Lionwood.software

Please describe your company and your position there.

Camden Live is a new music blog, content creator and live music show producer. I am founder and MD

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software, and what were your goals?

We had a web application that we need to update and add new features. The main task of Lionwood.software team was to develop a new admin dashboard (which gives the administrator the ability to create and update online and offline events) and update the website according to the new admin dashboard. Also, the platform was slow so their task was to improve its performance and make a server-side rendering.

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

Team is smart, capable and trusted. Lionwood.software was referred to Camden by one of our co-workers who has been previously working with Lionwood.software Co-Founder. We had a standard selection process and selected them as our software development provider based on good communication, their experience, and transparency.

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

The main goal we had was to give users the ability to get information about concerts, festivals, and gigs. Basically, the main stages of collaboration included:

• Identifying and prioritizing tasks and requirements
• Creating wireframes for the main website, listing, and admin panel according to requirements and expected user flow
• Creating mockups for each page
• Setting-up architecture (Dev environment, API methods, DataBase, Identity server, cron jobs, storage for media files, hosting and etc.)
• Developing layouts according to mockups
• Creating WordPress part for the main website
• Creating React app for the admin panel and listings
• Deploying to the dev environment.
• Testing the whole portal according to requirements
• Deploying on the prod environment.

Main Technologies used: React, Redux, JavaScript, .NET Core, MongoDB, Identity Server 4, WordPress

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

1 PM, 1 Designer, 2 Frontend developers, 1 Backend developer, 1 Full-stack developer, 1 QA

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

Having completed and delivered the project they continue supporting our platform. They do deliver in time and within the agreed scope and budget. We also worked on other projects together as our collaboration was successful.

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

Lionwood.software is always offering the best solutions and is easygoing in communication. Whenever we have some questions, we schedule a meeting and discuss them. We use Jira for tasks management and Slack for communication.

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

Lionwood team is very proactive and dedicated to their work. They aren't just developers but also a team of professionals who can consult, give advice, and deliver. They contribute to the project with new ideas to gain a good result. Their cost structure is very reasonable and their code is of high quality.

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

Nothing comes to my mind. This team is always booked so you should plan your collaboration with them in advance. But this is a certain thing when working with a team of experts

Please describe your company and your position there.

Dizmo is a Swiss company which develops software that connects data, services and applications into one interactive workspace. We work in the field of intuitive decisioning platform, linking the physical and digital worlds, offering dynamic composition capabilities, compelling collaborative services and a range of IoT facilities. I am Chief of Customer support and my job is to oversee the development process, making sure customer requirements are translated into development specifications.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software, and what were your goals?

We are long term partners with Lionwood.software and this is not the first project we are working on together. The biggest challenge for this specific project was that two different teams, developing the components had to synchronize and make sure everything is compatible and works together. Since Lionwood.software are in the mean time very experienced with our software stack and our way of development, the process of cooperative development went flawless.

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

Lionwood.software did a software development challenge, together with the other finalist of our selection process. Their work showed conceptual understanding and knowledge of the technology. We selected them also because of their open and relaxed approach of communication and administration.

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

They are co-developing with us an interactive platform for users to perform dynamic allocation of resources with an unprecedented level of usability. Our product empowers users to dynamically link resources and tasks to each other and interactively manage them in a timeframe.

The development is structured in short sprints, called Complexity Launches. Each individual launch has a main goal and is built on top of the previous one a successful launch, meaning that all criteria have to be met in order to prepare the next Launch. If the launch was not successful fixes need to be implemented and the launch redone. As technology, it is the standard web development stack used, mostly JS.

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

There are usually 2 people in the core team, 1 to 2 developers and a Manager. Sometimes a testing specialist is involved.

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

We are able to develop in sync and on time, despite of the military invasion launched on the territory of Ukraine, Lionwood.software managed to deliver without noticeable delays. We are still at the first milestones of delivery releases, but as seen from Project Management perspective, the project is evolving in a very good fashion.

