Piton Labs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive for an entertainment platform for manga and webtoons. On our platform, people can read and post their own manga, webtoons, and webcomics. Currently, we’re trying to evolve our platform’s experience by adding social interactions, helping creators monetize their content, and ultimately creating a new voice for those creators in the English language world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Piton Labs?

We worked with an outsourced development firm to build our platform, but that firm wasn’t very professional, and their work wasn’t of high quality, so we hired Piton Labs to review our platform’s code base.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, Piton Labs reviewed our platform’s code base. As a result of that process, we found out that our current platform was unscalable and had a lot of issues, so we increased their scope and asked them to redevelop it to create a better UX.

From there, Piton Labs built a new platform for us almost from scratch because our former service provider’s code wasn’t reusable. Still, I gave them some notes on what we were looking for, as well as some references regarding the experience we were trying to achieve.

After delivering the site, Piton Labs did some maintenance work. Once we started working with new internal resources, they helped us with the knowledge transfer, providing those resources with details on the new code base.

As for the technology stack, Piton Labs used AWS to host our platform, which was the most important piece of the project because our servers wouldn’t be able to support the platform. Additionally, they used Figma to create the UI/UX designs.

What is the team composition?

I worked mainly with Maxwell (Managing Partner), although 1–2 other people from Piton Labs joined our calls occasionally.

How did you come to work with Piton Labs?

We found Piton Labs through a referral. I had a lot of respect for the person who recommended them, and my interactions with Maxwell were excellent. He seemed to be a truthful, honest, and intelligent person who knew what he was doing. He really understood our vision and what we were trying to accomplish, so we hired Piton Labs.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April–August 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Now, our site has a more seamless posting and discovery experience for creators, as well as a more seamless reading experience for all readers. Piton Labs also made it scalable, so we can now handle a massive user load. Moreover, the site is a lot quicker and allows us also to maintain the heavy data uploaded by users, such as heavy pictures, texts, and PDF documents. All these improvements have ultimately helped us achieve a higher conversion rate.

How did Piton Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Piton Labs was very professional and efficient. We mainly communicated via email, so whenever we found an issue, we emailed Maxwell. Their team always fixed those issues within 1–2 weeks, no matter how big they were.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Piton Labs’ strengths were their communication and speed. They developed our site very quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would have been helpful if Piton Labs had spent more time on the UI/UX designs and done more testing. However, I believe there was a budget constraint.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come with a lot of detailed documentation of what you’re looking for in the outcome. That would lead to a great experience for both you and Piton Labs.