Ready4S

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a program and partner relations manager for Trace One. The company specializes in a product lifecycle management software run as a SaaS for white-label, fast-moving consumer goods. We have offices in Paris, the UK, Germany, and the US, as well as colleagues in South America.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

Our existing applications — what we call our core products — were 15 years old, and we started a program to completely redevelop them. It was a ground-up rebuild. One of the products in the portfolio was a new product, and we needed quite specific skills for that application, so we engaged Ready4S to supply additional developers to supplement our internal teams. Moving forward, we’ve engaged with them for additional resources and skillsets.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The application was written in PHP, which requires quite a specific skill set to develop with. A third party originally built the application, but we bought the intellectual property rights so we’re able to customize and extend it internally. Ready4S helped and continues to help us with that customization work. There’s a roadmap of work they’re helping to deliver. In addition to development, they provide us with testing and QA resources to validate that the application is fit for delivery.

Our SaaS solution is a web-based application hosted on the Google Cloud. We’re going to look to host all of our applications on mobile devices in the future — probably tablets rather than smartphones, as they’re fairly complicated.

What is the team composition?

Currently, they provide us with three senior PHP developers and one QA resource. They’ve recently extended their resources to include 2 React developers that work on the front- and backend of our .NET applications.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

I wasn’t involved in this decision, as they came on before I moved into my current role, but we continue using them because they are competitive in terms of price, and their support and skills are extremely good.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent just shy of €1,000,000 (approximately $1,200,000 USD) with them to date.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2019.

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

We track different measures of success, including velocity. This ensures that our partners deliver at the expected pace. The teams that Ready4S operates on have a set number of features or changes to deliver at the end of every two-week sprint. Capacity is expected to at least maintain constant, if not improve. Our longest-tenured team from Ready4S excels at continuous improvement.

We also track the quality of what our teams deliver We look on an application-by-application basis, and the support issue rates for the applications that Ready4S works on are very, very low. The quality of what they deliver is absolutely where it should be.

Because we operate as a SaaS provider, our retailers are our customers. Other than minor code quality issues, there haven’t been any problems from a customer perspective. Ready4S provides extremely competent developers. We’ve only had one delay and two serious incidents in two-and-a-half years, and that’s pretty good going.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

We don’t use any third-party project management tools, as we manage their resources directly. Their output, workload, and everything is managed entirely by our internal product owners.

That said, I have a very good working relationship with Ready4S; we’re prepared to deal with any issues, should they arise. We have regular calls, and they notify us of any holidays, sick leaves, or delays. All our communication happens on Microsoft Teams. Because they’re fully integrated into the team, they communicate on a very regular basis. We can’t tell the difference between the Ready4S developers and our internal people. They’re 100% a part of our team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The dedication of Ready4S’ developers stands out. They care that they deliver a high-quality product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m hard-pressed to say anything. The only area I believe that they could possibly improve in is their speed in providing resources with the additional skill sets that we request.

I would prefer to use Ready4S to service all our suppliers, but they’re not always in a position to respond quickly to those requests. I don’t know if this stems from a size issue or is merely a consequence of supplying skills that are outside of their traditional core.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Go for it. You won’t regret it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO at Cloud Officer. I develop mobile, backend, and all types of applications in many different markets.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

The problem in Montreal is that the demand for developers is very high, but the supply is low. We have no choice but to find employees that are elsewhere in the world. We already have a team in Montreal. The goal for us was to complement that team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We are exclusively using Ready4S’s mobile developers. We onboarded those employees to the existing team.

What is the team composition?

The team size varies, but right now, there are two iOS developers and two Android developers.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

I tried developers from many different places in the world. Poland is good for us because the time zone isn’t that bad, and the quality of their employees and communication is good. The Polish teams speak English really well, and they’re not afraid to ask questions or tell you that you’re wrong if you are.

How much have you invested with them?

We have four developers who we pay $60 per hour.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017, and the work is ongoing.

