What was the scope of their involvement?
I traveled to India before doing anything remotely and meant Dipen [CEO, QED42] and his team in person, and I was very impressed. The company was very professional. It was very well-structured, and they had good engineers working for them.
We sat for six hours and discussed the project, and decided that I needed to pivot my entire startup idea onto something more focused. A simple classifieds website would be too hard to succeed with, so Dipen, being a technical person, helped guide me with his general business knowledge and experience. He assisted me in getting into the real estate business, and then we started working on the brand new website.
They used Drupal and many other services, depending on what the requirements were. In my case, they used Ionic to build the mobile app, which is a framework that helps build and deploy apps simultaneously to both iOS and Android platforms. They used many Google APIs for the real estate industry, including Google Maps. We also have a chat feature in the app for sellers and buyers to communicate. We also used Google’s Firebase system. For the frontend development, we used AngularJS. For app analytics, we’re used Localytics and Google Analytics.
Within six months, we had an MVP [minimum viable product] built. We had a mobile app which I didn’t have before, along with a very good site and product.
What is the team composition?
Dipen gave me extra attention, and I was present in India when he assembled the team. He accompanied the project from the start, not only as the project manager, but also as a point of escalation. They assigned two people on QA, and 4–5 engineers for building. There were also two UI designers who were very good. They scaled the team as needed.
How did you come to work with QED42?
I had the option to change vendors, so I interviewed others associated with Drupal. I wanted to work with a company in India because it would be easier for me to visit them, unlike the previous company that was based in the U.S.
I went to the directory online, and ended up interviewing 6–7 companies. When I came across QED42, I had a feeling they would be better because they immediately offered to do a free site audit. They checked everything and came up with a solution, and Dipen listened to my requests. Afterwards, they explained the programming issues to me in a way I could understand. Dipen really took his time and was patient with me.
How much have you invested with them?
I've spent in the lower six figures range.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working on the website in October of last year, and the project was completed in June 2017.
QED42 performed a site audit prior to the MVP build at no cost to the client, making way for a productive and trusting engagement. Their leadership provided guidance, an attentive team, and responsive problem-solving abilities throughout development, and the end product continues to grow.