Kodius

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an executive of a fertility company. We're building products to help couples prepare to conceive.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kodius?

We were launching our first digital product and needed help with scoping the project and building the product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Kodius has built a landing page and a web-based digital product for us. The first stage of our engagement was developing the UI/UX for the landing page. From there, they moved to designing it and then developing it. 

After they finished the landing page, we moved through the same process for the web app. They used Ruby on Rails for the backend development. For the design work, we had done branding with a separate agency, so we had a logo, color scheme, and most of the iconography. The Kodius design team implemented the branding in the designs. 

The platform is for ordering lab tests and receiving the results. Users can log in, select their test panel and check out. Then, they have their blood drawn at a local lab. Once the test has been processed, users receive an alert and an overview of their results. Users can also schedule a follow-up call through the web app to speak with an educator about their results if they want to. Currently, Kodius provides maintenance for us. 

What is the team composition?

We've worked with two people on the design front, a senior developer and a mid-level developer. 

How did you come to work with Kodius?

We found them through a referral by another entrepreneur. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Kodius has been incredibly efficient in getting work done. They've been able to overdeliver for the price point and the time and capital invested compared to many of the other providers I spoke with. Their value for money is excellent. 

In terms of maintenance, they've been fantastic and incredibly responsive to all the little things that come up as we've put our product out into the world. They usually respond and fix errors within a few hours. Kodius has been a fantastic partner. 

How did Kodius perform from a project management standpoint?

They've done fairly well at project management. Although they've stayed on budget, they went a little over time in the delivery of the app. However, the delay was more a function of them integrating with other partners and working with their timelines.

We use Google Docs for document exchanges and Jira to track changes. For communication, we use email, Slack, and Zoom. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Kodius takes an incredible amount of pride in their work. They're detail-oriented, thorough, and passionate about what they do. The team is highly responsive to feedback and delivers a phenomenal product at a very reasonable price. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve in having more communication on the project management front, updating the status as the project progresses. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

First of all, absolutely hire Kodius! I would advise you to come to them with a very clear picture of what you're looking for. Ask for their advice on what should be included in the project based on their expertise, like phasing and staging. For us, they've been great executors but also partners in thinking about how to stage and roll out our product. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a digital health company called Forfend.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kodius?

We hired them to develop our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve provided Kodius with designs, and they've developed our website and a custom patient onboarding application. They’ve built out our website’s consumer-facing home page, landing page, and "about" page.

What is the team composition?

I’ve dealt with two lead developers, and they coordinate with the rest of their team. 

How did you come to work with Kodius?

A former client recommended them to me.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Kodius in October 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Our site has successfully launched, and their work has been really great.

How did Kodius perform from a project management standpoint?

Kodius’s project management has been excellent. They’re super responsive via Zoom and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Kodius’s team has really great technical acumen, and they’re very fast developers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No areas for improvement come to mind.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Business Development Lead. Our company does Consulting work for clients based in US.

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

We had difficulties with unprofessional development companies, due to the specific needs of our business and activity we have. As a result we hired Kodius team to modify and develop new features in the system, custom solutions to help us handle all the requests.

This has helped us to have a better experience with the system, and Kodius has been readily to assist us with all the requests in a timely and professional manner. We're still in an ongoing cooperation, but looking forward to last.

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

We found Kodius through a referral, and because project was such a priority we acted fast and that has turned around very well indeed.

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

They modified and added new features to a currently built up software. I am not sure of the technology they used but everything is going smoothly so far.

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

There are four team members of Kodius we work with. Two of them are only handling the high level managing/accounting tasks, and two other members handling our direct development needs.

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

The project is still outgoing, but so far all the features were delivered in time.

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

The communication overall is good, especially with the two team members handling the development (Our thanks go to Marko and Matija).

They always respond to our needs, and are never late with meeting, deadlines or anything such. Whereas, management has its contradictions, which can always be improved by being open, cooperative and understandable.

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

The development team really cares about what you want and tries their best to understand your needs and act upon your best interest. Very helpful in finding new ways/ideas of improving the experience with the software.

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

Since the quality of work is great so far, don't really have something in particular to share here. However, what they could have done differently is have a Project coordinator handle the requests, complains, appraisals, reviews overall, instead of Upper Management dealing with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a personal shopping platform for luxury children’s clothing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kodius?