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

The communication with Lionwood.software is very easy going and we have multiple official and private channels to keep business under control. With the help of standard development tracking tools such as Jira and Git, we are able to easily define priorities together and to work agile.

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

They are impressively dedicated and able to deliver even in the most difficult circumstances. They also demonstrate real and profound interest in the concepts they are developing and contribute with valuable ideas and solution for particular problems. They are very flexible and always try to find a solution or a compromise that is beneficial for all parties.

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

There is always field for improvement in any aspect, which is the beautiful process of learning and getting more experienced. In some cases a bit of additional time for testing in house the newly developed functionality would be beneficial, but it is also understandable that this might delay the commit for the sprint.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a Product Owner at a Car Dealer company ‘Lube Auto‘. I’m responsible for translating product managers’ strategies to tasks for development, learning the market and customers’ needs and evaluating product progress at each iteration.

Our company deals with car shipping from the USA, Canada and South Korea to Ukraine. There are 30 car carriers at our disposal. Our corporation consists of 17 offices all over Ukraine, American company Auto USA and Transportation company. Lube Auto counts more than 250 employees and is the owner of the biggest parking area in Western Ukraine.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software, and what were your goals?

As our company is engaged in buying automobiles at American, European, Korean and Georgian auctions, we faced an issue with keeping track of the purchased car because of the vulnerable tracking system lacking security we used before.

As a result, the business lost a vast sum of money. Lionwood.software came up with a great solution which was supposed to solve our problem and offered to develop a system of monitoring and tracking of user activity that has total control over the car buyers. The main feature of the app is that it’s not bound to the browser and guarantees absolute security. A big plus is that the app can be unlimitedly extended with new functionality.

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

I had experience working with Lionwood.software on another project, so I was familiar with their style of work, individual approach, and I was certain they deliver high quality service. It didn’t take too long to convince my team either as Lionwood.software provided us with bright ideas that helped our business grow. They are pretty flexible as they deliver the result in a relatively short stretch of time.

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

We started collaboration with Lionwood.software to improve our web app. Their team of developers made it easier to use, improved Logistics that now provides a proper car search, added Admin panel, Blog and Certification page.

Lionwood.software provided web app improvement using .NET Core and Angular technologies, mostly by adding new features. The system of monitoring and tracking user activity was delivered as 2 Desktop applications for MacOS and Windows and 2 Mobile applications for iOS and Android with such stack of technologies as Node.js, React.js, Redux, Feathers.js, Electron, Kotlin, Swift, SwiftUI, Combine.

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

The team composition varied according to the scope of work. There were from 1 to 3 .Net developers, 2 Angular developers, 3 Full stack engineers, 2 Android developers, 1 iOS developer, 1 DevOps specialist, 2 Project Managers, 1 Delivery Manager, 1 UX designer and 2 Quality Assurance specialists.

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

We were able to launch a tracking system with encrypted storing of logins and passwords. Since 30% of the cars bought at the auctions were not identified, it caused big fees and cost us a substantial sum of money. Tracking system solved our problem and it was our main achievement. App gives us 100% security, convenient filters for user’s search.

Also, it provides statistics about users, the possibility to choose an account, shows a calendar with a notification system and, what’s more important, it’s impossible to cheat the system. The team performed well, so we continue developing our business with a variety of digital solutions.

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

As we are located in the same city, it was easy to communicate with our vendors. We called onsite meetings on a regular basis planning and discussing new scopes of work and its execution. Apart from that, the team provides demo sessions and on-site staff training after product launch.

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

We experienced collaboration with other companies previously and once we established a partnership with Lionwood.software company, we were impressed how easy it is to communicate our ideas and always stay on the same page.

Lionwood.software is not only a technical partner, but also a partner who analyzes business thoroughly, gives advice for business growth and recommends effective solutions.

