Netsmartz LLC

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re building a social platform, and I’m the CTO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netsmartz LLC?

We were looking for an outsourced partner to develop, test, and manage and product. Down the stream, we also want to engage with them for DevOps.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They assigned a team to us, and we engaged with their developers directly to manage our execution. The entire product came from scratch.

The heart of the software is a social platform that connects people who need help with people who can help. The solution is available on desktops and mobile browsers, as well as in the form of mobile apps. People can sign up and start searching for content.

We’re also building capabilities similar to ride sharing technologies to allow our customers to track their rides. The app is also configured for B2B users.

What is the team composition?

Right now, we’re working with a team of around 10­–15 people, spanning engineers, lead engineers, architects, engineering managers, product managers, UI resources, and QA specialists.

How did you come to work with Netsmartz LLC?

I’ve worked with them across 4–5 companies, including the last three companies I’ve worked for. Originally, I found them on LinkedIn.

How much have you invested with them?

The current work has cost around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together on this most recent project since January 2022.

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

We’re beginning to track metrics around time-to-market. where we’re supposed to be in the journey, and how many people we’re supposed to onboard to be on track. We have a conservative plan that calls for seven people, but we’re already at 15. Netsmartz has boosted our expected velocity.

How did Netsmartz LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

Generally, we’ve been on track. Their project managers are working with ours to make sure we’re on target and discover any surprises as soon as possible.

We typically communicate over Zoom calls for daily scrum meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to respond to challenges at a high level stands out. Unlike other companies I’ve worked with where they’re focused on time and materials costs, Netsmartz goes above and beyond to ensure they hear and respond to our challenges first. This is true of both their senior management and second-level leadership; they’re very empathetic and are always available to unblock us from issues.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always room for improvement, and they’re acting on it already. Generally, they could focus on their employees’ soft skills. Their CEO has been focusing on this specifically. I’m generally very happy with what they’re doing internally, as well as with us, externally.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very open and customer-focused, so, give them the opportunity to go beyond your typical engagement model. Netsmartz is very passionate and empathetic.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at a software development company. We build, sell, and support ERP software.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netsmartz LLC?

We were looking for a UX designer to add to one of our projects. We wanted to get some external help to get our project done from a timing perspective.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netsmartz put forward a scope of work, and we accepted it. From there, a resource from their team started working with us in a contract-based arrangement. They use Figma, which is what our in-house UX team uses. They also make suggestions about the UI/UX on a mobile device. 

What is the team composition?

We have one person from Netsmartz embedded within our project team. 

How did you come to work with Netsmartz LLC?

I found them through an email, then I checked through LinkedIn and their website and got some feedback. I reached out to Netsmartz to see what they had to offer. We had a couple of meetings, and they arranged an interview with the resource we ended up engaging to see how they communicated and whether their skills and background lined up with the project we were working on.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2021, and our partnership is ongoing. Although we originally started with a three-month engagement, we’ve extended the contract a couple of times now.

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

Netsmartz’s resource has taken on a fair bit of responsibility, and they’ve spoken to different subject matter experts to understand our project’s use cases more in detail. The experience has been quite positive, and our in-house team keeps asking me to continue the engagement with Netsmartz, showing that they’re happy with the work.

How did Netsmartz LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re good at project management. Netsmartz is involved in our regular day-to-day scrum meetings, and they communicate with our project manager. There’s a fair bit of high-bandwidth communication; we use some Atlassian tools like Jira and Confluence, and we usually communicate through Microsoft Teams and email. Effectively, we treat Netsmartz’s resource like an internal teammate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate how Netsmartz found us a good fit for this particular project. We’ve reached out to them for different resources for other projects. However, they found the right one for those projects, and that’s okay, though we chose not to go forward with that. Still, with the engagement we have now, they chose someone that’s a good match for our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we try to engage a provider, we have a video conference with them because we need to see how well we can communicate together. While our initial meeting with the UX designer was good, they weren’t able to get the video working with some of the other candidates, which made it a lot harder during the interview process because we couldn’t actually see them, so to speak.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to take the time to talk to Netsmartz and make sure you get a resource that matches the specific need you’re looking to fill.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Director of production and operations at a game development company

For what projects/services did your company hire Netsmartz LLC, and what were your goals?

