Perpetual

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am Founder and CEO of an instructional design, content and technology agency. We were engaged by a leading Atlanta-based non-profit organization providing support to families undergoing life transitions (divorce/bereavement etc.).

We were brought in to develop an online portal to support co-parenting - coaching separated (or separating) parents to responsibly create the best possible environment for children in difficult circumstances.

My role was to define the learning strategy, create the course outline, course content and multimedia as well as to deploy an online learning platform that met the client’s (and user’s) requirements.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Perpetual?

We hired Perpetual to assist with the design, hosting and customization of the online learning platform. While we had the course content side of the engagement covered, we needed assistance with these complementary services. For design, Perpetual created and implemented a custom design theme for the learning platform matching Families First’s branding style guide.

The learning platform selected (Open edX) required advanced configuration on the Amazon AWS cloud services platform, including multiple applications and two databases, which the Perpetual team handled. Additionally, Perpetual implemented advanced customizations on the learning platform including additional payment options, a custom certificate and special question types.

What were your goals for this project?

Successful implementation of both content and custom payment and certification utilities.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Highly recommended by former colleague and a leading consulting firm in New York.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We relied on Perpetual to handle the technology aspect of the engagement in a turnkey model: They installed the software to the servers, customized it, hosted it and got it operational and ready for us to put up our advanced learning content for the customer’s use.

What was the team composition?

We worked with 1 Product Manager, 1 UX Designer and 2 Software Engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The learning platform was launched successfully, satisfying the client’s needs and addressing the goals we set out for the Perpetual team. The platform is still up and running without the need for additional maintenance or support, which is a testament to Perpetual’s robust engineering practices.

The solution established and industry-first for co-parenting training: the ability to take learning sessions, make simple payments, and receive a custom watermarked certificate online from your home instead of having to travel to an in-person class. This increased convenience for the test-takers as well as the client Families First, resulting in several hours and dollars saved for all parties (on both the end-user side and my client's side).

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

What stood out from a project management standpoint was their organized process: each task was well defined, prioritized, estimated and scheduled in the project management tool. Any blockers were marked on the task, and communicated with our team for quick resolution.

They held regular meetings and prepared documentation for project milestones. The team was also easily reachable for out-of-cycle communication and project needs.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Perpetual is proactive, responsive, and have a versatile team to tackle the diverse needs of any tech project. They take into account overall dependencies for successful project delivery in addition to just doing the tasks assigned to them.

Very honest and upfront about roadblocks and always coming with solutions, not problems. Very easy to work with, project-managers highly competent and exude calm authority. Highly recommended.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Hardly any, at times more proactive communication from them would be helpful, but not a major issue at all.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of Storage Seeker. We offer a website where consumers can rent a self-storage unit online.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

Our website has been around since 2008, but we recently changed the way we aggregated data from all of our clients. We switched to an API from a more manual process. We hired Perpetual to effectively rebuild the site using that API and a number of design changes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We relied on Perpetual to connect this new data API to all of our existing self-storage properties. Additionally, they created a CMS that allows our staff to edit large portions of our website’s pages without having to go into the code. Lastly, we had them redesign the UX of several pages on our site.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three backend developers, a designer, and an HTML frontend developer.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

I had worked with Perpetual on a different project in the past. I had a great experience with them before, so I hoped they could replicate that success with Storage Seeker.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent more than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February­–March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We launched our website in April. We have since seen a steady increase in traffic, which we attribute to the architecture changes they’ve made. We’ve also had lower advertising costs due to the increased readability of the pages through Google Ads.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very communicative about what their steps were, and they had fast turnaround times to get demonstration products in front of us to approve or change. We’d use Slack and emails to communicate, along with twice-weekly Zoom calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have artistic designers, talented developers, and organized project managers who could take my business case and convert it into a great product. The breadth of their resources to dedicate to the project was quite impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, this was a quick and painless project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s smart to have some outlines or wireframes because that’s the easiest way to get started with most developers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Scout Finance is the first to market mobile data terminal for investors. I'm the CEO and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

We wanted to find a way to give finance professionals the data they needed on the go. There were no good options on the market, and we wanted to fill that void.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They augmented our staff with iOS engineers to accelerate development for this app. We wanted to create different modalities for the app to be more compatible with different devices and via the web. We asked them to refactor the code for those other approaches, which helped us capture a bigger market share and make a splash quickly. That refactoring lightened the burden and saved us from creating entirely new apps.

What is the team composition?

We had three developers and a project manager, who kept is on the same page.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

I worked with our main contact a long time ago, so that relationship already existed. When I wanted to augment my staff, it was natural to speak with them about what they could offer. Perpetual also came up frequently in conversation as an excellent vendor.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $500,000–$600,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

The whole engagement lasted about six months, and we wrapped up around May 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They decreased our development time by about 60%, which saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars. We've won awards for the finished product, and a lot of their work went into that success.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent communicators, and they finished all their work on time. If there were any issues, they were very responsive. They were there when we needed them, and they set us up well to work on our own. They were as good at management as they were at coding. We worked in Jira, and they had access to our Jira board. That allowed them to clean up some of our entries. They were also on Slack and introduced some helpful design tools and other technologies.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're really amazing project managers, and they really offer a complete package. They were always as good or better than our own employees.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They were fantastic, and I don't have anything to criticize. I only wish there were more of them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

See them as more than just coders. They can be true team members with broad sets of capabilities.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I’m a senior project manager at Special Operations, a creative agency located in New York. We do website, branding, and campaign work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual? 