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

Sometimes there was a lack of available developers but the result has outdone itself.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m Anna Cegielska and my position is Head of QA and HR department in Gate-Software which is a team of 50 specialists led by experienced visionaries. We help online shops improve their sales figures by accurately translating business objectives into technology. Our company specializes in Magento 1 (maintenance, support) as well as Magento 2 (maintenance, implementation, and data migration).

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software?

Our team was developing an e-commerce project with tech stack Magento and Angular. All our developers who have skills in Angular were busy, and we decided to communicate with the software development companies to join our team of Angular developers.

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

We had to choose between a few developers in different companies that were in our shortlist. I got a recommendation from a friend from Ukraine, Lviv, that Lionwood.software is a trusted partner and I could contact them regarding my request. They provide developers who have been working in their company for a long time, at the office and are trusted developers opposite to the recruitment agencies who may not know the developers they are presenting.

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

Lionwood.software’s developer had joined our project management system JIra, Harvest and Rocket chat. His main duties were to perform the development of the web application in Angular, and he was also responsible for reviewing code in the Angular web app.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

To choose the right developer we had a technical interview with the specialist provided by Lionwood.software. We conducted a well-structured interview with a defined 12 questions. Lionwood.software’s engineer passed the interview successfully, gaining the highest points. Also, his English level and communication skills were on the high level. As a bonus, the developer knows Polish, which was beneficial for us because the project documentation was written in Polish.

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

Lionwood.software brought in the right talent at the right time with the right expertise. We are happy with the quality of their work.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had very good communication throughout the engagement. We had everyday scrum meetings, during which we went through progress and associated next steps. I can always reach my points of contact at any time. We communicate via Rocketchat, and we use Jira to keep track of the project. They’re responsive when we have issues or suggestions for improvements — they’ve helped us out when we needed it.

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

They’re very flexible. They have easily adapted to the requirements of the workload that we requested.

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

During the collaboration, any issues we raised were solved efficiently and there is nothing major I can think of.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO at LeadExpress. We’re a SaaS platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lionwood.software?

We were restructuring our application, so we needed developers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team needed to rebuild our app’s frontend. For the rebuild, we used Angular and Python. They had to analyze our system and API to rebuild the platform. They also assisted with the structural and UX/UI design.  

What is the team composition?

I worked with three people, including a project manager and two developers.

How did you come to work with Lionwood.software?

Lionwood.software was a client of ours. I saw that they were doing good development work, so we reached out to them to help with the rebuild.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $50,000–$100,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Lionwood.software started in February 2020.

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

It’s hard to determine metrics because we haven’t launched the new frontend. We’ve recommended them to other parties we’re working with.

How did Lionwood.software perform from a project management standpoint?

The team mostly hit all of the deadlines we expected.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed with their quick communication. The team adjusted to the way we work. I also can easily reach out to the developers whenever I need to.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. The engagement has gone the way I expected. They’re doing a great job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend time and work with the person you hire. Take the time to explain things in-depth. That will benefit you. We spent the first week going over details, and after that, they performed how we wanted them to.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a delivery manager for a college enrollment organization. We work in the B2B and B2C spaces, facilitating international students who apply for university positions in US and UK universities.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lionwood.software?

We needed to increase our development and test teams in a quick turnaround. This was for a particular suite of new, incoming features.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lionwood.software has provided development work using .NET and Angular for a B2C website. Their work mainly involves features around massive improvements in some functionalities intended for the student applicants’ accessibility. The objective is to streamline areas around the progress of the student application.

We work in an agile process, so Lionwood.software has been working on the delivery of a number of features. Once the contract has ended, the delivery of new features will continue.

What is the team composition?

There are three individuals on the team — two .NET developers and one tester.

How did you come to work with Lionwood.software?

The engagement started before I joined the company, so I wasn’t directly involved. All I know is that we were put in touch with them through an agency. Lionwood.software was selected because they seemed to present the right combination of skills.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested just over £110,000 (approximately $140,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing engagement started in October 2019.