We were ramping up a new team on a new product and needed support to bridge the time where we could hire a full time member on staff. Netsmartz was able to get up to speed on our requirements quickly and got a solid pass on our early needs.

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

Netsmartz contacted me a few years previously to this project for another job and where I didn't need their services for that project, when the time came to solve our immediate capacity problems, I had developed an interest in trying out Netsmartz.

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

We had a kick off meeting with the Netsmartz team where we outlined our needs and then we received a quote and signed the paperwork. Then we were introduced to our engineer and was able to have him attend daily scrums so that we could make sure he understood the tasks assigned to him. We also had several meetings with more senior engineers to confirm our approach.

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

We had 1 DevOps engineer assigned to us.

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

We had our build up and working quickly and automated with appropriate updates automatically posted to our communications channels. Great service - our assigned engineer was comfortable with learning our requirements and set our foundational infrastructure up well.

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

We used Slack to do most of our communications, with daily standups and documentation in Confluence. The documentation allowed our new DevOps engineer to get up to speed quickly on previous work done.

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

No feedback here. I got what I expected.

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

Had our engineer had more experience with game development tools, his ramp up would have gone quicker. However there was a lack of experience across the department so we weren't able to have someone more experienced - he caught up quickly to where we needed him to be.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head of Marketing at Troemner, LLC responsible for the strategy of our digital presence.

For what projects/services did your company hire Netsmartz LLC, and what were your goals?

Our website was built on Magento 1 and in need of upgrade to M2. With limited resources to dedicate to the project, we hired the team at Netsmartz to help with both the upgrade to M2 as well as our migration from on-prem hosting to Magento Commerce, Cloud Pro. By doing this we were able to have a short project time while benefiting from a total solution in line with our business needs.

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

We worked with several agencies and narrowed our options to three. After several discussions with all three agencies, we chose Netsmartz based on their past projects, alignment with our business needs and overall value of their proposal.

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

Netsmartz ran a well structured project with all phases clearly defined. Regular meeting allowed for clear goals, objectives and expectations to be set for each of the phases. When necessary, additional meetings were called to detail complex requirements with Netsmartz proposals staying within business needs and cost expectations.

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

A project manager was assigned as our main contact and we had a dedicated developer for entirety of the project. Consulting developers within Netsmartz where available to assist when needed.

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

Our new site was well received and introduced additional functionalities which increased RFQ's, leads, for products. With the upgrade to M2, SEO was improved through quicker page speeds, optimized pages design and responsive web design.

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

Weekly meetings where scheduled for entirety of project with additional calls as needed calls. All calls involved project leader and our dedicated developer.

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

They delivered a professional website and focused on our business requirements. They proved to be what we thought they were and that was a company who "fit" our business needs and didn't waver to fulfill our expectations.

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

Like all web projects, everything was not perfect but they were on call to quickly address high priority bugs and fixes.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Doorstep Market is an artisan marketplace selling the best local products from around the USA

For what projects/services did your company hire Netsmartz LLC, and what were your goals?

Development of a Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce website.

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

Reviewed vendors previous work, extensive project planning interviews and evaluating their costs against competitors.

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

Developing a complex Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce website that used a multi-vendor extension as well as Magento Multi-Site capability. First development phase took 5 months to go live. Then Netsmartz continued to offer development and maintenance support.

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

5. Project manager, a front end dev, 2 backend devs and a tester.

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

They delivered build 1.0 on time and on budget, and very close to full spec. We were impressed by their ability to meet the very tight timeline we set forth. They were good at developing to very specific specs.

