MindK

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the chief security officer (CSO) at OCTO Trading Solutions AG.

For what projects/services did your company hire MindK?

We engaged MindK to help us develop our company’s website.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to create an informative and secure website.

How did you select this vendor?

We found them through positive referrals from the market.

Describe the project in detail.

They worked with us to create an informative and secure website.

What was the team composition?

They provided a team of developers.

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

We’re fully satisfied with the results.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were pretty happy with their high level of responsibility. I especially appreciated Ruslan (Head of Frontend Development, MindK) for his proactive position.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed by their reaction speed.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall, the team was good, but maybe they could concentrate on the presale process a bit more and go further in-depth on tasks.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of content and publishing at a think tank centered on the economic, social, and democratic development of 23 countries in central and eastern Europe. I’m responsible for strategy and research.

What challenge were you trying to address with MindK?

We initially needed to redesign our web portal, but then we expanded the scope to have them support our entire internet presence.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started the collaboration by redeveloping and redesigning our web portal. MindK built the entire backend and helped us design the site's main page and overall structure. On top of this, they’ve built a couple of smaller websites for us and some event pages. We requested that all websites be done on WordPress.

They’re currently working on the portal’s subscriber interface, implementing features I want to be included as well as additional ones they've come up with. They developed a centralized database of subscribers that categorizes them based on country, sector, and access level and enabled us to target and communicate with specific subgroups. They’ve also introduced live streaming and blogging capabilities.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with four people from their team on a regular basis: a project manager, a lead developer, and two additional developers.

How did you come to work with MindK?

We first met MindK when they took part in an IT and business services gathering we hosted. When we reached out to candidates, MindK was one of only two companies that responded and was willing to deliver the portal in 30–40 days, as we requested. They had the best offer and wanted to prove that they could meet our deadline.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December 2017. We expected to have the new version of the portal by mid-February 2018 but they delivered by the end of January. 

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

While we’re not yet using all the portal’s functionalities on a daily basis, its layout and functions have contributed significantly to the audience growth we’ve seen. MindK finished the portal when they said they would, which allowed us to test it before we launched the new site. The last ten months have proved that they were the correct choice.

How did MindK perform from a project management standpoint? 

We communicate, assign tasks, and track progress over Slack and Trello and have calls every one or two weeks, depending on what’s being done at the moment. I have direct access to the lead developer, in addition to our project manager.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m quite demanding and I come up with demanding tasks, but they never tell me something’s impossible. They start every conversation with, “this can be done,” which is huge. If it turns out our exact ask is impossible, they’ll come up with something that enables us to achieve a similar goal.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A few things might have taken more time than I wanted, but that could have been due to myself. There’s been nothing serious.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

They’re particularly prone to developing solutions during calls and brainstorming sessions, so make sure to have a good chat with them. Talking with them also helps me explain our requirements better.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for a leading supplier of marketing solutions for golf course suppliers. I’m the head of the digital department.

For what projects/services did your company hire MindK?

We hired MindK to develop a new WordPress website.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to create a unique and mobile-responsive WordPress template that could be rolled out for multiple clients.

How did you select this vendor?

We used web platforms such as Clutch and Upwork to identify possible vendors, including companies we had previously worked with. After shortlisting 5–10 companies, we interviewed them over Skype. MindK rose to the top because of their professionalism, portfolio, communication, and price point.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Based on our designs, MindK developed the WordPress platform template and added featured widgets.

What was the team composition?

I was in contact with the business development and account manager for all admin purposes and the lead developer for more technical conversations.

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

We can provide web design and website upgrades to our clients that we were not able to before, so it could have a big impact on sales.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They were highly proactive and always online. While it was sometimes slightly confusing as to who I should speak to about specific things, we had no problems.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed with their efficiency, attention to detail, and willingness to help.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

They could make payment information clearer to minimize issues with international transfers.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of JOOlanders SL. We are a company that develops extensions for Joomla, an open-source content management system (CMS).

What challenges were you trying to address with MindK?

We were looking for a company that could provide development resources to expedite our development lifecycle.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The resources that MindK provided worked on multiple projects with us and continue to facilitate our development process. They provided one senior developer that helped us build features for new extensions and several junior developers to assist with product testing.

What is the team composition?

We scaled the MindK team up and down based on our needs.

How did you come to work with MindK?

I had previous connections to Oleg Nesterov, the owner of MindK.

How much have you invested with them?

€500–€3,000 ($600–$3,700 USD) per month, depending on how many resources we needed at the time.

What is the status of this engagement?

JOOlanders has utilized MindK developmental and support services for their extensions for about three and half years. The development and support team continue to provide their services on additional projects and extensions.

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

A third-party platform found MindK's performance to be 98–100 on a 100 point ranking system. Their services energized development and support and rapidly improved our development process.

How did MindK perform from a project management standpoint?

They offer project management resources, but we oversaw it internally for this engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

MindK was very organized and productive, always staying on task. They are always very accessible, and I feel like they’re part of our organization. The developers and support staff were reliable, even on holidays.

Are there any areas they could improve?