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

I’ve received a lot of detailed, positive feedback from our internal team. Lionwood.software's developers and tester were integrated into two of our scrum teams, so we can’t measure the absolute quality of their individual work. However, they’ve received really high praise in terms of the way they swiftly assimilated and became one coherent team. Lionwood.software’s people are working offshore, and our scrum teams are based in the UK.

How did Lionwood.software perform from a project management standpoint?

It was a little bit rocky at first, but they quickly got used to our work methodology. In fact, with time, they were teaching the UK team members a lot about working effectively while remote. They received praise for being able to pick things up very quickly and a lot of admiration for working in English, which isn’t their native language.

Lionwood.software adapted to processes very quickly and smoothly. They display a level of thoroughness that's very impressive. The shared knowledge and flow they produce have made working with them very seamless. Their team has brought a lot of maturity to our UK-based teams. We communicate through Jira, Slack, and GitHub for scrum and team conference calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They brought their own experience and expertise and then passed a great deal of that onto our internal team. Our team expressed that they learned and were introduced to new improvements and suggestions by Lionwood.software’s developers and tester. This included knowledge of technical improvements to websites and APIs.

The Lionwood.software team members code in excellent quality. Their hard work has been greatly appreciated. What’s more, they’ve been approachable and fun to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Initially, they seemed to be putting a very high premium on turning around code and tickets very quickly. However, it wasn’t always as thoroughly and of the quality that we expected. But after some feedback, they changed their work practices and understood more about the level of quality and thoroughness. By quality, I mean a lack of bugs and the intensity of making sure their codes are 100% operational.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Because they work remotely and English isn’t their first language, it’ll take time for the team to integrate with yours. It takes a certain amount of patience to allow the team to integrate. The Lionwood.software developers were fully working on a self-contained project. They pick up processes fast and deliver high-quality work.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the COO of Bytebrand Outsourcing AG. We offer web and mobile development services.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software?

We brought on Lionwood.software to provide team members that specialize in WordPress and PHP development.

What were your goals for this project?

We had an enterprise project that required WordPress and PHP expertise—areas in which we lack talent. We needed coverage in those skillsets, especially for WordPress.

How did you select this vendor?

We posted a listing on Upwork looking for a WordPress developer who could meet in person at our office. We screened CVs and had Skype interviews with potential candidates; after this process, we ultimately chose to meet Lionwood.software. Their in-person technical meeting impressed us so we went with them for this project.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Using provided designs, Lionwood.software’s WordPress and PHP specialists rebuilt a high load multisite on WordPress. They migrated data—including blog posts and images—from old sites and integrated the new site with an application using Node.js.

What was the team composition?

The 15-person team consists of a business analyst, a QA person, a web designer, a DevOps person, and specialists in WordPress, PHP, React, and Node.js.

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

Lionwood.software has provided expert team members who can work alongside our company. Our internal team members are consistently satisfied with their performance.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We’ve integrated Lionwood.software developers into our workflow. I coordinate with the business development manager who delivers a detailed report every two weeks. Their developers have become an inseparable part of our team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Lionwood.software offers highly skilled developers who are comfortable working with us and adept at finding the particular solution we were looking for. They’re very adaptive and can intuit our needs. If we ever need to make a change, we can explain the reason once and their team understands it immediately without complaint.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, we’re thrilled with our collaboration.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the IT Project Manager of Market Universal LTD, a modern pharmacy in Ukraine with 1 400 000 loyal clients. I'm managing an e-commerce web platform, iOS and Android mobile applications with 300 000 visitors per month. Also, I'm responsible for managing the internal team and our tech partners.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software?

The need was to build a web marketplace for selling medicine. An online platform accommodates a large number of goods from different stores and warehouses, so the client has the opportunity to choose the items they need and buy them online.