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

The quality of their service and work is exactly the same as that of my in-house employees.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management isn’t applicable for us. I manage Ready4S’s employees directly. They join our team on our daily scrum. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Ready4S’s company isn’t too big or too small; they’re just the right size. They understand our requirements as a smaller business. I don’t have 300 programmers working for me. They know that from time to time, we lose projects, and we have to stop working for a few months until there’s some change to make. They adapt really well to my midsize business versus large corporations that just want to place an employee and keep it working for five years without asking questions. They understand our business relationship as well as the needs of our end-customers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Like any other company in the world, I have lost some very good employees because they wanted to move on and do something else. It hasn’t been a lot of employees, but I’m always sad to lose someone on their side.

They’re close to a price point where it’s no longer profitable for me to go there. They charge me in US dollars, so I have to pay for their services plus the Canadian to US conversion rate on top of that. We’ve discussed this with them a couple of times.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I manage the resources directly. If I’m not happy, it’s my fault. We treat them exactly as if we hired someone locally. We asked them to share employees’ resumes, and we had some short, technical interviews with them. We spoke with them to make sure there was a personality match as well. We chose from the pool that they gave us.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Lexly, a legal tech platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

We had an old platform that was very difficult to scale, so we decided to rebuild the whole platform from scratch. For this to work, we needed to maintain our old platform and expand the team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us build the platform from scratch, including the AWS infrastructure and front- and backend applications. The backend application is coded in PHP on Symfony. The frontend application is built in Angular.

We’re trying to make law cheaper and more accessible to both individuals and small companies with our three different products. One product is aimed at individuals or small companies. It’s a dropbox for legal documents with handy features like e-signature, reminders, and more. Ready4S worked from September 2019–February 2020 on that project.

Overlapping their other work, they started with another effort in February 2020. Their team was responsible for enabling a lawyer to configure a web form. When an end-user wants to generate an agreement online, they go through these web forms. At the end of the process, the system generates a PDF file with the actual agreement. That project is still ongoing.

We’re kicking off the start of the third product, which is a CRM system mainly aimed at lawyers. However, all these products fit together. They have different target groups but the three products together differentiate us.

What is the team composition?

The team has varied over time. We started out with a smaller team of 2–3 people. Starting in 2020, we expanded the team to be around eight people. We have a DevOps specialist, one UX designer, one QA specialist, and the rest are front- and backend developers.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

I have an acquaintance who pointed us toward some potential partners. After meeting, we chose them because they were a very good fit for us. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about €500,000 (approximately $563,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019, and the project is ongoing.

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

We haven’t launched the applications yet. I’m positive we’ll make the platform more scalable by the end of our partnership, however. Things have worked better than expected because they’ve been very flexible.

They’re solutions-oriented and helpful in many ways. It’s a huge software development project and there’s always going to be problems. I think their approach has always prioritized the customer. We've overcome any obstacles we’ve come across fairly easily.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a team of developers and project managers in our company. At some point, we planned to take over the maintenance and continue the development of this platform. In the ned, we decided to mix the teams.

Most of the project management has been done on our side, but Ready4S does have one project manager that has been with us all along. Using Jira and Confluence for documentation, we got aligned very quickly and things are working well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like how they’ve been very solution-oriented. When we asked for additional resources, they’ve been very quick at finding those for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve had a turnover within their organization. It has affected us to some degree, but they’ve always managed to work out a solution. Still, it would be more beneficial to retain team members all along.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Their close involvement with your team is key.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an engineering manager at Uber, a ridesharing company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

We had quite a lot of work related to some firmware. I was looking for a company that could provide us professional engineers who could very quickly understand what was going on in the project and build the system together with our internal team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are helping us with our firmware. They work closely with the hardware electronics. The technologies we’re using are C, C++, and Python coding. They’re writing drivers. They’re working with sensors, with IoT devices, with microcontrollers, and with near field communication (NFC) technology. There’s also GSM and GPS technology. There’s a lot of path sensors. There are LFD displays and LED displays. We have accelerometers, barometers, magnetometer sensors, electric motor controllers with better management systems, and also a login with microcontroller units where you have to have a real-time operating system (RTOS).

