Povio

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Red Planet Labs

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We build a developer platform for building applications at any scale with very low cost

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Povio to accomplish?

• New website
• New logo

SOLUTION

How did you find Povio?

Referral

Why did you select Povio over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fits our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

What was the size of Povio’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

•  Achieve great aesthetic with an "alien technology" theme while still looking professional
• Design each page with smooth presentation of information and calls to action
• Make a professional logo that matches the theme of the website
• Implement as a static website for deployment on Github pages

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• The website consists of five pages were designed and implemented meeting the aesthetic and information display goals. The implementation is pixel perfect on both desktop and mobile. The website is beautiful and achieved an aesthetic outcome beyond anything I expected.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were extremely organized. From the start they made it clear how their process works and when I could expect deliverables. We met virtually every week to sync up and plan the work for the next week. For mid-week adjustments we communicated via a Slack channel they set up. I received responses to feedback and questions extremely rapidly.

What was your primary form of communication with Povio?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The quality of the work they produced was superb – both the designs and the quality of the implementation code. I was very impressed by how organized and efficient they were, and by how they completed the work in exactly the quoted price.

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

No, this project went much better than I was expecting. I'm extremely pleased with every aspect of their work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a prop-tech startup. Our platform automates rental finances for Property Investors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Povio?

We needed a fast, flexible, and affordable way to help our internal engineering team quickly launch our neobank. We required flexibility to be able to scale up or down the team as needed during the MVP phase.

SOLUTION

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

We received recommendations from other startups who have used this agency before. For us, our primary concern was speed and flexibility to scale up and down the teams as needed with engineering talent that can hit the ground running.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They provided 1 senior full-stack software engineer. Half the team focused on the front end and the other half focused on the back end. This allowed us to make progress across the board very quickly.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We discussed the project in detail over 1 or 2 meetings, communicating our needs. Povio was very quick to follow up with a list of candidates that meet our criteria. We then scheduled calls with 1 or 2 of the top candidates. After we selected a developer, we set dates and began working together a few weeks after.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

We were able to launch our neobank a full month ahead of schedule.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow has been great. Their team is completed integrated into our team. There is no middle man between our team and theirs, which increases productivity and speed.

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

They are extremely flexible and customer-centric.

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

So far, it's been great!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a co-founder and CEO

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Povio to develop a web browser game and Velocity smart contract for NFTs and ERC-20 tokens.

SOLUTION

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

I already knew this company before since I already interviewed for a developer position there. Needless to say, I was familiar with their hiring process and knew that they have quality people working for them.

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

Before starting the project we already had a specification written. At our kickoff meeting, we shared it with them. After that, we had meetings 3 times per week to hear their progress. If there were any questions about the specification we communicated it through chat or voice chat.

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

3 developers (1 frontend, 1 backend, 1 blockchain) 1 lead engineer 1 project manager 1 QA analyst

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was delivered on time and in great shape. They made it super easy for us to modify any settings and deploy the project on our own.

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

We had daily standups 3 times per week and one sprint planning meeting at the end of the week.

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

Their response time is very impressive. Whenever we wanted to change something it was usually available in just a few days (usually only 1 day).

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

Nothing I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a software company based in Germany.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We designed SOPHY - a tool to get work done and tasks completed, anywhere, anytime. That means real-time management of tasks and teams. Not only do changes to tasks reflect in real-time, but our smart notification system instantly sends email updates to relevant users to keep them on the pulse of your processes. All changes are logged in activity feeds on the site, ensuring accountability and transparency at all times.

SOLUTION

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

A recommendation of a client. It was important to work with a professional team which gives us input and has a lot of experience.

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

They designed a complete new software solutions for us after a structures workshop.

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

There were 5 people in the core team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Due to the complexity of the solution, we initially had to readjust our deadlines. Overall, deadlines were met and both project management and developers advised us as customers very well.

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

They were always proactive in communication with reliable and realistic assessments. In case of difficulties, the issue was addressed immediately and a good and quick solution was found in the interest of all parties involved. We were very satisfied

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

Professionalism, reliability and commitment

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

As in any project, expectations are very high for me as a client. Povio has been able to meet them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and President of a startup focused on scheduling and communication for football clubs

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I needed high-quality full-stack engineering talent for mobile development, that would have the seniority to design an API using a modern stack, as well as set up and manage infrastructure, and iterates on features and third-party integrations.

SOLUTION

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

I discovered Povio Labs through Y Combinator's blog

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

The project is ongoing and requires work with a modern stack, making architectural decisions, as well as getting the app to MVP and deployed to the app stores.