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

We were drawn to Lionwood.software because of their unique value proposition. They were eager to find solutions and were flexible. We faced several challenges, and they were able to identify several different ways to resolve them.

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

Their team did the backend development on RoR, Xamarin for mobile app development, and frontend development using React along with HTML/CSS. QA engineers joined as well. As it is a long-lasting project, it was divided into several sprints. We work in an Agile environment with the most common Scrum rituals and processes. We use Jira, Confluence, and MS Teams and DevOps as our main communication tools, and the engineers are involved in most activities.

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

The size of our team varied according to the scope of work and product development in particular. from 4 to 8 developer

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

Lionwood.software has helped us to achieve what we aimed for within the deadlines.The quality of their output was exactly what we were looking for, and we’re still working with them now.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The collaboration and the workflow has always been smooth. They got onboarded in our MS Teams, we had access to the whole development team, and we had regular sprint planning meetings and demo sessions.

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

Their most impressive aspect is their proactiveness. They bring new ideas to the table and are very experienced.

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

They need to be more direct when there’s an issue.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Shyft is a start to end digital insurance aggregator and web company focusing on personal lines of insurance for the Caribbean.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software, and what were your goals?

Our original website was built on a very complexed platform which was difficult for scalability and changes and we were dependent on developers for any changes. Lionwood team helped build a custom site which was on a better and cleaner platform that helped our team handle changes and updates in a faster and more streamlined approach.

How did you select Lionwood.software and what were the deciding factors?

They were very responsive and adaptive and also gave great suggestions to our needs

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

Lionwood gave us a full overhaul of every part of our site. Building an entirely new platform which we see as a very advanced site relative to our insurance space.

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

4

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

We were very happy with Lionwood and how they were organized and diligent with meetings and time for responses. The over budget and over time expectation for web builders were truly tested as they maintained a very close to target delivery.

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

Emails and WhatsApp messages constantly assisted our contact and relationship. Zoom calls and catch ups were easy.

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

They always had time to speak to us and will sometimes answer us at difficult or late times in Ukraine. They understand our business truly which is important. Insurance is not very straight forward and the team we believe fully invested in us.

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

We believe pricing is a bit of a hard area and there needs to be more negotiation towards getting our development goals. Overall there is not much lionwood could have done differently. We are still working with them on other projects.

Please describe your company and your position there.

scoutbee is a tech startup from Germany specializing in software for digital, AI-driven procurement. I have been the Online Marketing Manager for scoutbee.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lionwood.software, and what were your goals?

• Website Designs
• Web Development (Front-End/Back-End, PHP, Wordpress)
• Website Service (Bugs, Testing) Goals were to have the corporate website up to standards that reflected the stage of our ever-growing company. Professionalizing our web presence, building out the website, starting digital lead funnels via website.

How did you select Lionwood.software and what were the deciding factors?

Lionwood was recommended to us by another agency we are working with in the Ukraine.

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

Lionwood took over UI design of pages, front-end development as well as backend (PHP into wordpress) tasks. Moreover, Lionwood also took care of all Testing with a seperate QA.

Apart from that, Lionwood was there as a partner to consult in complex situations which technical solutions would work best for a website. The agency is a constant and trustworthy knowledge resource for scoutbee in terms of the development of our website and a partner we can always count on.

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

We have worked with 5 people (Business Development, Project Manager, Front-End Developer, Back-End Developer, Tester).

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

We have 4x the traffic on our website than before the start of the project.

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

Lionwood is a great communication partner, they are very flexible and are willing to talk, align and communicate anytime. In fact, they appreciate constant contact for maximum transparency and best-possible planning of tasks and projects.

I can absolutely recommend it. Tasks and projects where planned very well, and Lionwood delivered timely on our deadlines constantly.

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

The combination of very nice and likeable people with thorough professionalism. As stated above, Lionwood managed to deliver in timely fashion constantly, and the working atmosphere is a breeze.

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

N/A