Labrys

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Project Tech Lead of Vana

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Vana is a distributed L1 network for private, user-owned data, designed to enable user-owned AI.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Labrys to accomplish?

• Designed the initial version of the Datahub platform.
• Created a scalable and robust architecture for the Datahub app.
• Maintained the application during its release process to ensure a smooth launch.

SOLUTION

How did you find Labrys?

Referral

Why did you select Labrys over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Labrys were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The scope of work undertaken by Labrys involved the end-to-end development of the Datahub platform, focusing on delivering a scalable and user-friendly application aligned with Vana's mission. The key deliverables included:

Platform Design and Development:

Designed and developed the initial version of the Datahub platform, including both front-end and back-end components using react, nextjs and trpc.
Implemented an intuitive user interface for seamless interaction with Data DAOs.
Ensured the platform adhered to Vana's decentralized principles and supported user ownership of data.

Release Support and Maintenance:

Provided extensive testing and quality assurance to ensure the platform was stable and free from critical issues before launch.
Delivered ongoing maintenance and support during the release process, promptly addressing any issues that arose.

Additional Contributions:

Wrote some technical documentation for the architecture.
Performed load testing for the blockchain network and the datahub app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The Datahub app was successfully launched in December, attracting millions of users and handling significant traffic seamlessly. All features were delivered on time, and the team demonstrated exceptional communication and professionalism throughout the entire process.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

We weren't happy with the project management initially, so it was handled on our side. It was good in general, but just wasn't a great fit for our rapidly changing requirements and tone of unknowns.

What was your primary form of communication with Labrys?

Virtual Meeting

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

We were highly impressed by the exceptional level of their engineers, who demonstrated extensive experience and outstanding communication skills. It’s invaluable to work with a team you can confidently delegate tasks to, knowing they will deliver on time and uphold the highest standards of quality.

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

• One of the engineers assigned to our team, though skilled, had an unusual schedule, working late nights, which made daytime communication challenging. Labrys was accommodating and quickly replaced them with someone whose schedule aligned better with ours.
• The initial project manager wasn’t the best cultural fit for our team, but Labrys handled the situation professionally, ensuring there was no negative impact on the development process.
• We’d recommend minimizing the frequency of replacing engineers we were happy with, as onboarding new team members takes time and can disrupt the workflow.

Despite these points, Labrys managed these challenges effectively, maintaining smooth project progress.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Anyoffer

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Connect home buyers and owners while saving them a lot of money.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Labrys to accomplish?

• Connect buyers and homeowners
• Save buyers and sellers a lot of money

SOLUTION

How did you find Labrys?

Online Search

Why did you select Labrys over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Labrys were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Labrys helped us create a POC from our idea of our product.  They brainstormed with us, gave us ideas, created a POC with multiple edits and delievered a final POC very quickly.    

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

At the moment we do not have any measureable outcomes due to the fact that we are still in the ideation and POC stage.  When it comes to timeline, they met all of our needs ahead of expectations.  

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Labrys managed the project really well.  We had one main contact who took our idea and ran with it.  They delieverd our POC ahead of schedule.  They responed to our needs in a timely manor and we worked together well using various communication tools for clarity and understanding.  

What was your primary form of communication with Labrys?

Virtual Meeting

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

The most impressive thing I found was their willingness to give ideas, be flexible, and meet deadlines.

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

We had a great working experience and are looking forward to working with them as we move forward.  

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Technical Development Manager of Local Pegs

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Local Pegs is a community-driven app that connects locals to businesses, offering rewards, exclusive deals, and a seamless way to support and engage with their community.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Labrys to accomplish?

• Collaborate on the development and rollout of innovative new features to enhance the platform.
• Provide ongoing support and improvements to ensure smooth and reliable operations.

SOLUTION

How did you find Labrys?

Online Search

Why did you select Labrys over others?