Client:

• React Native (TypeScript)
• NextJS on Vercel (Web)

Backend/API:

• NestJS Framework
• GraphQL
• Apollo
• Prisma 2
• Postgres w/ PostGIS

Deployment:

• Hosted on Google Cloud Platform (App Engine)
• Github Actions
• Fastlane
• Circle CI
• CodePush

Libraries:

• Firebase mobile auth SDK
• Google Places
• Twilio
• OneSignal
• Sentry

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

Just one at the moment—senior full-stack engineer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The engineering talent only works 20 hours per week, but ships at a pace that feels like 40 hours per week. His velocity and quality bar are high, and his communication and troubleshooting skills are excellent and professional.

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

We work remotely and use Discord, Notion, and Github for daily communication. We sometimes have audio or video calls on Discord.

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

The quality is high and the rates are competitive—a combination that is much better than talent marketplaces.

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

no

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

PredictLeads is a Data Source of Company Intelligence. We crawl billions of information pieces, and using machine learning extract company signals like: hiring intent, supply chain relationships, categorized events from news, competitors, business connections. Our clients interact with the data we provide through our API.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Povio Labs, and what were your goals?

In the mid of 2019, Predict Leads was accepted into Y Combinator accelerator in Mountain View. Our API has started getting more traction, especially from the Venture Capital firms that are our key clients. With the momentum that we were having in the US, we needed to move fast and launch new datasets on the market as soon as possible.

Therefore we were searching for an engineering team that would be able to start working as quickly as possible, understand how startups operate, and not compromise on the quality. Our key objective was to track more datapoints - which added value to our clients and partners.

SOLUTION

How did you select Povio Labs and what were the deciding factors?

Povio Labs appeared many times within the startup community as the company that delivers really fast, and many founders highly recommended them. At that point, we decided to reach out, and after meeting the founders and their engineering team, we knew that they were a great fit.

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

PredictLeads is a Data Source of Company Intelligence. Since we are crawling the web, it's crucial for us that there are as many as possible and as accurate as possible.

Our clients rely on us to be up to date with the current sources of information and make them available for their use. To maintain a good customer base, we need to react fast when new data sources appear and build new crawlers around them.

We are using Python and Rails, which went great with the tech-stack that Povio Labs is proficient in. They helped our internal engineering team, and down the road we also trusted them, adding new datasets and crawlers on their own, since we saw that they deliver top quality code and understand our product in depth.

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

We had a team of 2 backend engineers, a project manager, quality assurance engineer and account manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to provide new datasets within our platform. With this extra product offering, we can target more verticals and target personas, which was our goal.

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

We believe it was a value add to have a project manager on project. The entire team was very responsive, available on email, Slack and Zoom, PM helped to coordinate everything, and their English is great.

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

It's incredible how big Povio Labs is, but it still manages to have a personal relationship with the founders, understand the pain points and needs. This culture fit is spread across their engineering teams as well. This combined with their amazing technical skills, it becomes a great offering overall.

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

Cannot think of any. If any errors occurred during the work, they were always communicated upfront and were immediately taken care of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a cloud-based provider for health technologies. Our primary concern is empowering doctors to leverage mobile tech so they can access their patient data across the world and to open up lines of communication between patients and doctors. I am currently a Product Manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Povio Labs?

When we first started with them, we were going through a restructuring phase. We were looking to onboard as many developers as we could, as quickly as possible. Instead of hiring in-house developers, we decided to work with Povio Labs based on prior experience and their ability to provide us with a high quality team quickly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Povio Labs accounts for close to half of our Engineering team. They are involved with the development of existing and products. Our current stack includes AWS, Node.js, pReact, React & Redux, and PubNub.

What is the team composition?

Eight engineers and two QA engineers

How did you come to work with Povio Labs?

Povio Labs was hired before I was started in my current role. We had worked with them for prior projects, and they were our go-to partners when we need to bring on more developers.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started this project in January 2019 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re a significant chunk of our engineering team. They’re doing half the work that’s required to keep our company going. Frankly, we wouldn’t have kept them on for this long if the quality of their work wasn’t up to par. 

Honestly, they’ve been pretty awesome and had a lot of technical expertise  prior to working with us that allows us to get new features into the hands of our customers quickly and efficiently.

How did Povio Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Their collaboration really stands out. Because they play such a significant role in our process, we all need to be on the same page. Everything that their team is doing is a step towards our goals as a corporation

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked with other companies like theirs before and experienced a lot of head-butting and people trying to dominate the other team. In comparison, Povio Labs is very collaborative. It’s just like they’re working here with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’ve been awesome.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Having a clear vision is very helpful. Obviously, you want to make sure that their outputs are in line with what you expect from them. Setting really clear expectations helps them mold their team to ensure they’re meeting our requirements.  

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a founder and director of Roadsoft. We’re a company based in Amsterdam that sells software for logistics companies. Our company provides hardware that collects driving and rest times for truck drivers in the European Union. There’s legislation in Europe related to driving and rest times, meaning drivers aren’t allowed to drive more than a certain number of hours a day. We also have analysis software that gives insights into companies about their drivers’ behaviors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address Povio Labs?