They’re also involved in building the automated assistant, so-called hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test system. It’s a standalone device that actually simulates the hardware system and adds all the functional automated and test scenarios together around that and integrates into our continuous integration system. They’re touching almost everything to some extent.

They help in our office and remotely as needed.

What is the team composition?

There are three guys in the office and there’s a five-person team remotely supporting us.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

I looked at different companies. There are a lot of companies that provide outsourcing services but very few are professionals in this engineering world. It took me quite a while to find Ready4S. We had a very good discussion with them. They understood what our needs were. They tuned their recruitment very precisely for our needs. They were proactive. We gave them a tough interview. We had them solve some problems and the interview takes a couple of hours. They were very high-level compared to other companies we interviewed. They provided us 10 candidates and we picked eight of them. The other companies provided us 15 and we couldn’t pick anyone out of them because they didn’t match any of our requirements.

How much have you invested with them?

Over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019 and the work is ongoing.

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

We’re really happy with them. They’re quick to respond. They solve the problems. They listen and provide professional work for us. They’re really highly skilled engineers. They provide the right people. We don’t have to teach them. They know what to do.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

They work in a scrum methodology. Every week we have some kind of demo that they present to us. It’s a really good cooperation because it doesn’t take our time. They’re self-driven. They use tools like Jira and Confluence and repositories like Git.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They push me to make things quicker. Even though we didn’t sign all the paperwork between Uber and Ready4S to be able to pay them, they agreed to start working beforehand. We just signed an NDA so we could exchange data and information. They took a risk. After a couple of months, they signed the papers, everything was clarified, and Uber paid what was overdue. The project was saved because I had them at the right time. Compared to other companies, they wouldn’t start working until the papers were signed and that takes a couple of months. It was a game changer for me. They act quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They a have a good understanding of scrum but they could train the people at the beginning. It’d be helpful because we have to spend some time with them to adjust them to our way of working. Some engineers might have better English skills.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a well-defined project or the part of the project you’d like to outsource. It will be much easier for you if you use Atlassian tools so you can see what’s going on with the project. Have your paperwork ready because they can act very quickly.

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I'm the founder and owner of a Dubai-based organization. We’re focused on developing applications for the professional services sector.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S? 

We were looking to develop a mobile iOS referral tracking app, specifically for law firms.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

I got Ready4S involved at an early stage to help us think through the concept. They did everything from designing and developing the app to eventually transferring it onto our server. It was a complete end-to-end project. 

It's a fairly simple app in terms of functionality. The core feature allows users to refer clients and contacts to one another. Companies or organizations are able to monitor and track referrals as well. 

What is the team composition? 

I worked with a senior designer, a senior developer, and a project manager. Initial discussions were with their business development team. 

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

I found them on Clutch along with several other firms that matched my criteria. I had calls with them and two other contenders and they came out on top. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about £25,000 (approximately $31,500 USD).

What is the status of this engagement? 

The project took place from February–April 2019.

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

I was quite happy with the way Ready4S approached the project and how the app turned out. They met all of our requirements. We were looking for a team that could give us a high-level design for the app, which they definitely did. They were able to work within our time frame and budget, and they were responsive and easy to work with. 

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint? 

My project manager gave me updates each week of how many hours they spent on the project and what I could expect in the next week. They created a project timetable and kept me in the loop on what was going on behind the scenes. I'm a lawyer by background. It was very important to me that they could speak a language I understood. Ready4S did a great job of guiding me through the process without using technical jargon. I don’t think that's an easy-to-find skill but they nailed it. 

What did you find most impressive about them? 

They spent a lot of time working with me at the beginning just to get the job. During those initial months, their business development team always followed up and went the extra mile to land this project. I was talking to other firms as well, but I could tell Ready4S was hungry for the work. That was refreshing because sometimes firms can be complacent, which is off-putting. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

No, I can't think of anything. I was 100% satisfied. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

Be clear with your requirements and instructions. Having daily contact with the project manager is helpful. That's what I did, and it worked really well for me.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am self-employed and have been developing an artificial language app called Algilez for several years. The language has been developed in conjunction with Greenwich University in London.