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

Very good project management by our project manager. A pleasure to work with, with a lot of extra effort put into the project and the work.

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

The price point was very competitive. They followed direction very very well.

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

While they were great at executing a specification and requirements, they didn't have that much input of guidance in building requirements, specifically around the business marketing, branding and front end look of the site.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a product manager at an educational publishing company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Netsmartz LLC, and what were your goals?

We hired NetSmartz LLC for their expertise with the Magento Cloud Commercr Platform to build us an e-commerce site that would be flexible, secure, and provide a great user experience for our customers.

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

Quality of work, cost, schedule and resource availability were key factors in our decision making.

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

Build us an e-commerce platform on the cloud that would integrate with our ERP system for three different stores where a customer can share an account and session across all three stores. We are on the Cloud Commerce pro set up at Magento.

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

I am not sure on exact number, but Project Manager, a few developers, senior designer, Technical Admin, QA. All were great.

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

NetSmartz LLC provided deliverables on time with good quality.

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

We used JIRA for tracking work and most communication. Otherwise, scheduled calls, meetings, e-mails. Communication from our PM was always informative and clearly expressed.

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

They're a pleasure to work with. We felt like we had worked together for years right from the beginning. We relied on their Magento expertise and they delivered. We have continued to work together since launch.

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

Nothing jumps out, we look forward to continuing our partnership with NetSmartz LLC.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Systems Development & Strategy for an art-based fundraising company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Netsmartz LLC, and what were your goals?

Our website had initially been created by a small group of developers. We quickly outgrew their abilities. We had moved around between developers for a few years trying to find a good fit both in terms of our site generating increased business and continuing to provide enhanced ease of use for our customers.

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

We connected with the team at Adobe and they assisted us in finding a company to assist us with moving to M2 that would also be able to manage & expand on our customized portions of Magento. We looked for a team that had knowledge of the platforms used, understood our customer needs and the timing of our main selling periods in relation to the school year.

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

We started with a Discovery meeting followed by a review of our current code by the Netsmartz team. Milestones were set-up at that time in line with our goals. We held weekly meetings as well as Milestone meetings to review what had been completed and was ready for testing.

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

Two project managers, a software engineer as well as variety of team members as needed.

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

We were able to continue to serve our customers during Covid lockdowns by the institution of new online only programs that we were able to offer to our school customers.

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

We were provided with a milestone document as well as a breakdown of work being done at every stage. The team was typically immediately available and very responsive by email.

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

The team is very knowledgeable and understanding of our needs. They were able to anticipate any issues with our requests and made frequent suggestions to enhance our site.

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

I don't have any areas that I feel could have been handled differently by Netsmartz. They are in a different time zone than us but seem available 24/7.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT director of a luxury home furnishing retailer, a B2B company that predominantly serves the interior design community in the US, and we’re currently expanding our business in the UK.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netsmartz LLC?

We needed someone to provide us with a cost-efficient e-commerce solution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I engaged with Netsmartz LLC as a third-party offshore provider primarily focusing on Magento e-commerce development. They’re porting our entire site along with its functionalities and interface to the newest version of Magento, and serve as our main front- and backend development resource for new features and functionality.

Apart from that, they do QA testing for our products and make further improvements by implementing new features. 

What is the team composition?

We work with Raj (Technical Project Manager), Pratik (Business Analyst), Sneha (Software Engineer), Sakshi (Software Developer), and a lead developer.

How did you come to work with Netsmartz LLC?

We found Netsmartz LLC through Google and decided to go with them based on their Magento and Adobe eCommerce expertise. Sanjay (COO) presented their services well and after checking a few references and vetting their company, I felt quite confident moving forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested around $600,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in May 2019.

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

Netsmartz LLC has a great track record of delivering multiple requirements successfully, and consistently meeting our expectations.