We have a client whose website needed refreshing. We’d originally designed the site about a year ago, but there were new technologies available. We wanted to make a few updates to ensure that they stay on top of their market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Perpetual created new features for a venture capital firm’s website. They created dropdown menus to display information in a sleek and digestible way. They updated the news page to make it easier to pull articles. They made aesthetic updates to the team member page. They updated the layout of the homepage to make multiple items appear above the fold. They also offered input on UX for mobile design.

The project took place over three phases, and each phase focused on 5–6 updates. Whenever a feature was added or updated on the frontend, Perpetual also updated the code in the CMS on the backend. They wanted to make it easier for the client to go in and edit features as needed.

What is the team composition? 

Ryan (Full Stack Developer, Perpetual) and Amish (CEO, Perpetual) were our main contacts. In total, we had a team of four people working on our project. 

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

Our founder had worked with Amish before I was part of the team. As this project was for a high-profile client, we definitely wanted to go with an established company.

How much have you invested with them? 

With all the phases included, we spent between $15,000–$20,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project took place from October 2018–March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The redesigned site is great. After the updates went live, our client was featured in the Wall Street Journal. The piece was very complimentary about the new site, highlighting the up-to-date branding. It was amazing to get that level of PR and eyeballs on the new site. 

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint? 

Ryan is awesome. They kept a running tracker in Google Sheets so that we were always able to communicate with their team. The Sheet was constantly updated so we never had to question if a task was done. The entire process was very smooth.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

Perpetual was always willing to do additional market research in order to improve their background knowledge on the project. The first thing they sent over to us was a comprehensive spreadsheet of other VC firms. They’d done an analysis of features on their websites that we could incorporate, which was really helpful. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

No. Perpetual is one of the best development companies I've worked with. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

Before approaching any developer with an ask, get as much information from your client about the goals of the project as you can. It's a good rule of thumb that the more work you do before starting will result in a better project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a fintech company. I head up a product here for news and risk products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

Our company had a product we wanted to grow. We were seeking new ways to tell the story of our product as well as redesign the experience to improve customer satisfaction.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Perpetual designed a sales collateral site and redesigned an existing portal. By showcasing our capabilities, they were able to adapt to our proprietary framework. There was quite a bit of ideation, and then ultimately, their team set up the end-to-end portal for video.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a dev team of four or five, along with a UX expert.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

We found that Perpetua was keen to understand the problems we were facing. They were willing to get into the bulk of the work rather than finding a clear solution right off the bat.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Perpetual from 2013–2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There’s been positive feedback about their performance. Video views increased significantly. The sales team also appreciated the sales collateral work their team completed.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management style was efficient. Perpetual was timely and responsive, giving us a clear sense of milestones. Basecamp was the primary project management tool.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think we covered it all. Perpetual did an excellent job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are always areas to improve, but nothing specific stands out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Having an incremental approach and constant engagement is key.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of a freelance community for health professionals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

We had an idea for the kind of app we needed and recognized that we couldn’t hire a full-time staffer to build it in-house. We wanted to find an end-to-end service agency that could help create our SaaS platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re essentially offering users a marketplace—our platform connects hospitals with health professionals. We needed dynamic matching capabilities to pair available doctors with hospital vacancies. On top of that, we wanted to offer user profiles so that individual users and hospitals can learn about each other in the event of a match. Perpetual helped us build out an initial version of the platform.

What is the team composition? 

I think the full team was six people, with three in New York and three in India.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

Their owner and I worked together at a previous company. I was evaluating several other companies as well, but I chose them because I knew they were credible and reliable. They understood what we needed right away and had experience doing similar work, which made the process very easy.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $130,000 to date.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September 2018, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From a development lens, they consistently deliver the key features that we ask for. On a qualitative level, our working relationship with the team in India has significantly improved thanks to better communication.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

They cooperate well with our team, and it’s easy to coordinate the project using Slack and Jira. We also go through sprints, where we lay out all of the upcoming deliverables. Everyone is friendly and easy to work with, and the team member who handles the creative work is excellent. One of their other team members was a bit inexperienced, though, and while they delivered a functional MVP with a quick turnaround, there’s definitely room for improvement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a positive, can-do attitude, even when some of our asks are challenging. Having that kind of mindset has helped us overcome many of our initial challenges as a startup.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like greater clarity on the difference between a project manager and a product manager. One of the team members brought on felt too inexperienced to be a product manager. To me, that’s someone who should have an in-depth knowledge of the product and be intimately involved with the production. The person we worked with just didn’t seem to have that depth.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Understand that there might be a lot of changes as you go along. Their team is very accommodating, so just be clear with your requirements and set priorities as effectively as possible.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of a development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

