Roobykon Software

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder and CEO of a start up company engaged in providing C2C vehicle rental platform similar to Airbnb.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to customize an off the shelf software.

SOLUTION

How did you select Roobykon Software and what were the deciding factors?

We selected Roobykon based on SW provider's recommendation and Roobykon's prior knowledge of the SW.

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

We started by issuing and RFQ for Roobykon and a couple of other firms. We then scoped out the project and got some recommendations also from Roobykon how to implement some of the key features for our platform. We then agreed the deliverables, estimated effort and timeline for completion.

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

This is not known to us as we only liaised with the Project Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to customize the SW such that it enabled us to launch an MVP commercial product and test it with real clients and actual transactions.

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

The project management was very effective and handled either through f2f conference calls as needed or at an agreed intervals. D2D communications were handled using Slack.

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

Their technical knowledge and ability to quickly understand our business and business related challenges, as well as proactiveness in providing alternative solutions to our problems.

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

The project overran our initial schedule and budget estimates by approximately 30%.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of Informational Risk Pty. Ltd. We specialize in information security strategy, providing a website with a dashboard to inform companies about their information security posture. We also provide a marketplace with security vendors as well as do educational training and awareness for people who want to learn more about information security.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Roobykon Software?

I had developed a website using Sharetribe that allows users to create a marketplace within their hosted platform. Customization was limited so I needed development and customization work done.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Roobykon Software developed the website, handling front- and backend development based on what I had done and the ideas I presented to them. They used several technologies, coordinating their technology into one cohesive solution. For example, the billing software was connected so the customer doesn’t need to leave the platform even though it’s third-party software.

What is the team composition?

I work directly with eight people, including Konstantin (CTO) and Alexander (CEO). However, there are more people working on the project behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Roobykon Software?

They were recommended to us as one of the top three frontend developers in the world, with experience in Sharetribe.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested 30,000 Australian dollars (approximately $19,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–September 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The main feedback from users is that the website is clean. Roobykon Software did a good job of keeping the page simple and not crowded, with easy-to-read fonts and colors. They exceeded my expectations.

How did Roobykon Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They did quite well in this area. Alexander handles everything very well, relaying my needs to the entire team. We used online Excel spreadsheets for tracking tasks and identifying bugs. I was able to identify the bugs I found. The developers could see the sheet and make comments. We used Slack and Skype for communication. Although English isn’t their first language, we communicated well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were flexible, and we worked together well. I was pleased with the team and their work, trusting them to get the job done. Trust can be difficult with offshore teams.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s not necessarily their fault, but the timeline was difficult due to working across time zones.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You can trust them; they’ll work hard for you.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO and founder of TaskYourNeighbor, an online marketplace that connects users who need help with chores, errands, and handyman work with people in their community who can provide it.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Roobykon Software?

We needed them for end-to-end web development, including backend and frontend design.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase transaction opportunities within our marketplace.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I found them online. After testing them with a small initial project, I felt confident enough to extend an offer.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Roobykon has played a pivotal role in fine-tuning the starting MVP into a responsive marketplace. They have worked on enhancing customer experience with a new onboarding flow, a reverse transaction feature, and a new payment process.

What was the team composition?

My only point of contact is the team leader.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The new feature has resulted in increased user interactions within the marketplace, leading to more transactions and more customer feedback.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project leader was very organized and was able to establish a good pace for our collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their professionalism and competence are second to no larger competitor, and yet they offer the flexibility of a small, agile team. They advise on the top solutions available for any new feature we need, and they provide continuing support for all concluded engagements.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can’t think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the manager at HorseBuff, an equestrian marketplace for people who want to buy and sell equestrian gear online.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Roobykon Software?

We needed a partner to code, debug, deploy, and define specifications for a multilingual marketplace that was desktop and mobile friendly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Roobykon provided business analysis, programming, and quality assurance services. They suggested what software to use for the marketplace and performed all the necessary customizations. We used a series of different frameworks whose backends we heavily modified and modeled after open source ones.

Roobykon assisted with setting up and building out the infrastructure, including multiple environments. Most of their work was in Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and Linux CentOS. They also consulted on our CRM system and online magazine.

What is the team composition?

They provided a project manager, UX/UI designer, frontend and backend developers, DevOps engineer, and QA engineer.

My main point of contact was the project manager, although I sometimes talked to the CIO and CEO.

How did you come to work with Roobykon Software?

We initially found them on Upwork. They did some work for us a while ago and had the right skills for this project.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent over $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from August 2017–January 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven’t fully launched yet, but Roobykon has done more work for a third of the price others were charging. Their extensive experience with marketplaces has saved us lots of time and money.

Our tech people have reviewed their code and say it’s great. This project has become the next stage of our business—it’s helped make our processes better-defined and allowed us to reach a wider audience.

How did Roobykon Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is good. They fulfilled requirements in a timely manner and had regular deployments onto the staging server.

