Pragmatix

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of Rollcall, a platform that automates daily stand-ups for software engineering teams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatix?

We needed engineering support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Pragmatix to provide engineering support and assist us with developing our platform from scratch. It’s a web app with a management dashboard. We are in the Slack and Microsoft Teams’ app stores as a daily bot to automate the system.

We started the engagement by scoping out the project and breaking down what it would be from a technical perspective. There was a lot of technical research involved on their end. We then worked collaboratively on the MVP design, after which they walked me through the process of the backend design and the frontend infrastructure.

Once we finalized the MVP, we took on some initial launch users, collected feedback, iterated on the idea of the technology, and built it out even more. After going through the appropriate processes on frontend testing, we ended up launching the MVP. We’re continuing to iterate on a weekly basis and upgrade the features as we go.

Pragmatix is currently responsible for software development and ongoing infrastructure management. They help us make sure that we can scale when we get a large group of traffic.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with 4–5 people from Pragmatix on an ongoing basis, with Tigran (Co-Founder) as our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Pragmatix?

I found Tigran on Indie Hacker’s startup board.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The goal was to launch the MVP within six months, and we were able to do that. We have all the features we wanted in the MVP when we launched. We also had over 100 paying users sign up on launch day, which was better than we expected.

How did Pragmatix perform from a project management standpoint?

Pragmatix has performed well in terms of project management. They’re very efficient, and everything was scoped out appropriately. We checked in once a week on a video call and ensured everything was on track for that deadline.

We communicate weekly on video calls and over slack to see the status of certain tasks, features, and developments. They’re very responsive and flexible despite the timezone difference. Sometimes, we have stand-ups very late in the evening or very early in the morning, and they’ve been very accommodating with that. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with Pragmatix’ attention to product detail. They’ve been involved not just in software development but in product development as well. They made an effort to understand what works, what doesn’t, and what meets the users’ needs. They looked at the bigger picture of what can be scalable and what will be cost-efficient in the long term.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Pragmatix didn’t have internal design and QA resources when we started working with them, but I believe they do now. A few years ago, that would have been would have been useful just to have a tighter loop between design and development as opposed to working with an external design team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend starting with an MVP and then growing from there because they do have the capacity to add more resources.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the CEO of BI software startup from Israel.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Pragmatix?

I've hired Pragmatix services first for developing a completely revamped version of our frontend app. Then I met Tigran their CTO/CEO and we have extend our long and pleasant collaboration to various other projects

SOLUTION

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

First knowing closely one of their first developer which I already appreciated both personally and professionnally, I've been positively impressed by the knowledge, experience and level of service they were keen to provide.

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

First I was directly managing the frontend Angular Developer. Slowly but surely Tigran step into the project and started to overall the management of all the developers (a team of 3-5 developers). We've been working very closely in all different stage of software development: from fonctional design to technical design and architecture, cloud services, QA maintenance etc. until we've delivered a full version of the SaaS app which we've been constantly improving over time.

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

Their founder was our main point fo contact and we've worked with 3-4 more developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Switching to MongoDB and ElasticSearch have considerably improved the speed of our BI query (by a factor of 4-5X) while saving on cloud expenses. Although it's hard to estimate the impact the UI have been significantly improved and we felt the positive impact on user engagement.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very reliable team. Most of communication through Slack and daily stand-ups. They were very communicative and responsive.

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

Their integrity. On top of being very good professionals, I could without any doubt let them care of my children and those guys were more than a team fro me they've become friends.

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

No one is perfect and there is probably room for improvement but nothing specific come to my mind.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Rethink Loyalty. We build partner-powered loyalty platforms that reward our brands’ customers everywhere else they shop so they come back and spend more with them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatix?

We were looking for a third-party development team that could build software for a large client we’d just brought on. At the time, we were working with an overseas development partner in India, but we were having a hard time building out the products because they didn’t understand what we needed.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pragmatix built our platform. We initially provided them with what we’d built up to that point, but there wasn’t a lot to reuse. They used Meteor, Node.js, React, MongoDB, and DynamoDB.

The platform allowed consumers to create an account and register for our loyalty program. Then, they could discover offers through APIs from our partners. For example, they could see a 5% offer from Home Depot so that they could hit the shop or shop online and earn 5% of what they bought. Also, they could link their credit cards to shop at 70,000 locations across the US to earn fanatics’ loyalty. Additionally, the platform included a wallet that tracked all the purchases made and rewards earned.

What is the team composition?

We had about 5–6 team members on the project, including front- and backend developers, QA people, and database experts.

How did you come to work with Pragmatix?

A member of another development team had worked with Pragmatix and made the introduction.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around December 2020 and launched the solution in September 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They drove a lot of value to us and functioned as our product team. Our clients were really impressed with their capabilities and work. Moreover, our platform is considered one of the best in the industry. We used a UX/UI company that said that some of the major corporations they work with took two years to do what Pragmatix did in a few months.

How did Pragmatix perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication between them and our client was excellent. They worked closely with our other service providers and us. They were also available late at night to make the project work.

The team attended our meetings, and we used Zoom, phone calls, WhatsApp, and Slack to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They became experts in our platform. We relied on them as we built out new features, and they delivered an amazing product. Overall, Pragmatix had a fantastic development team. They were quick to fix any problems or solve any requests from clients. They felt like part of our company rather than a third-party developer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I honestly think there wasn’t anything to improve. They were incredibly strong, and the team cared about doing great work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We always recommend them when we meet other startups, which is a testament to how much we trust them. I think anyone would be incredibly happy with Pragmatic.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a startup company in Canada. We’re building a SaaS platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatix?

