Netguru

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and team lead of NeedEnergy. We’re an AI-based startup; we scale microgrids in regions of sub-Saharan Africa that don’t have access to renewable energy and clean power. We aim to provide clean energy access to more than 200 million people in 10-15 years.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We engaged Netguru to help us build a platform for microgrid operators and energy investors to profile energy needs in Africa and optimize operations for their deployed assets.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, we met with the Netguru team to scope the project and develop a plan to build the platform. Then, our design teams shared ideas and collaborated to create the final design. After settling on the design, we did two sprints to build the desktop application from scratch. 

Our first sprint was geared towards infrastructure and backend cloud services. We worked with their AI and data analytics engineers on predictive analytics and data mining to predict energy demand vs energy generation. We used simple Python and R for analytics and streamed data through AWS. They also helped us structure the backend architecture.

For the second sprint, our teams worked together to turn our design into a functional dashboard using Android. We also incorporated some backend elements into the dashboard’s UI/UX. We’ve completed the first version of the application, but we intend to work with Netguru in the future to move our product to the browser. 

We operate with a B2B business model, so once we onboard clients, we send them a link to securely download the platform onto their desktops. Our tool allows microgrid operators, impact investors, and developers to pick a site in sub-Saharan Africa and see how much energy they need to deploy there via the dashboard. If they’ve already deployed an asset, they can add it to our platform for real-time monitoring. In the future, they can plan to trade clean energy back into the grid.

What is the team composition?

For our first sprint with Netguru, we worked with two data engineers, a project manager, and a chief of staff. For our second sprint, we worked with one frontend designer and two backend Android engineers, and a project manager. 

How did you come to work with Netguru?

We put out an SOS, and Netguru reached out to us on LinkedIn. They explained their data analytics capabilities and showed us the types of projects they helped other startups with. No one was willing to take a chance on us, but Netguru did. We shared more about our company and goals for the project, and they wanted to help us make an impact.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $11,000 in the partnership with Netguru. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our first sprint was in November 2021, and we deployed the product in June 2022. Netguru has continued to help us with support requests on an ad-hoc basis.

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

Netguru has helped us expand into a new market and partner with the fifth-largest microgrid operator in South Africa. They’ll be using our platform to manage their assets and access predictive analytics; this is our most significant milestone. 

The energy technology council recently named us among the world's top 50 most innovative startups. We had the opportunity to showcase our dashboard in Berlin. We’ve also been showing the dashboards to potential investors, who have been very receptive to our product. 

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

This project was our first time working with a partner like Netguru, and I was impressed with how smoothly they navigated the process and our concerns. They’ve provided us with a stellar experience; they anticipated our needs and identified solutions we would never have thought of. 

Their project managers were very considerate and ensured each sprint aligned with the requirements and proposed time estimates. They delivered everything on time and helped us achieve all the goals we set when we started. 

We used Miro to scope out the project and slack was our virtual office to manage the project. They were communicative via Slack, and we had weekly calls via Google Meet. They also accommodated our budget, which was essential for us as a startup.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Netguru’s biggest strength is their people-first approach. Working with them has been awesome, and we’ve built a strong relationship. They were willing to bet on us and invest their time to help us achieve our goals. The entire team was relatable and adaptable and compromised to identify creative solutions for our product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing Netguru could improve on. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend reaching out to Netguru to meet with their relationship managers. Build your case and communicate your expectations so they can understand your vision. Once they capture your needs, they’ll build the best team to help you achieve your goals.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a consultant at a tech company that provides HR applications. Our system can recruit, test, and select candidates for job positions.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We’re working on a way for users to be able to interview candidates through our system, and we hired Netguru to help us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netguru is helping us develop an interview module for our app. The module's design has been a collaboration; we came into the project with suggestions of what we want things to look like, and the team has also provided design elements and ideas. They're using competencies from our framework to create this product. 

The module will enable users to interview and score candidates. Once a candidate has undergone personality and ability testing in our primary app, the user can open an interview interface, which is a standalone product. There, they can add evaluators via email, and the app will send the evaluators a link to the application. This feature allows multiple evaluators from the same company to be present at the interview. 