How did Netsmartz LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is serviceable, but it takes care from our side to make sure everybody in their team is working efficiently and communicating smoothly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We like that Netsmartz LLC has the commitment for our business to be successful. They understand the challenges and do a good job of keeping the project on track. In addition to that, we like their responsiveness and ability to mitigate issues.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be great to see some accountability and ownership flow down to the lowest level of contributors. If the developers don’t understand the requirement, they should take it upon themselves to identify the problem instead of passing it to someone else.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to go into the partnership with your eyes open. As long as you have ownership inside the business and the right people to manage your project, you’re going to have a great experience working with Netsmartz LLC.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a nonprofit organization in the education area.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netsmartz LLC?

We purchased and installed a new learning management platform for our customers, but its shopping cart was inept for what we wanted, so we needed help with it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Netsmartz LLC built out and customized the shopping card product we got through Magento. We started by telling them what we needed, and they proceeded to fill out a scope of work on the timeline, then started to build and launch the product.

Currently, they’re helping us with maintenance.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with six members of their team, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Netsmartz LLC?

They were referred to us by our LMS company. We chose them because they accommodated our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $45,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

They’ve been accommodating and have continued to work through any issues we’ve had.

How did Netsmartz LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great at staying on the timeline. In terms of communication, we have biweekly meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Their ability to adapt to us and work to get any needed solution is outstanding — they solve any issue until we’re satisfied.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The time difference between teams has been challenging in terms of having all the teammates on the same call to talk about the project.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be clear on what you want and scope everything out, including the timeline you want to work with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager of a paper and media distributor. We sell to the photography industry and we also have a digital imaging platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Netsmartz LLC?

Our digital imaging platform is widely used in the North American and Australian markets, so we were looking for an easier way for companies to establish partnerships with solution providers such as photography production companies and photo websites, to provide consumers with a seamless experience when it comes to ordering, developing, and publishing photos.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Netsmartz LLC to create a one-point integration for gallery software and e-commerce companies to connect to a network of photography labs across our targeted markets. Using our production system, customers are able to easily make orders and establish business relationships as they choose.

The project has five phases starting with a feasibility architecture where we identify the scope of the project, a business analysis where we write high-level user stories, a Scrum implementation where we acquire resources from Netsmartz to do incremental developmental sprints, a testing phase, and the delivery of an MVP.

Throughout the partnership, we’ve established additional features, resized the Scrum team, and sent the product out to early adopters and testers. Additionally, Netsmartz has also been hosting and operating the software’s APIs and Azure cloud system.

What is the team composition?

We work with a business analyst, Scrum leader, and a senior technical person who’s responsible for the software architecture. At our peak, we’ve probably had about five full-time resources and we’ve also interfaced with John (General Manager & Channel Sales Manager).

How did you come to work with Netsmartz LLC?

The previous vendor we were working with on this project recommended them to us. They have limited experience working with Netsmartz, but have read about their visibility in the tech community of the Rochester area.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership started in December 2019.

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

We’ve been very pleased with the resources provided by Netsmartz. They’re phenomenal at taking ownership of the project and they’re definitely committed to our company’s success. Additionally, their communication and follow-through skills are always there, so we’ve never been afraid of having them directly interact with our customers.

Another thing that I found helpful was the ability they provided me to scale their involvement up or down at the initial push, depending on the project’s needs and budget constraints. We mostly communicate through Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

How did Netsmartz LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform well. One thing I found helpful was the ability they provided me to scale their involvement up or down at the initial push, depending on the project’s needs and budget constraints. We mostly communicate through Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We like that they help with our growth initiative by providing us with customizable resource solutions. The ability to be able to rent our own Scrum team has been very handy, especially in the last six months when business conditions have essentially forced us to put the product on pause.

Are there any areas they could improve?

While we haven’t succeeded with our project yet, it’s not necessarily something I can attribute to their performance, so they don’t have anything they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise them to break down their projects into smaller phases to gain some experience working with Netsmartz. Come up with a plan, get something delivered, and review the progress of the partnership.