Mirumee Software

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Lulu is a self-publishing and print-on-demand platform that puts you in control. Since 2002, Lulu has empowered over two million authors, creators, educators, and businesses from all over the world to publish, print and prosper. With Lulu’s global distribution network, direct sales solutions, and industry-leading print-on-demand technology, writers can share their stories while growing their brand, audience, and bank account.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee Software?

We are in the process of re-writing our entire publishing platform and were looking for a team with strong front-end engineering and Python back-end engineering skills.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have built a couple of RESTful APIs for ordering printed books. Mirumee was tasked with building a shop front-end for those APIs. This was their main objective in the last six months.

Mirumee had to work closely with our US and German teams. Given that our APIs were still very much work-in-progress, they did a wonderful job in dealing with the constant change. On top of that, they provided helpful feedback to the other teams which helped us to find bugs and improve the reliability of the platform.

They have been a very good addition to our team, and I must say I am impressed with the speed that they were able to deliver.

What is the team dynamic?

Lulu booked a team of five people: one designer, a senior developer/architect, and three front-end developers creating a single-page application in React.js.

How did you come to work with Mirumee Software?

I am based in Germany, and was looking for a team in my time zone. Poland is not too far from where I live, and I wanted to work with a team I could visit in a reasonable amount of time. After screening a couple of teams in Poland and doing phone interviews, I visited a few of the teams in person and spent a day with them before making the final decision. I picked Mirumee because they seemed to be the most capable of the ones I had screened.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent $150,000—$200,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in April 2017, and their work is currently ongoing. The initial project is almost finished although we keep extending the scope. We are planning to launch soon, and then will move on to other projects with Mirumee.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with Mirumee Software evolve?

Our partnership with Mirumee continues to grow. They are truly invested in ensuring Lulu's success through the technology they design and implement. Since the initial engagement, we've grown the team to 18 members from Mirumee.

In what ways can they improve?

It is hard to find any. Anytime we've encountered an issue, we've been able to immediately address it with Mirumee and it is rectified immediately. Those instances are few and far between.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

I would not hesitate to engage with the Mirumee team. They are well-versed in a variety of modern program languages that they can leverage to fit your business needs.

UPDATED REVIEW

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Digital Product Manager of a retail company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Physical and online retailer selling music (Vinyl LPs, Cassettes, CDs) and related products

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Mirumee Software to accomplish?

• Help EU launch of the business by creating a new German language channel for the site

SOLUTION

How did you find Mirumee Software?

Saleor partner

Why did you select Mirumee Software over others?

Expertise in Saleor

How many teammates from Mirumee Software were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Product overview At present, the business has site locales for US and UK. We want expand locales to EU, beginning with a German site variant ahead of opening a flagship store in Berlin. For launch, we want to retain the existing tech stack for the new locale. 

Key benefits: 

• Increased revenue potential by expanding into the EU market.
• Improved user experience and customer satisfaction for EU customers through a localised and translated version of the website. 
• Ability to offer PayPal as a payment option, which is standard in Europe but will also benefit UK & US users Mirumee 

Deliverables:

• Fully functional German version of the website (also Blog and Events TBC) optimised for desktop and mobile. 
• SEO optimised URL structure for EU & DE sites (in consultation with Gutewebsites) 
• Pre-launch landing page for the EU business to announce the site with email sign-up to collect user data in Klaviyo
• Integration with PIM which would allows an internal user to create a product/variant based on an existing product/variant from a different (i.e. UK or US) region
• Stripe upgrade to Payment Elements Stripe Payment Element
• File listing static text to be translated (actual translation to be handled by separate supplier selected by the business)
• Should be delivered on the latest version of Saleor (update necessary from current version)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Project was delivered on time. Release took place on the date and time projected without issue. Communication with Mirumee team was excellent with quick and informed responses and efficient bug resolution.

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

We only used Mirumee's software development and SCRUM Master services. Project Management was handled by the business.

What was your primary form of communication with Mirumee Software?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We were impressed with their expert knowledge of Saleor. Close relationship with Saleor is beneficial as they work well together to scope new features and resolve bugs which takes the pressure off us to translate complex technical requirements between the agency and Saleor.

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

No specific feedback, during the course of the project we found efficient ways of working and the final release went really smoothly. In the past we have commented on a lack of communication when issues occur, but I felt this was much improved in this project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a company that's developed a new portable ultrasound device at a low cost. Our goal is to make medical imaging accessible to everyone.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee?