On the next page of the module, evaluators can see the candidate's test results and competencies. Then, they can find standardized questions to ask during the job interview. The app allows users to score candidates from one to seven. Next, users can see a summary page of their scores and comments and send them to another page with all the evaluators' scores. This module has the possibility to be a standalone product in the future. 

What is the team composition?

We work with a senior frontend developer and a junior backend developer, and I've also communicated with project administrators. 

How did you come to work with Netguru?

They were hired before I joined the company. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around €10,000 (approximately $9,900 USD) a month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We measure their success based on their speed, communication, and availability. Overall, we’ve had a good collaboration with Netguru. 

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Asana to manage the project, and they always keep us updated. We have weekly meetings where we prioritize tasks. The team is always good about sending videos of what they’ve done in the past week. As for communication, we use Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really appreciate that we have weekly follow-up meetings that aren’t just with the technical workers but also with Netguru’s administrative team. As a result, we always feel like they’re looking after us. When we don’t want to give the developers feedback directly, we can tell management.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they need to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re a company with internal developers like us, it would be wise to get involved in the hiring princess of the developers through Netguru. Join the interviews and evaluate who’ll work on the project with you. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO for a company called Powermeals. We deliver healthy, ready-made meals to people’s homes in a weekly box.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We had a lot of bugs in our platform, so we hired Netguru to tidy it up and add some new features.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netguru provided web development services. They mostly worked on our website’s backend. They also redid the frontend to try to increase our page loading speed. They used Figma to produce some designs for us. The site was built with WordPress.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

They were already working with us when I joined the company. I think our boss found them through a recommendation, which I’m not entirely sure about.

How much have you invested in them?

We were spending $10,000–$20,000 a month on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on this project from February 2021–June 2022.

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

We saw significant improvements in our page speed, and 95% of our orders went through without needing any manual intervention. To be exact, our page speed went down from nine to two seconds.

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a very good job in this regard. They were very clear about what they were working on and why some things took longer than expected. We typically communicated through Slack and had weekly calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed with their work. They knew exactly what they were doing and were very professional throughout.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Ultimately, the reason we stopped working with them was that their services were just too expensive for us. We also could have used a bit more help in terms of consulting; nevertheless, they were generally very good at everything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Netguru is very good with everything, so just make sure you make the most of them, follow their advice, and have everything set up the way you need it to be.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a modern healthcare company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We needed someone to develop our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by designing the website's template with an external expert. After that, we presented the project and templates to Netguru, and then they did the development from scratch using Angular.

It's a simple website, and its core functionalities are presenting the information about our company and our offers to patients. There's also a contact form and the ability to donate money to the foundation.

What is the team composition?

We were in contact with a project manager, an Angular frontend developer, an account manager, and a tester. I also had a quick meeting with the account director, who was responsible for a group of account managers.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent €20,000 (approximately $20,100 USD) with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together throughout July 2022.

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

The budget was bigger than I expected, and the timeframe was longer, but I communicated that to them. They were flexible enough in changing the Angular developer so they could meet my expectations.

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

We reached the deadline and stayed within budget. Regarding tools, we used Jira, and they also created a flowchart of the activities throughout the project. They also set up a Slack channel for smooth communication for the whole team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They delivered quality work thanks to their aim of turning in the best possible results. They were also flexible and had a constant approach to meeting our target.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Communication wasn’t clear at the beginning.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with them with one thing to point out; their pricing is a bit above other similar providers, but I can also say that they deliver good quality but for an additional cost.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at SOL-MILLENNIUM Medical Group, and I’m the global VP for corporate transformation, which also makes me the global head of IT. We’re a global medical device distributor.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We needed help with our overall business’ digital transformation and digitization.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netguru has developed a CRM, a custom application, a Salesforce service cloud, and a website for us. First, they adapted their system to our capabilities and rolled us into Agile management and product discovery. They started the digital transformation with a Salesforce CRM, where they rescued a failed implementation. They performed an implementation audit and then executed two new implementations for us; one in the US and another in Europe. Both rollouts included the development of an API for our SAP ERP. Therefore, it wasn’t a standalone CRM; it came integrated with our ERP, and the team did that integration within that project. 

In the meantime, they worked on the Salesforce service cloud for North America. The team built our custom application using Microsoft Power Apps and Power BI. The team also developed the website from scratch using Webflow. They designed the site considering that direct e-commerce would be connected later. They’re now preparing the site for B2B e-commerce. 

