KOIA

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Dealflow, an equity crowdfunding platform that operates in Norway. We issue shares for early-stage companies and allow everyone to become an investor in them.

What challenge were you trying to address with KOIA?

We hired KOIA for their custom software development services.

What was the scope of their involvement?

KOIA has been with us from the start and helped us build our plattform for equity crowdfunding. This includes full functionality for presenting a company raising funds, and for investors to make an investment digitally. This is a regulated business and the plattform needs to be in compliance with regulations at all times. 

They’ve delivered a custom software platform with an e-sign solution from scratch using Angular and JavaScript. It’s a self-publishing tool for companies raising money. Businesses can use it to issue shares and allow people to become investors seamlessly in a fully digital way. 

Moreover, KOIA has written a campaign landing page for us. This is the first thing that customers see when they log in to the platform. They’ve also created a secondhand market platform; we’re going to release a new version of it soon.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is Karol (CEO). Apart from him, we work with a full stack developer. 

How did you come to work with KOIA?

We knew Karol from before and chose KOIA because they’d been proven to be better than others. We considered doing things in-house, but they delivered everything so well that we decided to continue engaging with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $50,000–$200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration started in April 2022, and it’s ongoing. 

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

Our experience with KOIA has been great. They’ve delivered good solutions without many errors in them. The team looks for optimal ways to solve problems. If they find a better solution than what we have today, they ask us if we want to implement such a solution. We’ve done that several times, and it’s been cost-saving and positive. 

How did KOIA perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re always available when we need them. On top of that, they’re highly efficient — they deliver tasks and meet deadlines. To communicate, we use Teams and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed by their flexibility, proactiveness, and broad range of skills. They’ve been able to help us solve many problems, and that’s what we value the most about them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could use more in-house skills to broaden their services further. That would make them more relevant for us across different services. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have clear and direct communication — understanding each other is always important. Include them in the problem-solving process. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a SaaS-company. We help customers manage shareholder registries, report such registries and we also help them with some other admin related tasks.

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

We hired KOIA to

1. Improve our overall solution and
2. Have a team that we could work closely with and integrate into our operations.

Our overall goals with that was to improve the general development process and have a shorter lead time from product request to launched product.

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

We had a working relationship with someone that now had a connection to KOIA. That made giving them a try easier. They then delivered way beyond expectation and we saw improvements being implemented whilst we were "onboarding" the team.

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

We rely on fairly independent developers that can grasp the users needs, and adjust our fairly complex products based on that. As there is a large geographical barrier between us and KOIA we need to know that the team can work with a backlog of tasks and contextualize those tasks in relation to each other.

Initially we started with a resource tasked with addressing a key feature in our application to test if he managed the most difficult parts of the application. That worked great, so we are now currently pushing new features, improvements, fixes and bugs through JIRA with irregular meetings when needed.

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

We have worked with one resource from management, a fullstack developer, a designer and a tester.

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

Our development time has been reduced by 50-60%. Our long term planning has improved (less patching, more actual fixes) and overall spend on development has been reduced.

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

The team works fairly independently. We provide epics, stories, tasks and bugs through JIRA - and communicate via slack and teams/hangouts. As the team continues to deliver on/exceed expectations we trust them to make the best decisions when it comes to development planning, as long as they are aligned with our overall priorities.

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

1. The work ethic and flexibility of the team
2. The skills The combination of those two enables us to have a lean development team that continues to outperform they budget they have to work with.

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

So far so good. We could always improve our way of working, but that is as much on our end as it is on KOIAs.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Inkassoregisteret is a fintech company that supplies a platform that makes it easier for private individuals to get an overview of their debts and unpaid bills. We are the first in Norway to offer this service. We would not have managed it without our good IT consultants in KOIA.

For what projects/services did your company hire KOIA?

The information we collect on behalf of private individuals is very sensitive, so it is very important for us to build a secure service that ensures private individuals' privacy, and we want the service to be user friendly. This and the fact that we need complicated api integrations have been decisive for us to get a good service. We have achieved this thanks to KOIA's high competence employees.

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

One of our founders has worked with KOIA in previous start-ups. He has always been very satisfied with the services they have provided. There was no doubt for us, of course we chose Kioa.

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

When a private person logs into our portal, we collect debts on behalf of that person. This is free for private individuals. Debt advisers can also subscribe to our solution and use this in their work with advice. In Norway, everyone who has a complicated debt situation is entitled to debt advice. During 2023, we will also further develop the service so that it can be used by even more people.

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

We have a great team of IT developers. There are mainly 5 people who work full-time on our project. There are mainly two frontend, two backend developers and one project manager. We have also had other resources from KOIA, but only for a shorter period if necessary.

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

We started at the beginning of 2021 and have already earned more than we predicted, in addition to the fact that we have far more users, both private individuals and debt advisers, than we had originally predicted.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We work well with KOIA. We have done that throughout the project. Communication is good and we understand each other well.

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

They have enormous experience with API integrations, Norwegian GDPR regulations and Norwegian culture. This has been decisive for building a good service.

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

We constantly face challenges, but we solve them together with Koia.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of Celsia, a software company with a sustainability management platform.

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

Hired for product development, to increase development speed and capacity.

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

We found KOIA after a recommendation through our network. KOIA seemed competent — they had execution capacity and a tidy process.

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

We worked in 2-week sprints where there were multiple frontend deliverables in each sprint.

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

We had a senior software developer working with us.

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

We achieved higher speed and were able to ship a new version of the product sooner. We could trust features to be developed swiftly and of good quality.

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

KOIA was good to communicate with and always attentive to our needs. They followed timelines and put in extra work when required.

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

Very attentive to us and ready to go the extra mile.

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

We're satisfied with the work that was done.