Because we’re a medical device company with both hardware and software subscription products, we have complex requirements for our e-commerce solution. We built the first version in-house, but it was only sufficient for our early reservation holders. We needed a lot more functionality to allow for new products, to make the site available to the public and to expand internationally.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, Mirumee built a new backend from scratch using Saleor, their open-source e-commerce platform. They integrated their backedn with our subscription database and our payment platform. Then, they adapted our existing frontend to connect with the new backend, adding the new functionality we wanted. That included public accessibility, new products, and international access. Our first international sites were United Kingdom and Ireland, but we’ll be in Australia and New Zealand shortly.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with the developers and the technical lead. We initially had a team of three developers, which expanded to five over the course of the project. Their CTO acted as the scrum master.

How did you come to work with Mirumee?

Mirumee’s engineering team was an early adopter of GraphQL, which we use in our subscription product. We were aware of them as a result of their contributions to GraphQL. We found that they had developed an open-source e-commerce platform called Saleor that used both Python and GraphQL. Our engineering team has deep knowledge of these technologies, so that was a big positive for us. I was also impressed with their reviews on Clutch and their understanding of our business challenges.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in March 2019, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everything was delivered on budget by the initial deadline. They delivered very high-quality work, navigating the complex requirements that arose from the nature of our services.

How did Mirumee perform from a project management standpoint?

We had clear, effective daily calls throughout the project. We also used Slack and Asana to communicate. The scrum master was particularly strong at highlighting areas of ambiguity and solving problems to avoid delays. He held the team accountable for their promises, so I could trust that work would be done on time. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was most impressed with how they operated as an extension of our team. Rather than having to negotiate or quibble over responsibilities, everything went smoothly. I could tell they were committed to making our product available to people, and that definitely came across in the quality and speed of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had delays working out the pricing system for international markets due to our requirement to have a fixed price for each currency. It would’ve been nice to understand the scope of that in advance.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a B2B e-commerce platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee?

We hired Mirumee to clean up our code so we can build a stable e-commerce system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mirumee provides general wisdom and guidance regarding the scaling out of our e-commerce platform. This took the form of a full front- and backend audit to determine best practices. They used Django and Python to organize, augment, and optimize our existing code. Their team also helped us establish client side toolchains like webpack to bundle our assets. I can see them building out more sophisticated business logic for us as we continue to develop a rapport with them.

What is the team composition?

Patryk (Development Lead, Mirumee) is our primary point of contact. He communicated who was assigned to our account and detailed the skill set of each resource.

How did you come to work with Mirumee?

We initially reached out to them because of their excellent open-source platform called Saleor. It’s an incredibly well-designed technology that happened to match a lot of the concepts we outlined for our platform. The logical next step for us was to learn about the team behind Saleor. We were pleasantly surprised that they had a consulting team available that specializes in Python and Django development for e-commerce. Recruiting them to work side by side with us seemed like the best way to create the platform we envisioned.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2018 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They managed to complete the code audit in two days and delivered a thorough plan of action. This enabled us to put together a budget and build a team fit to tackle the remaining development tasks. One of the significant benefits of this engagement is that our engineering team can walk into the office each morning and have high-quality code prepared for them. Mirumee’s efforts to set up various toolchains helps our team rally around different build processes. Refactoring our test suites has allowed us to pick up on their design patterns and continue to implement those across the platform. Overall, they help us to execute updates and produce a better product.

How did Mirumee perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great at documentation whenever we ask for something specific. They’re operating out of Poland, so it’s difficult to find an overlapping time to collaborate. However, we’ve established a daily stand-up meeting at 8:30 a.m. EST. I’ve found it best to ask them for what we want and they’ll make it available. It’s been our responsibility to set up the communication channels thus far. They’re different from most consulting firms in that way.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re diligent developers that do what they say they’ll do. I find Patryk to a real thought leader regarding the construction of Python and e-commerce code bases. It’s hard to find a better group than Mirumee when comes to projects like this one. Their philosophy of acting as an extension of our team has proven to be effective.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like to see them improve their project management approach by facilitating communication between stakeholders.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company operates within the digital entertainment industry, and are developing software for this purpose.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee?

In the entertainment industry, there are huge amounts of data to manage and we wanted to provide online services related to entertainment assets.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project was started from scratch. We were in charge of conceptualization, and the development was done on both sides. They provided us resources specifically for the development who worked alongside our internal developers.

The platform was developed with a modern web development framework. The main technology is the Django Python framework. It’s a customer-facing B2B and B2C solution. They’ve also helped us with bootstrap development for the cloud application.