For what projects/services did your company hire Ready4S?

I have previously tried creating a mobile app myself using an online template. However, it was slow and amateurish and not good enough to publicize. Since I had little technical knowledge and a limited budget, I needed a company with an experienced staff to produce a high-quality mobile app for Android and iOS.

What were your goals for this project?

I wanted to provide a mobile app that customers would find easy to use while learning a new artificial language. It was also necessary that I be able to update the lesson pages and associated audio files by myself, so the application needed to be simple, and I needed support on how to maintain it. Although I could be very flexible with the timeframe, my budget was limited.

How did you select this vendor?

I found Ready4S while reading online reviews of app development companies. Ready4S appeared to be highly regarded and offer services at a reasonable price.

Describe the project in detail.

At the invitation of their sales team, we traveled to Poland to meet with their staff for several days. During the scope meetings, we got a good idea of what was possible and affordable while reviewing the various requirements. Once we agreed on the layout and the general appearance of the app, I put the lesson pages and audio files into the system, and Ready4S trained me to make any changes that I wanted.

What was the team composition?

We met with a project manager, their leading developer, and a designer in our original scope meeting. We also met with a contact from the sales team and the office manager. The project manager changed before work began, but we didn’t experience any setbacks because of the switch. A QA tester and a financial representative were also part of their team.

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

The app has only recently been released, and we are starting the process of publicizing the complete language project. I felt that we needed a tangible product—the app—that people could use before I started marketing the service. Similarly, despite a lot of testing, we are still in the early days concerning identifying any bugs in the app.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We communicated regularly during the project. During the busiest period, we held Skype calls once per week and exchange emails daily. I needed to supply most of the lesson content, so I did my best to ensure that I didn't end up delaying any of their work. The leading developer, in particular, was always helpful and responsive when we identified any issues.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Despite my project being relatively small, Ready4S made sure to look after me and provide plenty of support. They gave regular updates regarding their progress and my budget. I was initially skeptical about the logistics of working with a remote team, but we ended up working very well together. They spoke English well and made effective use of my money.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I expect that their staff is more accustomed to working with larger companies than with one-person shops like myself. I came in with very little knowledge about mobile apps and various other technological elements necessary for these kinds of projects. I would have liked to see a brief information sheet at the start of the engagement so that we could go over the parts of the app that I was not familiar with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior project manager at Engage Works, a technology solutions company that delivers software and hardware integration.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

We had a piece of software that’s used collaboratively on large interactive video screens, and a client requested the software to work with iOS devices. We didn’t have the skills internally, so we began looking for a partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ready4S helped build an iOS app based on our existing software for Windows. We didn’t have any experience with iOS, so they built all the wireframes and sketches. They took what they could from the existing software and built the rest of the UX/UI to make the iOS app functional and sleek. It interacts with the Windows software to allows for use across multiple operating systems.

What is the team composition?

We have a project manager and two main developers.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

We found them on Clutch. We contacted a few different agencies, but they were the most engaged and enthusiastic. We talked to their previous clients, who all gave glowing reviews, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began in January 2018, and the work is ongoing. We’ve nearly delivered the final product.

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

The UX/UI is exactly what we envisioned, and it fits perfectly with the existing Windows app. We’re happy with their work, which is high-quality and runs smoothly. We’d definitely work with them again.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re offshore, but we don’t have any communication issues. We spent a few days together in the beginning of the partnership to outline the project, and we now mainly communicate over the phone. They’ve been responsive during the entire engagement.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve stopped and started the project a lot, but they haven’t charged us for the extra time. They’re professional, knowledgeable, and quick, building an excellent product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Meet them in person, if possible. You’ll see that they’re a great company to work with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior product manager for a data and intelligence service firm. We have more than 800 global partners, and we’re located in 15 countries. We help our clients select partners to work with, specifically focusing on the due diligence process. I manage our compliance technology platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

Last year, we launched a mobile app that worked in tandem with our compliance desktop platform. However, the vendor who’d been working on it went under, so we needed a new partner to finish the dev.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first thing Ready4S did was refactor all our prior partner’s code to make sure it was up to standard and met all of our security requirements. They modified a few things and then also built out entirely new modules for the app, working in React Native and Kubernetes.