When my co-founder and I separated, I decided to outsource our software development team. I wanted to redevelop our desktop application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Povio Labs provided full stack development for our SaaS application. They designed the UX/UI as well as managed frontend and backend development. Their team also did quality assurance. 

What is the team composition?

We work with nine people from Povio Labs.

How did you come to work with Povio Labs?

I came into contact with Povio Labs via my network. They were one of three companies that I considered. I trusted them the most, so I picked them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $150,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2019. They delivered the MVP, but we’re still working together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re a great technical team that does well. Povio Labs puts us first. At the beginning of the project, I was satisfied but saw there was room for improvement. They valued my feedback and acted upon it quickly.

For example, I had a project manager who led a project, but I preferred a different project manager. They changed the project manager without asking any questions.

How did Povio Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management’s outstanding. We communicate through Google Hangouts and Slack. We also use Trello and have a smooth process.

They selected the right people for our project, which is important. When that’s not there, you’re held back from achieving the best possible results.

Their UX designers were open and keen to learn about my business. Our business is specific, and it takes years of experience to fully understand the scope of our product in the market. They were open to learning everything about our product. It was easy to transfer the information, which sped up the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I find the speed at which they turnaround a project impressive. I was impressed by how fast they can scale a development team, both up and down. They were flexible. I was impressed with the knowledge within the company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve the initial stages of their sales process. Salespeople want to close a deal and that felt too dominant. They underestimated the scope of the project. The estimated hours were way less than the actual hours. I missed a bit of experience with the salesperson on our project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go to their office. I invested time to travel to their office and explain what I wanted to get done and how I wanted to get it done. That made a difference. I know they have a lot of clients in the US, so that may be a challenge.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a scooter-sharing company that currently only operates in Washington D.C. My role here is a product manager. I work on internal tools and the consumer app. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Povio Labs?

Our company didn’t have resources at the time to build a web app. We needed a set of internal tools to manage our operations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team designed our internal operations tools. They built out the frontend of our internal tools as well as our iOS and Android apps. The scope for those projects was pretty large. They’ve built several operations-related products. The internal solution is a web and Android solution. 

What is the team composition?

They came in with a designer, two frontend engineers, and two mobile engineers. I was working directly with the developers.

How did you come to work with Povio Labs?

We were referred to them by a mutual connection. That was before I started here. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2018, and our collaboration is ongoing.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re very happy with the results and the progress of the products over time. Overall, the feedback I’m receiving internally is very positive.  

How did Povio Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been clear about providing deadlines and letting us know about shifts in timelines ahead of time. We have a solid communication cadence through Asana and bi-weekly Zoom calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The engineers are really great because they really care about the quality of what they build. We’ve been very satisfied with their work. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There isn’t anything I can think of off the top of my head. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be proactive and engaged throughout the development cycle. Additionally, understand your goals and plan before entering the collaboration.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO and founder of Cherrydeck.com, a platform for creatives. We run the service so that creative professionals all over the globe can get access to online marketing services and leads. We have users in over 100 countries, primarily in Europe and the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Povio Labs?

I was looking for an engineering team to help build the platform that would be ready to go in only a couple of days but could deliver high-quality work for a good price.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Povio Labs developed our platform, starting with a prototype. We wanted to test if people would sign up for our service so we asked them to create a low cost and easy design. Users could sign up on the site and get access to the basic version of our services.

After two or three months, the prototype proved to be successful so we made a rewrite of the whole platform. Their team scaled up the original prototype, setting up a more robust infrastructure with a more coherent front end to increase navigability. 

What is the team composition?

I interact with our project manager from Povio Labs almost daily. We also work with two full-time engineers, a QA engineer, and a sales and account manager.

How did you come to work with Povio Labs?

We found Povio Labs through a reference from a friend of mine. I was looking for a company based in Europe because of how frequently I travel there. After I had shortlisted a few companies, I flew to Slovenia to meet with them. I thought they were cool and they ticked all of the boxes, so I decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Povio Labs began in June 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site performs slightly above the market standard for speed. Together with our designers, they put together an award-winning design. Povio Labs delivers on every sprint, almost always meeting the estimations they set for us. Their pricing was also competitive and the whole team speaks very good English.

How did Povio Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is a gentle force. Povio Labs understand when we as a company are not distributing tasks efficiently, which is the kind of feedback we appreciate. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Povio Labs establishes solid working relationships. They also have an interesting referral system, where we make money off of every client we refer for life. Our team does a code audit every six months and the results are always really good.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we continue working with them because we’re pretty satisfied.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Build a close personal relationship with any team you work with, it makes life easier for everyone involved.