LLInformatics

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a department head at RCS Global Group, a market-leading consulting, auditing, and monitoring services company in the area of responsible sourcing. We look at global supply chains and work for some of the world's largest mining and manufacturing companies. We analyze their supply chains, uncover them, and focus on difficult areas such as child labor, forced labor, and human rights.

We’re building digital solutions offerings within this space, so we’re developing platforms and SaaS solutions to support our existing clients and hopefully a broader client base.

What challenge were you trying to address with LLInformatics?

We came from a classic consulting background, so we didn’t have significant IT resources within our organization. We needed help to build our products based on our assessment of our clients’ needs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

LLInformatics provides custom software development services and general agile development advisory. They’ve worked on cloud solutions that are deployed on Heroku and AWS. The team has used several object-oriented languages to build many different platforms, prototypes, production environments, and separated databases to properly look after the sensitive information we process.

Additionally, LLInformatics has done a lot of design work using Figma; they have several designers to ensure the product looks good, is intuitive, and is aligned with the UI/UX. Moreover, LLInformatics provides a digital support unit instead of just technical developers, which includes strategic advice around digital product strategy. They advise on how to build our internal tech structure.

What is the team composition?

We’re in contact with the key account person and a product manager. Recently, we’ve been increasingly in touch with the developers and designers because it’s a longer collaboration.

How did you come to work with LLInformatics?

I believe it was a referral, but I’d have to ask the founders.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent close to $500,000 in 2022, so we’ve spent between $500,000–$1 million in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

I joined the company in October 2021, and the engagement has been on and off since 2020. We’ve had continuous work with LLInformatics since March 2021, and the relationship is ongoing.

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

One success metric is the launch of our VINE products, which can be found on our website. LLInformatics has helped us design, create, build, and deploy the SaaS platform that we now run with several global companies as B2B users. They’ve also provided support across 3–4 products when the product team should be focusing on one, so LLInformatics is extremely adaptable.

Additionally, we’re happy with the velocity and the milestones they achieve in a certain amount of time. Other thing that’s hard to measure is how often they challenge our assumptions. Although they’re dependent on us for the work, LLInformatics sometimes pushes back to tell us that we should consider something different for our best business case, which we appreciate.

How did LLInformatics perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re responsive. We communicate through many channels; the most common is Slack, but we also collaborate on project management tools like Asana, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their professionalism and dedication are outstanding. LLInformatics really want to prove themselves through their deliveries; they put in a lot of effort to understand our subject matter of expertise to ensure that the digital solutions they build are relevant and appropriate for that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They're relatively expensive compared to other tech providers in Southern or Southeast Asia. Moreover, sometimes they want too many requirements upfront. LLInformatics wants everything to be perfectly understandable in the beginning, but that’s not how business works. Sometimes we need to develop things as we go along.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d highly recommend working with LLInformatics.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of IN GOOD COMPANY, a boutique consulting and recruiting firm. 

What challenge were you trying to address with LLInformatics?

LLInformatics helped me in designing my website and implementing content for it. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, I had a discussion with LLInformatics around my goals for the website and why I needed it. Based on our discussion and the ideas we talked about, they developed the first designs for the site. After 2–4 weeks, they finished all the wireframes needed for the site. From there, I delivered all the content we needed to display and they started the site development process. 

LLInformatics also helped us with our SEO campaigns. We talked about keywords and chose an information structure that made sense for the site. They also helped me prepare for the future in terms of my further SEO efforts. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with one UX designer, who was also my main contact person. There were two developers who worked on the website’s implementation, but the UX designer coordinated everything. 

How did you come to work with LLInformatics?

I heard about LLInformatics from my personal network. Then, I got in touch with them. I had a great impression of them from the beginning because they started our talks by asking me why I needed to do the project. Their other questions also made sense in terms of helping me reach my goals. As a result, I decided to partner with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $3,000–$5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from September–December 2021. 

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

I received plenty of compliments for the website from my customers and from people that worked with me. The feedback was truly good. 

How did LLInformatics perform from a project management standpoint?

LLInformatics’ project management was quite good. It only took around two and half months to finish the project. Given that our target timeframe was 2–3 months, the team delivered on time. They also hit every milestone we set. On top of that, they were always reachable. They also provided us with great status updates, answering any questions and issues that needed to be clarified. 

In terms of tools, we used Slack to communicate with them. We also used Google Documents to plan the platform’s structure and share content. Asana and other project management tools weren’t necessary because this was a small website project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

LLInformatics worked to understand our business and goals. They started our project with these things in mind. The team helped me acquire better clarity in terms of what I truly needed — I didn’t experience this with other agencies. Those agencies simply implemented what I told them but didn’t ask me why I wanted to do it. Unlike LLInformatics, they didn’t help me obtain clarity about what did and didn’t make sense for my project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there weren’t any. I was truly happy with them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be sure about your goals. Then, involve the LLInformatics team in the project as much as possible. Companies quite often spend ridiculous amounts of resources on website projects, but they’re not considering their ROI. This is something that LLInformatics will proactively address with you — that’s why they ask what you want to achieve from such investment.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder of a speech therapy clinic in Berlin, Germany. Although we’re a startup, we are about to launch our second and third clinics this year.

