources. The client was a big fintech company looking to establish a team in Croatia, and they wanted a large number of developers. I contacted Kodius to see if they were interested and had available resources for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kodius offered us one of their developers to work as part of our team. Their developer was one of the first members of our team, so his role was important in helping us prove that we could build an even bigger team for the client. He went through an initial interview process with the client.

What is the team composition?

Kodius gave us one developer.

How did you come to work with Kodius?

I knew Kresimir (CEO) and was aware that Kodius was proficient in the technology stack that our client was looking for.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost was around $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Kodius from February 2019–January 2020.

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

We were extremely happy with what they did. Their engagement was crucial for us to build a good relationship with the client. We demonstrated that we were capable of delivering what they were asking for. Their developer was one of the cornerstones of the expanding team. Based on the work that he and the other developers did, we were able to gain some trust from the client. We got the green light to ramp up the team.

Had we not done well in the beginning, we most likely wouldn’t have been able to grow the team. We’re working with the client still, and we’re really happy that they joined us.

How did Kodius perform from a project management standpoint?

We weren’t too involved in this part of the project. It was all done by our client. We worked in a typical dedicated team fashion, where we provided the resources and the client used their own methodology. They had a scrum master on their side, who assigned the daily tasks to our team.

Our obligation was to take care of all the logistics and speak to the people and make sure they were happy. Otherwise, from the point of view of the project itself, it was all the client’s responsibility. We weren’t involved in project management as much as we usually are.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Not that there weren’t exceptional things, but I’m not a technical person so I can’t speak from this point of view. Kodius was proactive and punctual. They answered all the demands from our end, were never late, and got along great with the rest of the team. There’s nothing bad that I could say about them or what they did. The feedback we received from the client was always good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything right now.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They’re really doing well when it comes to Ruby on Rails development. They have significant experience working with international clients. Kodius worked across different time zones and didn’t have problems with that either.

Ruby on Rails is a rare technology and there aren’t that many companies and individuals covering it. If the client is looking for this expertise, I’d really recommend Kodius.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am VP of Sales and Partnerships, in charge of all client and partner facing comms and engagement.

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

Our existing website was not as well designed as it could be, lacked certain functions that we need to manage our pipeline, track conversions, and scale our business with better connectivity as well as better tracking of key metrics.

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

We interviewed 4 different web development firms, went through the process of defining the scope and getting estimates. Kodius came out on top because they were swift, engaged, and sought to understand the problem fully before they proposed a solution.

Kodius came in with their project manager and designer and were able to take my verbal and written high level instructions and turn out a beautiful new website. They gained such a good understanding of our business that they were able to make great suggestions. I felt they took ownership over the project, and delivered excellent results.

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

• Analysis of current web presence
• Defining problems, solutions, and goals
• Estimating time for design + development
• Establishing a fixed price for the first version and hosting as well as an SLA for ongoing support and maintenance.

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

We communicated and worked with 3 primary contacts; an executive, a project manager, and a designer. Others were involved behind the scenes for the development work.

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

We were thoroughly impressed by Kodius' work, from ideation to creation, and the feedback that they provided from their position of subject matter expertise was very helpful in bringing the new site across the finish line.

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

By frontloading so much work in the scope-defining stage, we were able to let Kodius work independently, although they were highly communicative when edge cases came up, or when some new information might be relevant to our decisions. We synced up weekly where they reported progress, received approval, and took some basic change requests.

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

I was so impressed at their ability to understand our rather unique and niche business to the effect that they were able to give us support on the design and communications side of things, and not simply on development.

They were very responsive and everything we asked for was

1. first determined to be possible and desirable; and
2. well executed

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

I feel like they knocked this one out of the park. No complaints.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a digital products agency, specialized in building exceptional apps and platforms. I'm in the role of COO.

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

An important customer had a new project lined up for us, but we didn't have enough resources internally at the time, so we decided to seek outside assistance to handle the back-end part of the development (as our internal backend teams were fully booked), whereas we kept the front-end part of it internal.

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

Through the previous connection with our CTO. In the beginning, we went through the probation phase for the concept build. Then a 6 - month contract for the first MVP during which the main functionalities were implemented as a precondition for further development. That was enough for us to continue our cooperation.

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

Kodius built a platform consisting of a swath of API integrations, optimized for response time and heavy load. They managed to consolidate variously configurable on third-party platforms into a single, easy-to-use interface from where one can dictate a complete marketing strategy within just a couple of clicks.

Additionally, the platform also has a robust payment and billing system (with extra functionality such as the ability to credit/debit or give coupons to various clients at the admin's whims). The platform also includes smart priority queueing, and they built a secure and safe authentication system into it as well with all PII concerns in mind.

The two-way marketing integrations also required great care during the architectural phase so the various metrics, settings, and other data that are being processed and audited can be displayed and further used for analytic purposes.

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

At its peak, we worked with 4 people from Kodius -- who did backend development, with our internal team doing the frontend development part. Additionally, project management was split between both sides.

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

The project was finished in the planned time, with all the features delivered, and released for internal testing as MVP, which met the client's expectations. The work on the project is moving forward, including more features and integrations, and is planned to be released to production this year.

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

We cooperate in an agile way. We communicate on a daily basis through standup meetings and reports. Kodius works very closely with our team. With every facet of the project, there’s communication and agreement first. The communication is absolutely exemplary.

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

We are most impressed with the communication and the commitment to deliver. They are always available for us and even worked overtime when the need arose. I can truly say that the word “No” doesn’t exist in their vocabulary, except as part of the phrase "no problem".

