OAKBITS

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Assessment Referral Services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with OAKBITS?

OAKBITS helps me gill my companies for high-quality development personnel resources in an ongoing manner on a variety of technical projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their developers are integrated with our team, so they’re using my technology stack that I had prescribed for the work. It consists of the most modern set of Angular, all the AWS and Google cloud capabilities, and a bunch of other subsystems across those respective clouds.

We essentially give them a list of tasks and they help us work through them. One of the elements that I rely on them for a fair amount is their expertise in scalable applications that they’ve built for other parts of their business. We have a conversation around scoping the proper solution, and then assign specific pieces of the functionality to individuals on the team to deliver in a continuous-delivery type environment.

What is the team composition?

I was working with the principal, who owns the organization, as well as a secondary individual augmenting every now and again depending on the requirements.

How did you come to work with OAKBITS?

I was looking for a staff augmentation organization and came across them on one of the platforms that host different developers seeking that kind of work. I spoke to them, and we connected well and understood each other’s processes, so it was a fairly natural engagement.

How much have you invested with them?

Their rate is pretty much within the reasonable market range for the technology they support.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work with OAKBITS ran from June–December 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s been a very successful partnership so far. We’ve been able to create a working prototype that is highly functional and serves all of the purposes that we intended when the project began. All of the development work has gone extremely smoothly.

We don’t have any hard statistics yet because it’s not actively used in the market, but we’ve seen some success before taking the product to the market, via our initial tests and expressions of interest that we’ve received so far.

How did OAKBITS perform from a project management standpoint?

They were able to actually work faster than we expected. When there was a timeline related concern on their part, it was communicated early and often so that we didn’t have any problem with accepting the timelines that they provided.

The turnaround times on the code itself were always efficient, given that they’re building things from scratch. I was always able to functionally review the work they were doing, and I never had any problems with the quality of the code.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive aspect of their business is the responsiveness and communication. One of the things that’s often lacking in staff augmentation companies is people who really try to understand what you’re trying to accomplish before they jump into the deep end and just code exactly what you ask for. They were willing to challenge my assumptions when they thought of more appropriate solutions for my business needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve been really happy with the partnership as a whole.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and clear about your intentions, and then let them provide some feedback on your solutions. It’s well worth hearing them out because it’s likely they will have some ideas that you haven’t thought of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager of a beverage company. We deliver drinking water to homes and offices. Our SKUs include an 18.9-liter bottle that we deliver and a small bottle that we sell in convenient shops.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with OAKBITS?

We wanted to explore how to improve our database performance. However, before doing that, we asked the developer to consolidate our Sybase database with our MySQL database by migrating data.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The developer used Python to migrate data and procedures from the Sybase database to the MySQL database. I told him my requirements, and he made a script and implemented it, including automating processes. He performed these tasks in a DigitalOcean system. We did many test runs before the processes were finalized. Also, if we have issues with database management or administration, he works to solve those as well. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with one person named Dragos (Founder, OAKBITS). 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $10,000–$50,000 with the team.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2018, and the project is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

His work is crucial to the project. He built a strong database infrastructure that allows me to use as many applications as I want, and that makes my business more effective.

How did OAKBITS perform from a project management standpoint?

He is a strong developer and a good employee. Whenever we have an issue or a focus point, I ask him to fix it, and he does. We spoke at least once a week. However, when issues arose, we talked every day. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

He knows what I want, and he’s aware of how to do those tasks.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I hope he lowers the price for me as it’s a little bit pricey.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

OAKBITS is a responsible vendor that fully commits to the work. Future clients will be in good hands.