We ran an agile process with necessary design and testing stages. We did small iterations to keep things moving, and they worked hard to deliver on schedule.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They brought my ideas to life and saved us from a lot of mistakes we would’ve made by ourselves. Throughout the entire process, they were kind and patient, even when we changed the project scope.

We were expecting outsourcing to be a difficult process, but Roobykon was incredibly easy to work with. They were fair and honest in billing, charging us less than others with less experience. We were very impressed with their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they were exactly what I was looking for. They were experienced, within our budget, and fine with iterative development.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Speak with them and see if they’re a good fit. They’re honest, sincere, and knowledgeable, so I definitely recommend them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of a digital marketing platform that connects brands and social media influencers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Roobykon Software?

We hired Roobykon to build a custom marketplace solution to replace our old technology, which was built with .NET.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to reduce UX errors, improve stability, and streamline workflow management. We also wanted to shift to an open source solution.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We posted an advertisement and chose Roobykon because we were pleased with their reviews and ratings.

Describe the project in detail.

Roobykon is helping us overhaul our website by providing expert knowledge on specific areas. Initially, they designed the frontend and backend of our web application and helped import existing data to our new platform. Roobykon also provided assistance in setting up merchant services. Currently, we are in the process of adding more features and developing new ideas on the platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What outcomes or results can you share that demonstrate progress and/or success?

Roobykon clearly understands the vision and scope of our project. Since we have few competitors, our platform has helped us gain traction fairly quickly in our niche. We continue to grow and acquire new users every day.

How effective was the project management?

Roobykon’s team is highly organized and professional. They have a project manager who communicates regularly and makes sure we are on track.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We found their determination to solve complex problems very impressive. We’ve rarely heard them say “no,” which is a relief. Instead, they do intensive research on our industry, allowing them to give feedback and suggest possible strategies. They are proactive about finding solutions.

What tips or recommendations do you have?

They could improve their pricing estimates, but you can be sure of receiving quality output.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Global Rev Gen is a digital consultancy and media agency. Global Rev Gen works with brands and other agencies all over the world to implement digital media campaigns in new and innovative ways.

Our consulting services include strategic advice around delivering business, brand, marketing, and media outcomes. We consult to startups and corporates directly as well as their agencies. Our media services include media strategy, campaign planning, media planning and buying, campaign management and assessment, tracking and analytics, reporting, and re-investment planning and optimization. We work across every digital channel and sometimes some offline ones, too.

I am the founder and CEO of Global Rev Gen.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Roobykon Software?

The challenge which we addressed by building a Cognition platform was to streamline our company operations, starting from prospects management to automation of the client billing. The system had to be equally accessible around the globe to allow all Global Rev Gen employees around the world interoperate quickly and efficiently. Also, Cognition had to be able to provide extensive integration capabilities with various third party services such as HasOffers, Xero, RedBooth, and many others.

Aside from the Cognition efforts, Roobykon Software implemented numerous smaller projects for both my needs and my partners’.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

From the beginning, it was an ongoing project developed on a continuous flow of new requirements. New subsystems were created and refactored as required by evolving business needs. The scope for many of the subsystems included the basic user interface/user experience work, design efforts, further HTML/CSS markup, front and backend development, quality assurance, deployment, and support of the project. Roobykon Software’s representatives communicated with our managers and operators to address the new requirements better. The project is constantly evolving according to Global Rev Gen’s ever changing workflow, to allow the managers and operators do their work in the most efficient way.

How did you come to work with Roobykon Software?

We have tried many companies and individual developers before them, both remote and onsite. Roobykon Software stood out from the crowd by providing excellent services for affordable prices. They delivered great attention and care to each issue, no matter how big or small it was.

How much have you invested with Roobykon Software?

The investment into the development is over $300,000 to date.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project has been developed for over six years and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The project has become a backbone of the Global Rev Gen company workflow and is being used for all employees and their everyday activities.

What did you find most impressive about Roobykon Software?

What has impressed me the most is their attention to details and their desire to provide the best possible results for any requirements.

Are there any areas Roobykon Software could improve?

The major drawback is the time difference between Australia and Ukraine, but after so many years of cooperation, we managed to mitigate this and build a successful working relationship.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We run an A2P [application to person] business transmission platform, probably most similar to Twilio. We’re a 10-man organization, and I’m the co-founder and managing director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Roobykon Software?

Roobykon Software was asked to provide platform optimization and ongoing development work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were custodians of the platform for a couple of years. It was originally built with a LAMP stack, and they worked within it for the backbone. They worked with us from 2011 to early 2015 and were our sole developers for that period.

They were primarily feature and optimization driven in their efforts. We would request that Roobykon Software put together features that were added to the platform. They would wholly develop the solution; then we would test it before taking it live. We primarily worked with two of their developers.