The new modules include a gift, travel, and entertainment program that our clients’ employees can use to track when they take a potential vendor out to a meal or give them a gift. They also built a due diligence module, which allows our clients to order due diligence reports from us or other partners. Ready4S built everything and made sure it all worked properly.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager, lead backend developer, two frontend developers, and a designer.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

We found them on Clutch. They had great reviews, and our vice president of technology even met them in person. It went well, so we hired them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April–October 2018.

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

We have to do a few things on our side before we can launch, but clients have been eager and excited to use the new app.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

We had meetings twice a week to keep everyone on the same page. They always informed us if there was a problem and gave us consistent status updates.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were eager to work on our project because they’d never done anything like this before and wanted to learn as much as possible about our business. They were proactively involved during the entire engagement and made the app as good as possible.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

If possible, meet with them in person and begin building a relationship early. Try to make them feel like part of your team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a startup based in Melbourne, Australia. We’re working on technology that enhances the mobile ordering experience for FMCG market (fast-moving consumer goods) with the focus on convenience, speed, and accuracy.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

As part of our digital solution, we needed to develop a mobile application that will help to capture inventory information using the device’s photo camera and then synchronize that data to the cloud. We were looking for a reliable partner that has strong and proven experience in building iOS apps with a focus on photo and camera features. We also had a challenging deadline and a limited budget.

What was the scope of their involvement?

As an input into the project, we prepared a detailed Screencast supported by narrative, explaining and demonstrating all the features for the application. It was a heavy investment of time from our side but we wanted to make sure that the final app would meet our expectations.

Based off that information, Ready4S created a backlog of stories along with their estimations so to allow us to review and make some key decisions about the project scope. Following our strong Agile principles, we also dedicated some time to writing detailed Acceptance Criteria.

Over the course of 4 development weeks, Ready4S team took up the challenge to convert the agreed specifications into a functional native iOS app that uses Firebase as the backend. They created the technical solution from the ground up following their proven architectural approach, only liaising with our CTO when needed.

What is the team composition?

We interfaced with a manager, a QA resource, and a developer. There might have been other resources involved, but we didn’t directly interact with them.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

Our key consideration was to get the most value for our money without compromising in quality. We decided to target firms based in Eastern Europe because of their known good skills at a reasonable price. It was also about the timeline; could the company actually deliver the quality we were looking for in a short period of time.

We found Ready4S on Clutch and they had good reviews. After speaking to a few candidates, we thought they seemed more experienced than the others and presented themselves well during our initial conversations. They also were confident that they could build the application given our prerequisites and timeline. What set them apart from the rest was that they asked all the right questions, especially in terms of technology, and also expressed a strong interest in building a long-term relationship with us. This resonated well with us because we ultimately wanted to find a partner that we can work with again in the future.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first phase of the project is completed and took five weeks and is now completed. We worked together from May–June 2018.

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

The app looks good and it works as per our requirements. While there’s usually a temptation with a tight deadline to rush the code, Ready4S made sure that they implemented best practices. I’m pleased with the quality and maintainability of the code.

We’re currently undergoing internal beta testing of the application with a view to distribute it amongst broader audience. At the moment it is not a general public-facing app, but rather part of our solution for digital transformation of our customers.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

Our goal was to have minimal involvement in the process due to limited resources and existing commitments to other ongoing projects. The only way we saw for this to be feasible is via following strict Agile processes and efficient project management. Of course, this was a hard thing to balance considering the limited time allocated for the project, however, we were upfront about this dare and communicated to Ready4s the need for advice and assistance on how to best address it.