We were looking for a vendor to develop a web application for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Perpetual developed a mobile responsive web application that supports workflow management and communication between our creators and different brands. Brands can identify talent that aligns with their needs by viewing a landing page inside the application and asking our creators a few questions–before making an advertising offer. Creators, on the other side, have an opportunity to understand whether a brand is serious about its offer. There is also an e-commerce element that allows the creator to make a purchase and confirm the engagement. Perpetual used Mongo, Angular, and node.js for development. They guided the entire process from beginning to end.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a tech lead and about eight developers.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

They were referred to us by someone who had worked with them previously.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $80,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between July–December 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've received a lot of great feedback from both brands and creators. It ended up being a complex software, and we really appreciated Perpetual's attention to detail in building out the workflow. We conducted the user testing and every stage of the workflow turned out to be very well articulated.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered a quality product on time. Also, they were very agile and transparent. They scaled up and scaled down very well depending on our needs. We used Slack, InVision, and Zoom to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Perpetual delivered a high-quality product despite many uncertainties we had about the project. Also, they're very UX-focused and have a capable engineering team. They asked us all the right questions about the end user, which helped us work in a collaborative manner. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They gave us everything we asked of them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They're truly a product development model team. Give them your requirements and be transparent about your needs. They'll come back to you with valuable recommendations and they'll do a great job assessing your pain points.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO of a financial services research group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

We were looking for a vendor to help us with UI/UX design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They're designing screens and managing UI/UX design for our product. First, we gave them a scope of different personas and explained how our customers would use our products. Then, Perpetual built different modules for those personas.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with a UX designer and a UI designer.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

I worked with their CEO previously, so I knew they'd do a good job.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2018, and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They've done a phenomenal job with the designs. They understood all of our requirements, so they're producing the results quickly.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

We defined the timeline, the price, and the scope of work in advance and they did an excellent job with estimation. We use Microsoft Teams for communication and they do their designs in InVision.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They combine hands-on skills with a creative thought process. That is a rare skill and helps them do a top-notch job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It'd be good to have a project manager who would keep the project on track when the scope of work is changing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They're an excellent partner and do high-quality work. They work well collaboratively and provide real-time feedback.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of product and engineering at a hospitality company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

We were scaling our company very rapidly, and we wanted to make faster progress in building our technology. We didn't have enough resources in-house at that time, so we were looking for a vendor to help us with development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our product is fairly self-contained, so projects can be can be modularized and handed off to an external team that works remotely. We distribute large units to various platforms, such as Booking.com, Expedia, and Tripadvisor. Perpetual built API integrations with those platforms for us. We gave them our requirements, and they executed them, interfacing with our in-house team daily. They mostly used Ruby on Rails for development. In addition to building the functionality, they also helped us with testing.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three members of their team.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

They have excellent technical skills and their rates are affordable. We had a phone conversation with them and then, we decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted between March–May 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're able to monitor our listings better, and our uptime is higher overall, which has a direct impact on our revenue.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very responsive and worked fast. We had daily stand-ups with them, and they joined us from India. They were very organized, so we didn't have any issues with the time difference. We used Slack to stay in touch, and we used Asana for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a solid team and do high-quality work. They're genuinely passionate about what they do, so we enjoyed working with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had some miscommunication about defining the unit costs upfront, but that was partly our fault (it was the first time we were working with Perpetual, and we hadn't defined some of the test cases). So maybe one area of improvement for them is to be a little more proactive in defining test cases upfront.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have excellent developers but make sure to collaborate and agree on test cases upfront.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the CTO for a cryptocurrency startup involving transactions with gold. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Perpetual?

We hired Perpetual to design the user experience, branding, and general mock-ups for our MVP.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After figuring out our user flow, we began the UX design stage with Perpetual. Their team began with building screens that aligned with our detailed requirement list. They built the MVP to include all the necessary features.

Additionally, they provided branding services. This process included creating collateral materials and modifying the mock-ups to reflect the new visuals. We incorporated the designs into our internal documents and presentations. Their team assisted with building a web page that showcased our product and the new image.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with Amish (Head of Product Development, Perpetual) and Shawna (UX/UI Designer, Perpetual). Throughout the project, they scaled up and down as needed. There were multiple designers and engineers provided as resources.

How did you come to work with Perpetual?

We followed a recommendation and interviewed Amish. Although I considered several teams in my network, it was clear Perpetual had more knowledge about the process than anyone else. Their domain expertise and confidence led me to choose them for the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $30,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–October 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The work from Perpetua was well received and satisfied the original set of requirements we set.

How did Perpetual perform from a project management standpoint?

They were organized, disciplined, and timely. We used Slack and Zoom to manage the project, and we were very impressed with the amount they followed up. They used InVision and Google Drive for the mock-ups.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Perpetual had a thorough, well-planned approach that they executed effectively. Additionally, everything was done on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they could have done better—we had no problem with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go into the project prepared with what you want, and Perpetual will deliver.