What is the team composition?

We have worked with a team of 3–5 developers from their side.

How did you come to work with Mirumee?

They're experienced in Django Python development and have strong expertise in this area. They're also known for developing some open-source marketplace and e-commerce solutions.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2017 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They understood our business needs well and it was a pleasure to work with them. The development quality has been good on both sides. We’ve built a strong development platform with them, with code coverage and unit testing. We've performed code audits on all the work and the results have been good.

How did Mirumee perform from a project management standpoint?

We're using video conferencing and project management tools for the remote team. We’ve also met them in person, at our location. We're happy with their availability and structure.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have strong technical expertise and a very good methodology.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They've made continuous improvements throughout.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the partners of a boutique creative agency. We focus on great graphic design, a seamless user experience, and bespoke software.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee?

We had the opportunity to build an e-commerce website for a Silicon Valley technology incubator, one of the world's largest telecommunications companies. We had to bring to the European market three of the innovative products developed at the incubator. To do so, we leveraged Amazon fulfillment and cloud hosting infrastructure to sell and deliver the products in England, Germany, and Spain.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mirumee developed an e-commerce site for us initially. They helped with the architecture design, implementation, testing, and deployment of the final product. We continue to work on other, larger software.

How did you come to work with Mirumee?

The tight deadlines and high visibility of the project dictated that we find a partner with existing experience in the space. We knew that the best way to find a company like that would be focusing on someone who has released their own open source, e-commerce web application.

I went out looking on GitHub for companies that were providing open-source development using the technologies I was interested in. I came across two options, including Mirumee. They had experience working with our language and had built products that others had reviewed, so there was a good chance that they would deliver consistently.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Mirumee in March 2013. The original project ended in January 2014. I still work with Mirumee.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Mirumee engineers collaborated with our design and frontend development teams to achieve the best results. They helped shepherd the process from ideas to the final product in record time and ensured the success of the project.

How did Mirumee perform from a project management standpoint?

I have continued to work with one of Mirumee’s senior engineers. Because I was handling project management on our end, and he was handling it on their end, we didn’t use any separate project managers. I used a couple of developers and another contractor on my end. It was great to have a single point of contact on Mirumee’s side who was competent and experienced enough to understand our system and divvy up the work. The actual complexities were hidden away from me. I simply knew that I was getting good results and that the client was happy.

What did you find most impressive about Mirumee?

We’ve established a good rapport. Mirumee has been my go-to contractor for the past five years.

Are there any areas Mirumee could improve?

There are factors like communication, which Mirumee is improving on a continuous basis. Whenever there was a disconnect, Mirumee worked with me in understanding where it was occurring and in improving it. Working with a team who is separated by thousands of miles from our own will lead to some differences in ideas. We’ve always worked on mitigating this, and Mirumee was open and empathetic to my feedback.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a collaboration software company mainly focusing on video solutions. I am the CTO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee?

We wanted to add e-commerce ordering to our website. We had been selling everything through other channels until that time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mirumee made a small integration with our existing platform in order to create trial accounts. They built our subscription-based shopping cart model for ordering and created Stripe integration for payments.

How did you come to work with Mirumee?

I knew that I wanted a Python-based solution, and Mirumee had what seemed to be the best e-commerce platform using the technology.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Mirumee in November 2016. We've launched phase one after a three-month period, and are ramping-up for phase two. There were no problems in the initial portion of the development, so we are considering Mirumee for the ongoing work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We didn't have any need for subsequent bug fixes, and there were no issues with the system. The only thing we've changed was a mail template, which we did ourselves.

After our contract with Mirumee had ended, one of our staging servers generated an alert. They reached out to us for help, regardless of any contracts being in play.

How did Mirumee perform from a project management standpoint?

Mirumee nailed every deadline.

What did you find most impressive about Mirumee?

Saleor, the e-commerce package which Mirumee supports and develops can provide the equivalent e-commerce functionalities of a Magento implementation which could have a six-figure cost.

Are there any areas Mirumee could improve?

This wasn't a long enough project for me to have any comments. Mirumee did what we asked for, and didn't slip in scope.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a British menswear brand and retailer. We have stores and sell online. My role is looking after e-commerce, digital, and marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee?

We had been on a custom-built platform since launching the brand, and we had outgrown both the platform and the team who had built it. We experience frequent high peaks in traffic and we needed to ensure the website could deliver an optimal experience at all times.  We also needed to tightly integrate with the various other systems we rely on to operate our business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mirumee were tasked with an end to end full stack development project, including consolidating and updating our visual language to be consistent across the site. The support and feature development are ongoing.