Currently, Netguru provides us with ongoing development and helpdesk services for the CRM and the service cloud. Moving forward, they’ll also integrate client or vendor portals into the website. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with about 15 teammates from Netguru. The team has included business development managers, sales executives, the CEO, icon designers, and a group of programmers in different technologies.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

I found them through my personal network because I was friends with one of Netguru’s supervisory board members.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent about $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in November 2021, and it’s still ongoing.

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

The first metric to measure Netguru's success is their development time. We launched two CRM instances, and each project took about eight weeks, which is a record time. The team did the core mapping in less than two weeks, and both the Netguru side and our developers did great work. This was also one of the fastest and most successful API development that we've had.

Meanwhile, this was the first time we used any CRM, and in the four months of using our North American instance, we've had about $15 million worth of opportunities there. There's also a significant improvement in our customer service process through the service cloud. Though metrics are hard to measure because we didn't measure our ticket turnaround before, I speculate that the solution has doubled our customer response efficiency.

Moreover, Netguru has excellent business development personnel that are both technology and business oriented. They also have a well-established product discovery process. When we started, their process was more advanced than we were ready to accommodate. However, they accommodated us and suggested an Agile approach.

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is their strongest point. The team has a unique ability to utilize the Agile methodology, so they're spot on in terms of deadlines. Budget-wise, I would give them fairly high marks because while we've gone over the budget here and there, it hasn't been entirely their fault; part of it is due to our scoping as well.

We communicate through Microsoft Teams. This is another thumbs up for Netguru because they've adapted to what we use in our organization, making communication far easier for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Netguru is agile and has project management and accelerated implementation abilities. All our other partners work with a classic statement of work (SoW), with meetings three times a week and two-month projects. Meanwhile, Netguru has the unique ability to handle accelerated implementation. 

Additionally, their very high technical ability allows us to focus on the business instead of fighting bugs and validating their solutions from a technical point of view. Moreover, the team has business acumen; they tell us when we haven't given them the right requirements using diplomatic words.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there hasn't been a challenge or question to which they haven't found the answer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be disciplined on the customer side. Netguru has big development power, and they'll quickly build what you ask from them. Therefore, it's good to do your homework and carefully think through the scoping. Additionally, Netguru always engages a bigger group of people which allows them to develop timely manner and with technological reliability. However, this also costs money, so get your scoping right, kick off at the right time, and they will deliver.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Seven2one Informationssysteme GmbH, a custom software development company located in Germany. We work for energy domain businesses in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The core of our business is providing individual solutions tailored to the customer’s needs based on their business processes, mainly in the energy domain-related areas.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We needed software development partners to support our activities on various points, from addressing capacity challenges to providing expert knowledge of various technologies and assisting us in frontend and backend development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netguru has become our software development partner. For our first project, they provided us with web developers knowledgeable in React to help us with our microservice platform’s architecture. Their task was to create multiple special frontends for a mobility charging website based on our system and part of an R&D project we’re currently executing.

On our second project, Netguru’s resources have provided us with UI libraries that can be reused for our individual software development. Using these libraries, we can extract existing implementations of frontend controls to get a reusable UI package.

Our third project has been related to UX. First, Netguru reviewed the UX of two of our existing product frontends and provided feedback on improvement possibilities and accessibility issues. After a 2–3-week iteration period, they provided us with a very detailed report on our findings. Now, we’re solving the issues we found step by step.

The software development part of our engagement was done almost from scratch. Netguru reused some modules that were provided, but the core design and implementation work was done from scratch. During this process, they also made use of their design capabilities.

What is the team composition?

In total, we’ve worked with four people from Netguru: three web developers and a UX expert.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

My colleague found them and started discussions with them in 2021.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March 2022, and our engagement is ongoing as we continue to assign them more tasks.

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

We’ve measured the success of our engagement with two metrics; the first metric is the onboarding time. When we started collaborating with Netguru, it took them less than two weeks to get the developers fully up to speed with our proprietary platform infrastructure. It was very timely for the task. The second metric has been their team’s work speed. They’ve worked on very tight deadlines, and they’ve been able to reach our milestones.