How did you come to work with Roobykon Software?

I received a referral from a contact of mine who had been working with them on some other projects. We made contact and decided to give them a go.

How much have you invested with Roobykon Software?

It was market rate, but the exact amount is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship concluded in 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Roobykon kept our platform up and running for our customers. We grew the business by 100%, in both volume and revenue, over the course of the time they were working with us. Our platform experienced successful growth on a number of metrics. We had a very high degree of platform uptime. We had a good experience in the way Roobykon supported the platform when various challenges arose.

How did Roobykon Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Although we had a contract relationship, they acted essentially as employees that we managed. We utilized digital channels for our briefings, such as Skype and email.

What did you find most impressive about Roobykon Software?

They were good developers, and they performed well in everything we required.

Are there any areas Roobykon Software could improve?

It would have been nice if they had guided us toward some newer technologies sooner. However, I do think we were a little resistant to it ourselves, so that wasn’t necessarily their fault.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

LifeSherpa is an online financial advice business that is focused on the needs of younger people with little or no money to invest. We focus on things like paying off debts, budgeting, cash flow management, buying a first home, insurance, retirement savings—the things that the so-called robo-advisors don’t deal with. If you want a US equivalent, sum180.com or hellowallet.com are probably the closest to put things in perspective. We call it a hybrid platform. The front-end of the website, mostly the repetitive stuff, is all automated until the client is in the position ready to do something. There is a real advisor in the background ready to talk to the client at the right time. Online coaching supported by a real person for implementation is the best way of describing it. I’m one of the 2 founders of the company. I’m in charge of the financial aspect while my business partner Salvador oversees the digital marketing aspect of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Roobykon Software?

The website was really about engaging with an audience that wasn’t engaged. We needed a CMS with a web-based component for our clients to interact with. The look and feel are almost as important as the technical specs that we spent almost a year getting together. Our internal business systems are all Salesforce-based. The user enters all his details on the web and then we extract that information. Salesforce then manages all the workflows for inbound calls, inbound emails, assignments, escalations, and service time management. The web is really the public window out there, but the client never sees Salesforce. We were looking for resources to help us put it all together.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We launched with a freemium model, like LinkedIn, back in February 2015. Throughout 2015, we got feedback from members that the site was actually a bit confusing. We transitioned to a free-trial model, like Netflix, in late 2015 and relaunched in February 2016. That was a fairly significant relaunch after we changed the first few screens and some messaging on how we upgrade someone from a free trial to a paid service. We didn’t have to change much of the underlying technology. Also, we were giving away one of our tools for Psychological Traits Metrics for free. These are normally part of the paid services, but Roobykon helped us build everything that was going to make most of the processes work without paying for the service. We delivered heavily spec’d out workflows and screen labs and they did the rest.

How did you come to work with Roobykon Software?

My business partner had used Roobykon to develop the internal platform for his business, so that’s what led us to them. Comparing working with either an Australian or offshore team, we came to the offshore conclusion relatively quickly. Then it was a matter of trying to find who we could deal with comfortably. It was a tradeoff between price and overhead, but there also were tax benefits to doing it off-shore. We spent a lot of time working through technology implementation options and we landed on Roobykon as a solution. We started with a .NET vs. PHP vs. Ruby argument, but we ended up using Ruby. That helped Roobykon make it to the shortlist.

How much have you invested with Roobykon Software?

We’ve spent between $150,000 and $250,000 over the course of multiple years. Most of that was between August 2014 and February 2015. We later did a rebuild and reoriented the front-end of the website in October of 2015. We had done a lot of work previously, probably in a slightly more traditional approach.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

From a business perspective, we’ve been acquiring members primarily from Facebook. Salvador, my business partner, is currently handling all the digital marketing campaigns, and he has been able to engage an audience that traditionally wouldn’t be engaged. Also, the website itself has been received so well, we have even received some awards here in Australia.

How did Roobykon Software perform from a project management standpoint?

My business partner had experience from building his platform for his business, so he attended most of the meetings. I would talk to him first and then he would meet with Konstantin Dynda [Co-founder]. He then shared the call logs or conversation transcripts with me afterward. Konstantin speaks perfect English and we’ve been able to improve the results by having those transcripts. So, if you’re worried about dealing with someone offshore in a different time zone and that speaks another language, that’s how we dealt with it. Everything looked good and was delivered on time. It was a positive experience overall.

What did you find most impressive about Roobykon Software?

They took what we gave them and they delivered a very good result quickly. They are very responsive. We rely more on writing rather than verbal discussions.

Are there any areas Roobykon Software could improve?

They could’ve done a better job on the backend piece. That could be partly a reflection of us not spec’ing out that part of the system enough. This part allows us to see what the user puts on the website, compared to what we see in Salesforce. We must double-check the information, which can be a bit difficult. We haven’t invested the time and effort in upgrading that, it’s a low priority for now.