We wanted to outsource our entire engineering efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pragmatix works as our engineering team, helping us with custom software development and code-based web development based on AWS. During the bidding process, they gained an understanding of what we wanted to do. Thus, they started the project by doing technical research to figure out how to do the required integrations with third parties so that we could launch an MVP. While Pragmatix was prototyping the solution and doing research, we were working on product design; it was basically our sprint zero.

Since then, we’ve been working with Pragmatix to develop our solution. We basically feed a backlog with different requirements for the product. Then, another company helps us with the product design. After that, we review the designs together and provide the design company with feedback. Once we’re all on the same page with the designs, Pragmatix starts developing those requirements.

Not everything that Pragmatix develops for us is custom-built; we prefer to leverage multiple existing services. Therefore, they’ve helped us develop a variety of third-party integrations using REST APIs and SOAP APIs, including integration with Stripe.

Moreover, Pragmatix is responsible for our backend infrastructure and frontend architecture; they have significant input in our decisions. For example, they’ve helped us decide how to host the backend and which database technology we need to use. As for the frontend, they’ve helped us decide on which framework technology we need to use.

We’ve already launched the MVP of our platform, so Pragmatix now helps us with both maintenance and feature improvements. This includes fixing bugs and planning the future development roadmap for the next versions.

What is the team composition?

We work with seven people from Pragmatix, including Tigran (Co-Founder), a couple of senior engineers, a couple of intermediate engineers, a frontend developer, and a QA person. We’ve also worked on and off with Pragmatix’s QA lead, and they recently assigned an account manager to our project.

How did you come to work with Pragmatix?

I had already worked with them on a different project for a different startup in the past, so when we launched the bidding process for this project, I invited Pragmatix to bid. I also invited other companies.

As the product owner, I had originally developed a mock-up to help potential partners visualize what we wanted to do. After reviewing the mock-up thoroughly, Pragmatix came back with a bid for the project. During our call, they gave us a list of features they thought could be developed on the frontend and backend, as well as a rough estimate for the budget and timeline. We compared Pragmatix’s proposal to everyone else’s and decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Although I started conversations with Pragmatix in May 2021, we started officially working together around August 2021, and we launched the MVP in June 2022. It is an ongoing partnership; we recently renewed our contract for 2023 at an increased rate. Moreover, we’re now working on giving them a share of our company because we value their partnership very much.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our main success metric is that we’ve been able to develop our product from scratch, taking it from zero to a 95% of completion. We continue developing features; however, our MVP is already in the marketplace, and we’re now selling our software. Obviously, our services and marketing efforts are good overall, but our company’s strong suit is the software we offer; everyone likes it.

How did Pragmatix perform from a project management standpoint?

Pragmatix has performed very well. Since they joined, their development speed has only increased, which is very good. When we were close to launching the MVP,  we required them to increase their capacity so that we wouldn’t miss the deadline, and they had to hire a new team member to support us. Still, they delivered under budget.

Although no software development project is free of bugs, we haven’t experienced any crashes or issues that could affect the client since we launched the MVP. This proves that we have a very good process that includes development, QA, and user acceptance testing before pushing out a new update.

We typically work on two-week sprints. Whenever we have bugs, Pragmatix addresses urgent issues quickly, usually within a day. If those bugs aren’t urgent, they get those solved by the next sprint.

We use ClickUp for project management and GitHub as our code repository. We also use TestRail for test case management and Cypress for test automation. As for communication, we use Slack, email, WhatsApp, and ClickUp. Both of Pragmatix’s founders are very hands-on and responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked with other development companies in the past, and the most impressive thing about working with Pragmatix is that they create a tailored dedicated team for each project. They always adapt to the client’s needs, whether they need a full-time team or simply half-time support. Still, the team they assign to those projects is basically a dedicated team, allowing these teams to build knowledge over time, which makes them more efficient. Having a dedicated team has also allowed us to develop a strong relationship with Pragmatix’s resources — we now treat them as our internal development team.

In addition to that, Pragmatix cares about their client’s projects as if they were their own. Other agencies ask for a defined statement of work before engaging with a client, and they aren’t flexible with scope changes. However, Pragmatix is very flexible, and they treat projects with the care they would treat their own projects.

For example, whenever I make a call, they start following my orders. However, if they find issues with my requirements, they let me know about it and come back with excellent suggestions to help me make informed decisions. On top of that, Pragmatix’s cost is very reasonable; they offer good value for the money.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Pragmatix is a small firm, so it would be great if they increased their QA capacity. Although they already offer QA to some extent, it would be very helpful if they grew their team to be more holistic. As part of this, it would also be helpful if they had an internal design team. Still, I know that they’re growing, so I would be happy to see them become a one-stop shop so that we wouldn’t have to deal with other companies.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Pragmatix is very straightforward, so they value transparency and honesty. Be very open and upfront about what you like and don’t like, and treat them as a part of your team. Doing that will create a lot of trust on both sides.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

it was a gas detection company. I was a software development manager there.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

we had a challenge finding good angular developers. The goal was to find really good frontend developers who can build enterprise applications and have good code quality.

SOLUTION

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

I interviewed Pragmatix and did evaluation with respect to other companies and they stood out.

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

They designed and delivered frontend solutions at a scale. They also helped building our serverless infrastructure for our admin portals. they used angular, aws serverless and aws code build and pipeline.

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

4 at a time, they varied from technical leads to senior developers to juniors.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to meet our targets and release on time. Their work quality was great. Pragmatix met our expectations.

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

Tigran and team managed their internal process. For us we followed scrum and we had daily standups and biweekly spring planning.

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

Quality and sense of ownership. They do have attention to detail and good quality.

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

I can't think of anything that we could do better. It was a good working relationship.