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

Netguru has met the deadlines and stayed on budget. Their prices are not economical, but they’re fair for what they offer. We mainly use Azure DevOps to manage the project and Microsoft Teams to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our business model requires flexibility regarding the amount of work that needs to be done in a certain period. One of the advantages of working with Netguru is that they can provide us with skilled software development resources on short notice. Their main strength is their ability to deliver; they always provide me with what I require. We’ve needed experts in very specific areas, and they’ve been able to fill those capacities. Additionally, their resources represent the values that Netguru stands for in their communication and behavior. Everything they do is well done, which makes me very happy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to hearing about their entire offering. They offer more than the typical software development company, adapting to different business models. They’ll exceed your expectations.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at Joystream, a blockchain streaming DAO (decentralized autonomous organization).

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We've worked on several projects for our video streaming service platform. For this project, we needed help with platform design.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netguru's designers are working with us under an outsourced model — they're an integral part of our team. Their designs are based on the brief we give them, but they create them from scratch.

Our product is a video streaming platform where creators can create a channel, upload and publish videos, and then mint NFTs from the videos and put them on the marketplace. They can either put them on auction or create a sale and then sell them to a range of interested individuals. The sales happen with our native token called Joy.

Regarding technologies, we've built our blockchain on Substrate and the frontend on React. We're also using a query node for the backend, a graph QL query engine that indexes and reads the data from the blockchain and makes it possible for the frontend application to display the data via de API.

What is the team composition?

We started working with a team of four, and then we scaled down to fewer individuals — a senior designer and a lead designer. 

How did you come to work with Netguru?

They were already with us by the time I joined the project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2021, and the project is ongoing.

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

We haven't launched yet because we're still in the beta phase, but general feedback has been amazing. We couldn't be happier with their communication, deliverables, and depth and breadth of their research and design thinking.

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

They're excellent with project management; we use ZenHub, which is a browser extension for GitHub. We've also used Figma for the designs and Mural boards for chart creation. For communication, we use Slack and Tandem.

Their team has shown consistent and extremely high-quality output and excellent communication throughout the project, and it's been a pleasure working with them. I can highlight their flexibility in adopting a process that works for us based on real user feedback, collaborating with our community, and doing top-notch design work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their professionalism, quality of work, and communication are the strengths of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think they can improve on anything — they're doing a perfect job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don't think twice and go with Netguru; you'll be happy and confident about your project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a company that offers B2B solutions for accounts payable automation.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We leverage Netguru to grow our team and for them to do outsourced projects when we don’t want to distract our core team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netguru provides us with development staff augmentation. We use them on a team extension model where we give them specifications for certain positions, and they look for engineers for us. Then, we do an interview with the candidates, select them, and mix them with our existing team. We treat these engineers like in-house teammates, and they work remotely. 

We've done many projects with them, such as UI design. Currently, they're helping us build a mobile app, which we've fully outsourced to Netguru. We've provided the specifications and designs, and they're in charge of the entire implementation process. 

What is the team composition?

We've worked with around 20 people from Netguru, mostly senior engineers. 

How did you come to work with Netguru?

I found them through a recommendation. An established company I trusted was using Netguru, and they'd already done a background check on the team. Additionally, I heard about Netguru from different sources. We did an RFP, and they came first, far ahead of second place. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2018, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

Our first KPI is the time to hire, and Netguru provides candidates often and very fast. Another KPI is the retention of candidates. Our Netguru teammates stay as long ass our in-house engineers. 

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

I would give their project management a good grade. Although teammates sometimes change, we usually have one person we work closely with. We use Slack for communication. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

On all levels, starting with the engineering and design product, the Netguru team is pretty fit. They have a good recruitment process and bring in good talent. We’ve done different projects with them, and we’re satisfied with the seniority they provide at an engineering level. Overall, Netguru is professional and delivers on their promises.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think they need to improve anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend Netguru to my friends and whoever needs these services. The only thing to consider is that they’re in a higher price range, so if you’re price-sensitive and not very time-sensitive, they might not be the best option. However, if you want to start quickly and not have a problem with engineer retention or delivery times, go with Netguru.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Odin Company, a psychometric software company. We develop very innovative software apps that are used mostly B2B. We do a combination of tests on unconscious motives and conscious behavior. It all takes 10 minutes online.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

We had way too many bugs in our software development. We were looking for a more professional business to improve our software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we switched to Netguru, they confirmed that our software needed a lot of work. We started to revitalize our existing software to make it more solid and consistent. Now we’re at the end of the lifecycle of that software because with the new plans we have, it’s better and cheaper to rebuild it. We already aligned that process with Netguru. They’re more like a partner to us than just a software development company. It will be a development process that happens in several phases.