In practice, we ended up having much more involvement in the process that we planned for. At the start of the engagement, we were getting increasingly concerned about the experience of our assigned project manager, who seemed to lack some key strength that we negotiated for. To better manage the anticipated risk of not conforming to our firm requirements, we had to timely bring our own Agile practices into the process and take over some of the management responsibilities. This being said, at the middle way through the engagement we were given a more experienced project manager who demonstrated a much higher level of professionalism. She communicated well, took the initiative in dealing the intricate issues and efficiently managed our expectations, even when there seemed to be a bit of a friction. Had we had the same project manager onboard right from the start we reckon our experience would be much more positive in this regard.

It is worth mentioning that we were a demanding customer with extensive experience in both project management and technical leadership. All things considered, we felt that Ready4S team could improve on Scrum skills in terms of managing the stories and giving us timely reports on how we are tracking against out set target.

Overall, project management was acceptable but it could have been better.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Considering the amount of work and our bumpy start, we were skeptical that the work could be delivered on time and to our expectations. However, Ready4S team managed to organize the work into two sprints and deliver the results that we were happy with. They were able to move very quickly with both the development and with addressing any bugs or changes. They were very efficient and proactive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As mentioned before, we feel like the level of Agile that was promised to us was not met. We would also like to see them improve on the QA side in terms of writing and validating against the work against Acceptance Criteria to reduce the volume of raised bugs and time invested in User Acceptance Testing.

In addition, there was some significant confusion with the invoicing, which we as a customer would prefer to be abstracted from.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an app startup company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ready4S?

I don’t come from a business background or have previous experience with app development. However, I came up with an innovative concept for a mobile app and described it to my friends and family. Everyone I spoke to offered positive feedback regarding the app’s various potential uses. At that point, I didn’t want to invest without first knowing if the product would be feasible to develop. As a result, I needed a development firm that could provide business consultation and build my app if possible.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ready4S is currently developing my application for Android and iOS. The platform aims to be an alternative to social media. It’s a straightforward concept. I sent the initial mock-ups to their senior business development manager. From there, we worked through the initial workshop stages and planned out what was needed to build a prototype. This was a new experience for me, but they made everything clear from start to finish.

They eventually produced a working prototype and were able to quote a price for the full development within a 4-month timeline. I didn’t want to begin development until I’d had the total seed investment needed to complete the project. Ready4S offered the option of breaking the work down and paying in weekly installments. They understood when I wanted to wait and speak to further investors. They’ve been in touch with me and provided updates throughout the process. They’ve also offered to help with the funding and have their sales and marketing team review the information I’m presenting to potential investors.

What is the team composition?

In addition to their senior business development manager, I’ve also been in contact with the senior IT project manager, a designer, and someone from their sales and marketing team.

How did you come to work with Ready4S?

I did some research online and used Clutch as part of the process. I contacted a few other app development companies but didn’t feel comfortable working with them. Conversely, Ready4S made the whole process very simple. They weren’t pushy and offered general information meant to help in the initial stages of the agreement. I didn’t have the experience necessary to move forward alone, but Ready4S helped me every step of the way.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re expecting to spend a total of £90,000 ($119,329).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2018 and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

The prototype they’ve delivered has been great for visualizing the concept. I don’t have a lot of tech experience, but Ready4S has been very helpful. They put together a team that’s can effectively translate my laymen terminology into useful direction for the developers. We haven’t conducted any user testing, but I’ve personally spoken to around 70 people and shown the prototype to investors who’ve provided good feedback.

How did Ready4S perform from a project management standpoint?

Anytime I needed to get in contact with Ready4S; they were happy to set up a Skype call. We also communicate via email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I initially had no concept of app pricing or the overall development process. For all I knew, the project could take £1 million to complete, or £5,000. I greatly appreciate their transparency in keeping me informed throughout the process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve performed excellently thus far. If anything, the issues have been on my side regarding communication, but they’ve given me email updates regardless.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Don’t hesitate to bounce ideas between the developers. Listen to the experiences of each resource before deciding on a set approach.