MindK was incredibly adaptive in their work. However, this project required deep skill sets in unique tools. The initial developers had to first learn or be replaced with more experienced personnel. It would have been easier for us if the resources they provided were already versed in the tool and languages we used.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise a potential client to send MindK any unique tools and languages that are going to be utilized before going into the engagement.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the director and co-founder of a consulting/publishing company called Business Perspectives, which is part of a network of publishing organizations and projects that unite the common areas of activity in the field of publishing. We’ve published several journals including Problems and Perspectives in Management (2003), Innovative Marketing (2005), Environmental Economics (2010), Public and Municipal Finance (2012), and many more.

For what projects/services did your company hire MindK?

We hired them to handle the development of the Business Perspectives website as well as the sites for Kozmenko Publishing, Journals’ International Compliance Index, and Research Center for Innovative Financial Solutions.

What were your goals for this project?

We had an existing site for Business Perspectives with a complex catalog of scientific journals and articles. While supporting our first solution, MindK began working on a new site from the ground up. We aimed to create an international e-commerce platform with a similar content structure, where people can read, publish, or subscribe to the scientific journals and monograph editions. We also wanted to serve the science community in the best way possible by implementing several custom features.

How did you select this vendor?

We had previously collaborated with them.

Describe the project in detail.

We started with a few workshops and kick-off meetings to discuss our major goals and explain our content structure to the development team, breaking the whole development process into three iterations. On the first iteration, a website with a journals and articles catalog was delivered after which they implemented and fine-tuned the payment process. The third iteration included the collection and dynamic visualization of data about authors (e.g. rating, number of profile views, publication downloads and more). At the end of each iteration, we had a demo. They managed all aspects of development and worked closely with us to make the project a success.

What was the team composition?

We had a team of one project manager, two backend developers, one frontend developer, and one quality assurance engineer.

What outcomes or results can you share that demonstrate progress and/or success?

We had a very complex structure of content to work with but the platform they built has significantly improved our efficiency in listing journals and articles. Their work also allowed us to implement payment and subscription functions in a very convenient way.

How effective was the project management?

They work with an Agile approach so I communicated with a project manager almost daily. Much of the interaction was done through phone calls and emails. I’ve never had to question their availability or transparency.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were constantly in touch throughout the whole first project. I always had the opportunity to call or send messages and would get a response immediately. It’s really comfortable to work with the MindK team—they were flexible with our suggestions and all tasks were heard and implemented very quickly. I also met a lot of interesting people who introduced me to the exciting world of IT development.

What tips or recommendations do you have?

Any client that wants to work with anyone has to have a clear and concise vision of the final result. We got our desired result because we were clear as to what we needed to do and were open with their team. Don’t consider MindK as a vendor—you should be a partner with them. Keep your expectations high but alsо listen to the team because sometimes they can bring good proposals to the table that you may not have considered.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Harrison Publishing House. We’re a content provider and software developer for the construction industry specializing in the plumbing and mechanical segment of the construction world. We provide the data and tools that allow contractors to connect with their other business systems and whole distributors who they buy products from.

What challenge were you trying to address with MindK?

I needed a frontend development team to expand our cloud platform because my internal team was focused on our data operations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I began working with the owner of the company very early on, and we developed a good relationship. He set up a dedicated team who helped walk us through the specification process to define what their developers and project managers needed.

The bulk of the work that MindK does for me involves our client facing platform. It’s a fairly complex platform. Every company sets up a profile where they link their employees and businesses that they do commerce with. They can also set up and manage a catalog of material content. They have the ability to link to other business systems and transfer data. There is also a full-transaction capability with some business intelligence and dashboards for reporting.

For data, they used MongoDB and a bit of MySQL. They also used PHP and JavaScript for much of the web page development. We provided them with designs, and then they handled all of the HTML (including slicing) and CSS.

What is the team composition?

They’ve maintained a dedicated team for me over the last several years. We work together and scale the team as our work requires. It’s been very good.

At present, we have about 18 members from their team, including several senior developers, junior developers, a project manager, a QA and tester, and an as-needed HTML resource.

How did you come to work with MindK?

I worked with a couple of people in India and had a very poor experience. I was in the process of looking for someone to help take over the development of the platform after it was migrated from Microsoft SharePoint. It wasn’t working out, and it cost us a lot of money.

I researched other potential open-source platforms to use, and MindK had experience in some that we were considering. I contacted them and began a discussion, and really appreciated the investment they made to learn about the project. To this day, they are very invested and look at it as their own project. They do a very good job in that respect.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent over $1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in April of 2012, and the work is ongoing.

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

This is the product that is going to carry our company forward. We have migrated the majority of our customers on a legacy client server application. It’s been well received by all of our existing customers, and we are rolling out new capabilities for our company that will allow us to continue to grow.

How did MindK perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, I’ve been satisfied. They are based in Ukraine, but there haven’t been any language issues because most of their team speaks English very well. They use Jira as their project management tool, which I have access to and am able to contribute to as needed. I always have the ability to check and see what the activity is, which has been very helpful.

They use an Agile and Scrum-based approach, which has also been very helpful to us. We face a lot of feedback from the industry and need to get releases out quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing is their commitment to the project, as well as their guarantee of the quality of work. They are the only outsourced software developer that I’ve ever come across that has refunded money for coding errors which they caused. Their team is dedicated to the development of new features, and remains heavily involved.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I will take a pass on this one.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

In my experience, the more documentation that a client can provide upfront will have great benefits in helping MindK estimate the project, scope, and timeline.