We’re using Ruby on Rails coders and architects. They help with front- and backend development. They weren’t involved in the design­–we already redesigned the complete, new software. We created wireframes and screens. We first have to get out the proof of concept for the new business proposition because that will bring us to the exit of our business.

We’re making our product highly scalable. We’re about to launch 3-4 scrum groups for the end development of our new product. They’re going to build an engine in which we can easily connect many people to jobs or training options. Our software is sort of a black book that combines candidates for training possibilities. Once a candidate takes a test, we match them up with jobs or training opportunities that match the results of that test. It will be a standalone system.

What is the team composition?

The project manager manages the team. There’s an account manager, project manager, a quality manager, two coders, and an architect. I also work directly with coders and designers.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

Someone I know had a warm relationship with them. We asked them to review our software and they were very thorough. We were convinced they were the right partner for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent 300,000–400,000 euros ($335,000–466,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the work is ongoing.

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

We are very happy with their work over the last three and a half years. We haven’t had even one bug. It’s an advantage for us that we can scale the team whenever we’d like.

Our clients are very happy about the percentage of uptime, which is extremely high. The software is very solid. They put in sufficient tests and live protocol to test new software. New releases are very solid and our customers hardly noted anything about maintenance.

The setback is almost all the developers we knew are not available, which is normal because they can’t be waiting for us. Last winter, we had to restart the team. It comes with how we work, but it would be interesting if their backlog for transfer of knowledge to new teams could be a bit more consistent.

I understand if we don’t build anything for a year’s time, they have to move on. My solution for that is that we visit them once in a while. We take two or three days to invest in the time to get it all up and running again. We are very happy with them as partners.

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is really good. I’ve been having troubles with account management because I’ve had some account managers who came in after the project manager did her work and started it all over again. I don’t have time for that. I’m very honest about that and am sort of blunt sometimes. They’re very open to whatever we need even if it disrupts their structure.

The core of it all is the project manager. I have a real connection with the project manager and the coders. At first, I didn’t have a bond with the account managers. They were flying in without asking. I didn’t see their value until a few weeks ago when I met the new account manager. He does what he should do and he’s really adding something to the project manager. He thinks with us and helps us to position things. He’s a contextual guy, which is really good.

We started communicating with email, but at a certain point, we had to bring everything into a ticket system. I hate it, so I hired an AI student to take care of my tickets. She’s been the middleman between me and Netguru regarding the ticket system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like that the people at Netguru add some things to the deliverables I want or need. I know quite well what I’m looking for and they come up with the smart solutions to do it so much better than I could think of. They are so solid.

What you see is what you get. They’re really young and are so good at this–they never make promises that they can’t keep. Estimations are secure.

We had a workshop with them last winter. We were visualizing the customer journey of the new software to be built. One of the coders asked us to take another 30 minutes to guide him through the process. It was a courageous thing to do rather than just pretending to get it all. Through that, we found out we missed a few things too. We’re very happy with them as a partner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The account manager should be aware of how a customer works. I’m a content person and I like to know all the details because I have to sell it to my customers. The project manager is key for me. I don’t feel the account manager needs to be the person in charge. If I were Netguru, I’d reconsider how they divide responsibilities in their company.

Everything they do is highly protocoled, but it would help them to have cultural awareness of how other countries function.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We operate networking dinners for the technology community and people in business so that they can expand their networks. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Netguru?

I was looking for a Ruby developer. Our team operated remotely, so I was quite interested in a remote solution because it would fit in with how we were already working.

We hadn’t done any development for a year or so. I’d always had a developer in-house, and now we had that gap. I had someone who could accomplish things here and there, but we didn’t have someone working on the technology full-time.