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

Nothing bad in particular, we haven't experienced any major issues, just minor things that are part of regular software development and management cycles. Any issue that popped out was resolved in a short time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager of Worcon. We’re a software development agency that also offers a magazine with blog posts about machine tools. We have multiple products. Worcon is a B2B platform that has buyers and suppliers. The buyer has the demand to produce something in industrial machinery. Suppliers are companies who provide that work.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kodius?

Initially, our company didn’t have many developers or experienced developers who could build the app from scratch. We wanted Kodius to develop our web application from scratch.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We utilized Kodius to build the whole architecture of the application. Then, we extended that project to the backend and frontend. Kodius utilized a new stack. On the backend, they used Node.js and NestJS. On the frontend, we used ReactJS. For the database, we used PL/SQL. The solution is on AWS, so it's cloud-based.

We had Kodius give us the architecture so we can bring in our developers. That means our two teams worked together in building the app. We worked on a biweekly basis to give them new requirements. The app is a small project management tool to run small CNC shops.

What is the team composition?

To begin, we had a team of five comprising three developers — one backend and one frontend —as well as a designer.

How did you come to work with Kodius?

They were recommended to us by an external partner. We selected them because we liked their approach. They were the best offer financially, but that wasn’t the biggest reason we chose them. They were the best fit because of their expertise and willingness to work with our internal team members.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around $68,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was from June–October 2020.

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

They did a great job of managing the design, UX, and storylines. It wasn’t the whole product, it’s a project management tool. I was surprised and amazed while working with them because they really caught on quickly, and it was agile. Everything went really well. We were amazed by what they did in the end.

How did Kodius perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was great. Their team delivered on time. They utilized an agile approach as well as Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overall, it was a great experience. I thought it’d be worse than it was but it was really refreshing. There was a lot of success. We changed the scope and initial designs, so the price was 5–10% more than what we originally thought.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our junior project manager could have been a little bit better. We gave them the go-ahead to run everything, but we wanted to be involved. We learned something from them, and their project manager probably learned something from us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try them. We got a quote within 24 hours of contacting them. I’d recommend them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and president of Active Citizens, a nonprofit with mainly social worker students and young professionals as members of my organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kodius?

We wanted to raise awareness of social issues. We already had a website, but it was very old and we needed something new. We wanted people to be able to reach us easily and we needed it to be very visual for users.

It was important for us to find more young people who are looking to make changes in their communities. It’s also crucial for us to give students and members a concrete experience about how the labor market will be and how we can help people with special needs, in addition to helping social issues like homelessness, mental illness, and others. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had an initial call with them and, in this meeting, the main goal was to get to know each other. We gave them an overview of the organization, and what our mission and goals were for this redesign. After that, they set up a strategy around our needs and introduced it to their developers and their designers.  

From there, Kodius designed and developed our websites — they did everything for us. After a bit of time, we received some mockups and high-fidelity wireframes of pages, which were incredibly easy to understand. 

The next step was the actual design along with screenshots, which were immediately approved. Then, the development team took over the build of the website very quickly and completed it. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with the project manager. Also, I communicated with their CTO, a designer, and a developer.

How did you come to work with Kodius?

I met their CTO a few months ago and I told him about my organization. From there, they offered to help us.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement ran from September–November 2020.

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

I’m amazed by our new website they created — it’s everything we needed. I measured the success of the website by showing it to our members — members are the heart of this organization and they all really loved the website. The website is newly online, so I don’t have results yet aside from those positive opinions.

We feel more confident about sharing our website now and we’re very fond of the visual aspect of it. The site better represents our agency — some of our members already decided to post about our work. Kodius was really trendy in their work and updating content has become a breeze for us. 

How did Kodius perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager listened and adapted to meet our needs. She always communicated the timeline and expectations — I always knew what they were doing and what to expect.

She also provided quality service and brought in their development team whenever something required a technical explanation. Since I’m a social worker and didn’t know anything about technology, I had a lot of questions. Additionally, the whole project was quickly finished. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were a very hardworking team. The small team that worked with me was so responsive — I could call or email them at any point. They were easygoing and I didn’t have any fear of asking questions. It was very easy to build trust with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I’d have them improve — they were absolutely stunning. I have a little experience with developers and designers and this was something new for me; everything went smoothly and the cooperation was great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be as open as possible and build trust. Any issues should be mentioned so that the developers can understand the scope, which was very beneficial for us.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Owner of the studio providing space/rental and also creative team for photo and video content production

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

Website for representing Studio in a modern, visible and user friendly manner and, also, to show the whole spectrum of services we offer as a Studio

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

Previous work with Kodius web designer which continued through project of Kodius and Hangar studio

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

We had numerous meetings regarding our goals, design and specific needs related to visual media industry. After each step, there was a mock up presentation of a several versions to choose the further direction in design and functionality, highly respecting any comment and desire i presented them until the final product

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

A project manager, technical supervisor and a coding team

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

It added to our credibility on the market, saved us many correspondence with the clients making it easier to present the whole services we offer together with all the possible options

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

After the initial meeting in which we defined our needs and the industry specifics, Kodius made a research how to position us on the local marked, scanned through the competition and came to us with the optimal direction of both design and some aspects of our business we should communicate online to our clients

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

They put an extra effort not only to make website out a content we provided them, but they proposed some extra features and content which would be beneficial for our business

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

Not that I can think of