Octaria Software Development

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of PiggyBack Cabling LLC, an infrastructure solutions business that does structured cabling, data communications security, and smart building technologies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Octaria Marketing & Software?

We had some inefficiencies between our channel sales and our sales staff. Typically, there was a lot of data entry and overhead intensive tasks for little margin, which I wanted to automate. For that reason, I engaged Octaria.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Octaria is in the process of building a fully automated quote tool that our partners can use. We use AWS. We have a form entry on our website where our reps can enter customer information and upload PDFs. Octaria was able to take all of the manually entered data and PDFs from the sales reps and send it over through AWS. That data goes back to our estimating software, which creates a fully built estimate for us.

I have a lot of these requests, so the software is very complex and customized. The software has a lot of inputs and variables. The end goal is for the software to be able to take an input, put it through our estimating service, and then spit a quote right back out, without any need for human interaction or overhead on our end. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with one person for the most part, although there might have been two people at some point.

How did you come to work with Octaria Marketing & Software?

Essentially, I came to work with them through word-of-mouth and previous engagement. I engaged with the owner before Octaria became a company. We talked and found that we had a very similar background and understanding of things. I told the owner what I was looking to do, and he drafted the problem and a solution. We built out multiple scopes from there.

How much have you invested with them?

As of now, we’ve paid $3,500, and I will be billed $3,300 once they finish up the maintenance. In total, we’re looking at an almost $5,000 investment.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the first scope at the end of July 2020, and we began the second scope that September. The main scope has been completed, and now Octaria is providing us with some specialized requests and fine-tuning maintenance. 

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

So far, I don’t have any metrics — I’m still getting that data together. However, I can say that it has absolutely saved us more time in terms of man- and brainpower than I can calculate at this point.

We’ve also gotten fantastic feedback from our partners themselves. I take their feedback to Octaria, and they make modifications to really customize the software so that everybody’s really happy. Overall, feedback has been great from our partners as well as my staff. 

How did Octaria Marketing & Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management couldn’t be better. Octaria was very clear and communicative on every deliverable in the scope. The scope was detailed and clearly laid out, and they provided estimated times of how long they thought each portion of the scope would take to complete. 

We maintain constant communication. Any time any feedback or issues come up, or there are changes made, Octaria is on point in making sure that it’s taken care of. The communication is fantastic.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The owner’s attention to detail is impressive — you can tell that he takes pride in what he’s doing. He does things from his perspective and wants it to work like he’s working for himself, and he puts that into his work. I can definitely see the results of his attention to detail. He wants the software to work correctly and be successful, just like we do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No — I have nothing negative to say whatsoever.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for anything digital as far as marketing and software, or you’re just looking to invest in a tool that can help your business and identify actual problems, Octaria is helpful in those situations. They analyze and help you figure out your business problems, and then they find solutions to those problems.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO at Duraquant, a fintech startup that works on loan evaluation software.

What challenge were you trying to address with Octaria Marketing & Software?

We’re building out our MVP and going to market. Octaria Marketing & Software has been crucial in that effort.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve identified a part of the market where we think there’s an efficiency in how loan buyers and banks are valuing non-performing loans. We have the industry-level experience, but not the technical.

Greg (Founder) and his team put together the technical requirements. Their team coded our software during a set project timeline. We went through different technical options to put together a working prototype.

What is the team composition?

We mainly worked with Greg.

How did you come to work with Octaria Marketing & Software?

We have a mutual acquaintance. We also interviewed a few other groups and decided that they were the best fit, given our timeline and budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work with Octaria Marketing & Software began in July 2020.

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

We’re putting our ducks in the row for a launch next year. But we’re excited to see how it will be received in the market. I’m thrilled with it. I think the product will definitely make a difference in the market. Octaria Marketing & Software had the skills to make this happen.

How did Octaria Marketing & Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Greg is extremely organized and thoughtful. He always comes forwards with different plans and recommendations. The entire process has been streamlined.

All of our communication has been over phone calls and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with the flexibility and communication level from my short amount of time in the software world.

Many other companies wanted to start with a much larger budget, but Greg was able to taper that down for us. He ensured we had a useable project within our budget and delivered on time. I couldn’t ask for more.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. I’m very happy.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice applies broadly to any software development. Know your strengths and communicate effectively with your partner.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of a customer software automation company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Octaria Marketing & Software, and what were your goals?

Software development. The end goal was to create a novel application to leverage optical character recognition to extract important data from standardized forms and push the data into third party software.

How did you select Octaria Marketing & Software and what were the deciding factors?

Personal connection. The founder's background and skillsets were perfect for the job.

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

Octaria designed and developed the entire solution from scratch. Leveraging existing software packages in python and the third parties REST API, we were able to deliver exactly what the customer needed.

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

3 Software Engineers.

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

The end product was capable of saving each customer hundreds of hours of work a year and subsequently hundreds of thousands of dollars in overhead.

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

Re-occuring meetings were set up for syncs / touchpoints. Very clear on next steps, potential roadblocks, etc.. I wish all software teams were this high touch.

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

The quality of their solutions was impressive. Better yet, they were proactive about potential delays and were able to almost see into the future to tell us exactly how the development cycle would play out.

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

None that come to mind.