Relevant develpment

How many teammates from Labrys were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The project scope included extensive development, design, and implementation efforts to support the evolution of our platform. 
Key Deliverables:
Development of a Second App:
Launched a secondary app tailored for a different geographic region (Australia/US), incorporating unique branding while ensuring feature compatibility across both platforms. This included feature flagging to enable seamless configuration for market-specific functionalities.
Comprehensive UI/UX Redesign:
Delivered a fully reworked interface aimed at enhancing usability and aligning with updated branding. The redesign introduced modernized workflows and improved visual consistency to elevate the overall user experience.
New Feature Development:
Delivered a major feature-focused release introducing functionality-rich updates tailored to key user needs. Enhancements included a comprehensive rework of high-traffic touchpoints within the app, such as the homescreen, to improve usability and engagement. Introduced an in-app inbox, enabling users to receive notifications from their favorite businesses while providing businesses with additional marketing tools to connect directly with their audience.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project successfully delivered key objectives, including:

Expanded Regional Reach: Launched a second app with localized branding, tailored features, and deployment for a new geographic market.
Enhanced User Experience: Delivered a reimagined user interface, improving navigation and interaction with the app’s core features.
New Functional Capabilities: Released significant feature updates, such as an inbox for direct user-business communication, to improve engagement and marketing potential for businesses.
Platform Adaptability: Ensured flexibility by integrating market-specific functionalities, enabling seamless management of both apps within a unified system as well.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Luke has been fantastic throughout the process. While some timelines were adjusted due to shifting business priorities, he remained flexible and accommodating, ensuring that deliverables aligned with our evolving needs. His forward-thinking approach has been invaluable, particularly in developing future-proof and scalable solutions. Luke has been incredibly responsive, quick to adapt, and proactive in offering innovative ideas that aligned with both our immediate and long-term goals. Working with him has been seamless and highly positive.

What was your primary form of communication with Labrys?

Email or Messaging App

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

Labrys stands out for their ability to understand our needs and deliver tailored solutions. Their forward-thinking approach ensures that their work is adaptable and ready to support our future growth.

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

Labrys has been a fantastic partner, and any areas for improvement are minor. Overall, we're very satisfied with their work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of PxQuest, an NFT gaming company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Labrys to assist us build out our blockchain and front end infrastructure in support of our gaming ecosystem. Our goals was to work with a development partner that understood the obsessive attention to detail required of smart contract development and blockchain interfaces, given the significant financial consequences of error or compromise.

SOLUTION

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

Labrys are the largest web3 services firm in terms of onshore staff. This fact, in addition to early conversations with their technical team, helped give us confidence that we had found an outfit with development quality control processes and blockchain experience necessary for our project.

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

The scope of work included extending upon our existing Ethereum and Immutable X blockchain based ecosystem, including NFTs, gaming currencies, staking, renting and 'token breeding' mechanisms. The team delivered smart contracts for the aforementioned functionality in addition to serverless web-based interfaces for our holders, including token-gated content. The team also developed a bridge application between Unreal Engine and the Immutable X protocol, allowing in-game blockchain read and write prompts to token owners.

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

A core team of 3-4 worked with us over the course of the project, backed by additional reviewers within Labrys to ensure quality control. This team included 'full stack web3 developers', that were able to write smart contracts through to front end applications in React Native.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We achieved the development outcomes desired without critical bugs or compromise. This technology is now used to handle financial/token transactions in production-critical functions in our gaming ecosystem.

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

The team are very thorough project managers, making good use of notion and slack for communication and planning. Their development and hand-over notes were outstanding - and this sort of 'long tail' service quality is something overlooked by other vendors but critical to a healthy / sustainable product life.

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

The team brought a best-practice approach to blockchain development and testing. They have the most thorough approach to testing and peer-review I've seen of any web3 company, which is of great significance given the high cost of errors in blockchain development. Their team also introduced us to novel smart contract approaches that made otherwise prohibitively expensive blockchain functionality achievable for our users.

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

There was a small amount of deadline slippage, but this was largely a reflection of the team's mature and honest approach to development. If a piece of code had not yet gone through the proper review channels the team correctly held those releases back (quality over speed approach).