We needed to understand how to refactor our platform without disrupting the business operations. We’d been working with another tech company to develop an MVP, but as we scaled, we needed a higher caliber of engineers to restructure the platform, which was custom-built. In summary, they inherited some bad code.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, Kodius evaluated the code and helped us develop a game plan on how to refactor different aspects of the platform without disrupting operations. They’ve been working on that for the past eight months, refactoring the platform from scratch.

The platform is a proprietary operating system that enables us to carry and ship products to customers throughout the US. Customers can shop from home and return whatever they don’t want to keep — it involves not only an operational structure but also a styling platform, which is also tech-enabled and proprietary.

Additionally, Kodius has helped integrate Klaviyo, change our payment processor from Braintree to Stripe, and refactor the integration with MailChimp, which wasn’t functional.

What is the team composition?

We work with Matija (CTO) and have a team of three developers with different seniority.

How did you come to work with Kodius?

We researched extensively and found them on a website that qualifies top international development firms. Afterward, we went through an interview process with several firms, but they were the best by far.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began our relationship in April 2021, and we’re still working together.

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

Our site speed went from 11 seconds to under 1.3, and the inventory inaccuracy of the platform decreased from 40% to between 10%–15%.

How did Kodius perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent communicators, and the team is transparent about the process. Also, they’re highly flexible with product management tools; they’ve adapted to whatever works best for our team, which is Trello. Overall, we’re happy with their ability to deliver.

We do standup Zoom calls and communicate regularly via Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

First, their strength in communication is outstanding. Also, their ability to work with what we had was vital for us. Third, their creative thinking and problem-solving skills are excellent. However, in general, I’d say that they’re true partners. We feel that their stake in our business is the same as ours, and that’s hard to find with third-party companies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re fantastic partners. We look forward to growing our business with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As with any business partner, be clear on expectations and timelines. Also, make sure there's a thorough audit of the work before engaging with them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Senior Director of Product and Engineering overseeing User Experience at Even Financial. We're the leading search engine for financial services, offering high quality financial product search APIs and embedded finance marketplaces that are used across publishing, financial services and other marketing sectors. 

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

Kodius was hired to augment our development resources and make us more flexible in adding new resources while being able to handle our business demands with as few hiccups as possible. Their work stretches across a couple of our tools - Fiona, Control Center, Birch and a couple of other smaller offerings.

The initial goal we had for the team was to do a migration of our Birch platform to a new third party tool. Later on the team also began working on Fiona, a disruptive fintech service that streamlines the loan process and aggregates the best terms for its end users. Some of the team's design also work on Control Center which is an internal tool for handling Even Financial's B2B.

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

We scouted the top firms in Croatia and narrowed it down to about 80. After holding meetings we decided on Kodius since they offered a wide range of technology which can help solve all our goals. We liked that all of their employees were on long term contracts in comparison to companies who hire freelancers for a short period of time.

Their idea of offering additional education on the cost of the firm showed their care for their employees. Lastly, when meeting them I simply liked their personalities and the way they did their business.

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

They provided full stack development services as well as design services, ranging from TypeScript, Java, Android, and various others.

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

The team consists of five people, four developers and one designer.

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

The project has allowed us to to scale the associated projects' revenue by 3x over two years of the pandemic, and sustained growth since. 

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

We operate on a project basis where things are  adaptive - when new requirements and ideas popped up, the team adapted to them quickly.I'm the primary stakeholder for these projects and so I consolidate requirements and am able to work with them on a daily/weekly basis. 

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

They are proactive and like to try out new stuff and outside of their comfort zone. They are very goal-oriented and they definitely get the job done. 

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

None.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a development manager. Our company is a startup with 30 employees.

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

Our company is building a significant SaaS application with Kodius.

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

We decided on Kodius due to their professionalism, communication and ability to work independently.

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

Kodius are handling multiple modules that comprise the software we are building, using primarily React, .Net Core, SQL server, and Azure services.

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

We work closely with several individuals doing development, UX, UI and BA roles

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

We have developed 3 modules so far in the project, each roughly a 7-8 week size development. We are very happy with the delivery of these so far.

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

The management style is informal and friendly, but very delivery focused. We collaborate mainly via Teams, Jira.

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

This company has been unique in their ability to work closely with our designers and operate very similar to an in house team in terms of communication and alignment.

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

We continually strive to improve all aspects in collaboration with Kodius, but are very happy with performance so far.

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.

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

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.