How did you come to work with Mirumee?

One of their open source projects came onto my radar relating to e-commerce several years ago, and I started following their progress. When we came to start considering options for our replatform project we included them in the list of potential agencies. The further we got down the route of discussing options, the clearer it became they were a good match for us, leading to us appointing them for the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement with Mirumee began in November 2015. The post-launch development is ongoing. We launched the site in mid-September 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The response time of the website has improved dramatically. We’re down around the 1-second mark whereas previously we were 3.5-4 seconds on average. We've also been able to maintain that response time during extreme high-traffic. Previously this wouldn't have been possible. These speed improvements during peak times have had a massive impact on conversions, allowing people to buy seamlessly without any interference. Since launching the new website, there has been a marked increase in conversions and revenue. We’re really happy about it.

How did Mirumee perform from a project management standpoint?

They are accessible in the way that they work. It suited us to work closely with their development team and to have an Agile-based approach. We had daily communications which facilitated rapid and focused development.

What did you most impressive about Mirumee?

They’re a bunch of really clever guys. I liked them because they still are a relatively young company, and the people working there are genuinely passionate about what they do. Mirumee had various specialties in-house in order to build our AWS scaling infrastructure. They were excited about what they could do and how could do it.

Are there any areas Mirumee could improve?

Naturally, in a client-agency relationship, the estimation of tasks can always be better. There’s always that fine balance between a good price and a realistic amount of effort. I think that’s something that a lot of agencies struggle with. We are breaking new ground with our system and infrastructure which inevitably has it's risks. Managing these risks is a learning process and something Mirumee are committed to.

There’s always things to be improved in a learning process on both sides. That’s one of the things where they’re learning about dealing with a retailer like us or the size of a company like us, whereas a much bigger agency would have a tried and tested platform. There’s a degree of learning about the system that they’ve got and how to take the expertise and apply it to a commercial business and product.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of a small software company based in the Czech Republic.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mirumee?

We wanted to build a portal for the users we'd be providing hosting services to. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Mirumee provided work for our project using ReactJS on the frontend and MongoDB on the backend. Mirumee has also provided UX and graphic design work on the portal, so the work was end-to-end.

How did you come to work with Mirumee?

We had been using one of Mirumee's products, overv.io, which is an issue tracking board. I wondered who created it and it turned out to be Mirumee. They are geographically close to our company, so I got in touch with them. We had been impressed by their previous UX work so I knew that Mirumee could deliver a great product.

How much have you invested with Mirumee?

The cost of our project with Mirumee was within the lower tens of thousands of dollars.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Mirumee in June 2016 and concluded in October. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The process was fine for 70% to 80% of the time. There were some occasional communication issues, but things generally worked well. The portal was delivered as we wanted and the graphics are interesting. I'm happy with the UX work done by Mirumee.

How did Mirumee perform from a project management standpoint?

We've had an Agile approach, so there were no large upfront specifications. We had regular meetings with Mirumee, including face-to-face visits every other week. The work was synchronized through GitHub mostly. Mirumee delivered on time and within budget 80% of the time.

What did you find most impressive about Mirumee?

I appreciate the effort of Mirumee's principal in trying to make things work. Working with him was a pleasant experience.

Are there any areas Mirumee could improve?

There were some technology challenges, given that this was the first project done by Mirumee with our particular approach. Getting used to the workflows took a bit more time, but our next project should run much better. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CSO co founder of Iktos

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Powered by Iktos proprietary retrosynthetic analysis AI, Spaya performs an exhaustive analysis of all possible synthetic routes for a given compound and ranks them according to various metrics of synthetic accessibility.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Mirumee Software to accomplish?

• Creating an attractive and performant user interface for Spaya that surpassed on our MVP version.

SOLUTION

How did you find Mirumee Software?

Online Search

Why did you select Mirumee Software over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Mirumee Software were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Frontend and backend development as well as product and visual design. The main deliverable was the online platform itself.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We successfully launched the platform and garnered positive feedback from users.

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

The project management was smooth, and the deadlines were met

What was your primary form of communication with Mirumee Software?

Virtual Meeting

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

I seriously recommend Mirumee as a technology partner. They really know what they are doing and how to tailor ideas into a one-of-a-kind solution. We came to an agreement, and the result was more than satisfying for us.

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

Nothing I can think of.