Our company’s team is small, and they don’t all work from the same place. It made sense for us to find a remote solution that could scale up and down as needed. We could do that with Netguru.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took over the management of the site. We hadn’t done any development work for about a year, so they gave a lot of advice about things we should be updating, like new versions of Ruby. They did that initial review to pinpoint main concerns. At the same time, they allowed me to make comments and request some of the things I was more interested in, like the features and everything we ultimately wanted. It was a balance between the two processes. They took on everything and we started from the beginning in terms of objectives.

We totally changed the flow of our signup process, including all the data fields that we collected and had structured into profiles. We did lots of work on reporting so that I could actually extract the information I needed in order to run the business well. It was a whole different way of looking at the data.

We also added various payment methods. We added description options, bundles, and did an overhaul of some of our regular scheduled emails, optimizing and speeding them up. Netguru did lots of refactoring.

There was tons of old code that they audited, picking and choosing what was worth keeping. They made the software a lot simpler. Prior to working with Netguru, we didn’t have automatic tests or scripts. So after each feature, they put in place automatic testing. Now, instead of us having to manually test, those key features are automatically tested to see if anything is broken. They focused on the user, especially making sure nothing broke during the payment process. We are now having a bit of a break from development and they are helping with maintenance.

What is the team dynamic?

We had two senior developers, one junior developer, a designer, a project manager, and a tester. That was the maximum that we had at any given time.

They have a rotation policy at Netguru. After a certain period of time, the lead developer will be changed so that everything is seen by more than one developer. This method ensures there’s more than one person working on the code, giving a different perspective. We had a project manager that I couldn’t stand, but she left the company, so we ended up with a new one. There was also always a backup project manager that knew the project to a certain level, which was useful. If someone was on a day’s leave, the backup person would always be available.

If we wanted to add or remove anyone on the team on short notice, that was always very easy for Netguru. An in-house team would’ve been a different commitment. I like the flexibility, the availability, and the cost savings of office space.

How did you come to work with Netguru?

I spoke to various freelance developers and contractors; I was looking at all the options. There was one other remote company I was considering, but they didn’t compare when I spoke to them about how they operated. Wiktor [Schmidt, Co-Founder & CEO, Netguru] reached out to me via email just in time, told me a bit about what they do, and we began the engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016 and the work is ongoing.

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

We introduced the new payment options in January, and our revenues doubled overnight. That was the most significant thing that we did. The other thing that was really useful was getting the deeper insights into data, how people are using the site, and the customer behavior. It allows us to adapt our marketing and our commercial strategy.

How did Netguru perform from a project management standpoint?

Netguru is extremely thorough and quite strict. Strict is good, though, because all I want to do is work on the stuff that I can see—I don’t care about the tests running in the background. I know they’re important, but I want to move onto the next thing. They tell me the things that we need to do and they make me stick to it. They got me to be much more structured in running this technology project. It was strict in a good way.

They make me stick to the rules and processes that they’ve developed over time, with a lot of projects and a robust development team. We use JIRA or Atlassian as a project management tool, and Slack to keep track of things. We talk on Google Hangouts every week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re based in Poland and I’m in London, but it doesn’t feel that way—they’re always present. Almost every week, I’ll get an email from someone saying, “Do you want to grab coffee? I’m in London.” That's not what you expect from a remote firm. They’re very hot on customer care.

There’s always someone available to talk to me, or someone checking in. That was way above what I was expecting. They’ve done a really good job with communication. Having a QA tester was also amazing. When features were shown to me, they had been tested thoroughly, and truly worked. My experience in the past was getting a feature that was 97% there. With Netguru, when we did find a bug or a problem, they would get right on it, which I know is very time-consuming.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that comes to mind; their development was good and I loved how the team was put together. I liked their availability and their customer care as well. I can’t imagine wanting to go back to using in-house solutions. I’ll be comfortable using Netguru for future projects. I would use them without hesitation.

What tips would you share with less experienced buyers that come to Clutch and hope to use our platform to find a vendor?

The thing I didn’t know a long time ago was the difference between programming languages and the availability of developers. There are certain programming languages that have a lot of developers available, and you’d have more of a choice in the market.

Some programming languages, though, don’t have as many developers. Supply and demand dictate the price and availability. I’d get a handle on the actual options and what that means for your project, especially if it’s ongoing.