What challenge were you trying to address with LLInformatics?

We needed branding for our group. Then we needed to develop two websites: one for our clinic group, and one for our individual clinics.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We kicked it off with virtual brand-building workshops to develop personas for speech therapy patients and identify some of their pain points, wishes, and needs. Based on that, LLInformatics started to develop branding, logo designs, colors, and fonts.

Once they delivered the brand book, we drafted the websites. The pages we used spiral and had elaborate work there.

The websites are both WordPress-based and they are hosted on rate boxes by the hosting company.

How did you come to work with LLInformatics?

Two years ago, I worked with the CEO on a project for my former employer. When I started this project, I called them up and asked to work with them again.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around €15,000 (approximately $18,000 USD). We have some more edits, so we might spend a little more. I expect to spend about €20,000 (approximately $24,000 USD) in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–July 2021.

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

Since we launched, we’ve reached 100% capacity. We’ve exceeded our expectations because of the websites and branding that LLInformatics created.

On top of that, we’ve received great feedback from our patients. They find it very easy to navigate the website.

A lot of our applicants have mentioned within their application that they took a look at the website and are impressed by our branding. That makes us really happy because we’re trying to grow our business and branding is very important. LLinformatics has definitely set us apart.

How did LLInformatics perform from a project management standpoint?

The process went very smoothly, and they communicated very well. Because of travel restrictions, we weren’t able to meet in person during our workshops, but we were able to accomplish everything virtually.

During web development, we had frequent check-ins and met 1–2 times per week. This helped us understand what they were working on and where the project was heading.

We used Zoom, Miro, and Google Docs. These tools made it super easy to comment on issues, on designs, and then they can just turn it around.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Considering that we were remote, it was a super smooth process. I was a bit skeptical, having only met one of them before, but they were super skilled and experienced in setting up this remote creative environment. They did it brilliantly

Are there any areas they could improve?

The one thing that I already told them to improve work on is that I like workers, designers, and product managers who voice their opinion because they are the experts.

I expected them to challenge me a bit more on some of my ideas and I had to push them a little bit to challenge me. Once they got used to this kind of work, it was very smooth.

Any advice for potential customers?

They’re a great team. I’d tell new customers to have a few more check-ins at the beginning of the project.

Also, remember that they’re the experts; that's why you’re paying them. You can get more out of the project by letting them lead it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a business community open to entrepreneurs, freelancers, and students — anyone committed to creating their own projects. We are often mistaken as a coworking space, as we offer real estate as a perk, but our core product is the community and network.

I am the head of community, leading our community management team, as well as the product owner of our software offerings.

What challenge were you trying to address with LLInformatics?

For two years now, they’ve worked on the software we provide to our members to manage their membership. Additionally, they work on the software that our administrators use to manage our members.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First of all, they provide constant maintenance. Whenever we have any data issues or discrepancies, LLInformatics fixes them for us.

The other side of their work is product development. LLInformatics has developed several features for us. One was for a student application flow that enabled people to apply for membership and upload a student certification. It also enables admins to follow up on these applications.

Another feature is a guest invitation capability, allowing users to invite guests to come to campus from their profile. They can submit all the necessary information, which triggers an email to be sent to the guest, who has to accept our terms and privacy policy. This unlocks a QA code that will allow guests to check in at our receptions.

LLInformatics is also redesigning our member platform application, giving it a whole new look and flow that will allow our admins to process applications in a new way.

They’ve also restructured our database. A previous company that we no longer work with set it up, but no one internally knew how it was structured or how to use it. Together, LLInformatics and I developed a new database structure that reflects our needs accordingly.

Other tasks on the roadmap are a new subscription product that allows users to register as a company and pay on a monthly basis, as well as a one-time pass people can purchase to one of our locations.

What is the team composition?

This changes from time to time depending on the budget we allocate and the project and roadmap we’re working on. We add and take away people as the requirements dictate.

We have two work modes with differing rosters. Our current mode is product development and we have two senior backend developers, one senior frontend developer, one project manager, and one QA engineer. Our reduced-budget team is made up of two senior backend developers and a project manager.

How did you come to work with LLInformatics?

The main decision-maker is no longer with us, but our initial project was for maintenance and development on an old piece of software coded in a niche language. We hired a member of our community to help and support us, and that person recommended LLInformatics as a long-term partner.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around €30,000 (approximately $36,000 USD) per month with them, totaling nearly €500,000 (approximately $599,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since March 2019.

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

We’re quite satisfied. They’re detailed in their estimations and deliver on time.

How did LLInformatics perform from a project management standpoint?

We worked through sprints, with each cycle beginning by us defining the required deliverables. Devising a detailed roadmap helped us stay on track. I do QA myself along each milestone, and if something didn’t work, then LLInformatics spent extra hours to finish by the end of the sprint.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m constantly pushing to work more with them. LLInformatics is the most reliable, transparent, and engaging of our outside vendors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. It’s important to treat LLInformatics as what they are. They’re a development company, and I give them what they ask for: detailed instructions and detailed acceptance criteria.

Other people may ask for more creative or business development input, and LLInformatics does have good impulses, but I don’t expect that from them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get a good idea of what you want them to do. The only delays that we’ve experienced have stemmed from roadblocks in our internal decision-making process.