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Bitcoin services, brokerage.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Bitcoin application design, development, project management

SOLUTION

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

They understood our complex project, including our regulatory needs, business goals, and security requirements.

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

We hired the team at Labrys to build an MVP for a bitcoin exchange application. They nailed it and we came back to have them manage and develop the production version.

Their team is talented, trustworthy, and absolutely badass! James and Aidan were especially awesome to work with. The project was well organized and executed. They were able to be flexible with the many problems/solutions along the way but also matched every deadline.

After 4 months of meeting with James twice per week, and keeping up-to-date with Aidan's fast, super-hero level progress on the app, it is amazing to see it go live now! Highly recommend Lachlan and the team at Labrys for help with any application design and development.

We will surely continue working with them on more blockchain projects in the future.

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

Project manager, UI/UX designer, and lead developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They met deadlines

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

We used clubhouse for our project overview and cards, linked to a unique repo branch.

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

Their ability to understand our problem, then go and efficiently solve it is impressive.

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

They are on the expensive end of the spectrum

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of BlockTexx. We’re a clean technology company that specializes in the separation of polyester and cotton materials. From there, we recycle them into PET and Cellulose for reuse. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Labrys?

Our technology allows us to recover waste and turn that back into a valuable resource. We needed to validate that process. We also wanted to provide traceability to ourselves and our customers both with supply and demand to allow us to bring materials back into recycling for many lifetimes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Labrys’s consulted on the initial concept of integrating blockchain into a supply chain. Their team discussed the idea for tracers in materials as well as the logistics for its implementation. They ultimately helped us to decide which way to go.

They helped to plan a stage one rollout that would build into stages two, three, and four over a period of time. Their team also validated existing block technologies and integrations. they created a marketplace and payment gateway, enabling us to explore B2B and B2C opportunities.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Labrys in minimum and maximum capacities as they’ve grown as a company. We’ve collaborated with individuals as well as their full team.

How did you come to work with Labrys?

I initially sought a blockchain developer and a colleague introduced me to Labrys. I met with them to understand whether or not they could provide the services we required. From that first meeting, I knew that there was an opportunity for us to develop my ideas.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve currently spent between $10,000–$50,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Labrys in May 2018, and the project’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They deliver a service beyond their company’s time and age. Their team’s on the cutting edge of their profession. They help us to ask new questions and try to apply solutions to an industry that’s not at the forefront of technology.

They’re unique in their ability to fly between existing corporate structures and emerging businesses. That’s where there’s an opportunity for their technology to be applied. Their team flexes their capabilities both internally and externally to meet our demands.

How did Labrys perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicate via phone calls. Their team’s professional. They listen and ask the right questions to understand our goals. Their team then finds an initial point of reference to start the development.

They have the unique ability to work with legacy companies as well as early-stage businesses looking for scalable solutions. It’s never a problem when we need extra work done. Their team’s able to work not only domestically but also internationally.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Labrys isn’t constrained by their business perspective. They look to deliver a solution to their customer regardless of budget, time, or location.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of areas for improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t be constrained to what you think they can do. Pitch what you’re aiming to do, and they’ll be able to build the technologies. Come with big questions and let them give you feedback to form a great product.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Executive of AnyOffer

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

A proptech startup company that utilizes the blockchain.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Labrys to accomplish?

• Develop our product (frontend and backend) through a product development workshop

SOLUTION

How did you find Labrys?

• Online Search
• Clutch Site

Why did you select Labrys over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Labrys were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We hired Labrys to help bring our vision into a proof-of-concept blockchain product through their product development workshop. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Labyrs impressed us with their ability to take our idea and help develop it into the product we imagined. At the end of the workshop, we had a detailed proof of concept with a Figma link and a detailed bid to build out the MVP.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Labrys always responded on time, met every timeline goal, and was always on time for meetings. They delivered the proof of concept on time and we were satisfied with the delivered product. 

What was your primary form of communication with Labrys?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

In the product development workshop, we were impressed with their ability to critically think about our product and make the best recommendations based on their knowledge and experience with blockchain products.

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

We don't have any recommendations in this area.