Sailing Byte

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a real estate app startup company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sailing Byte?

We’re developing a web app that helps people search for affordable housing, and we needed help with the frontend development of the platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sailing Byte is assisting us with the frontend development of our app from scratch using React. In addition, they’re doing UI/UX design for us based on wireframes and mock-ups they create. Moreover, they’re currently working on testing API endpoints and helping us develop documentation.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with one of their frontend engineers, a scrum master, a developer, and other members of their team in supporting roles.

How did you come to work with Sailing Byte?

A partner that worked with them before referred them to us.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

We’ve spent $50,000–$100,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2021, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our stakeholders are satisfied with the app’s UI/UX — they think it’s clean and modern.

How did Sailing Byte perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management has been great; they communicate their needs and are good in terms of implementation. Regarding tools, we use Slack, Zoom, and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a strong aptitude for learning the things they don’t know, and they conduct their own research, which is something we appreciate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their understanding of technologies and abilities to implement them can improve so they can have more domain expertise and expand the possibilities they offer to their clients. In addition, they can enhance their user testing and better document the QA and debugging processes.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ensure to be clear with what you want so they can understand the project so things can move faster.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the President of ZYGO Enterprises Inc., which own TenantTracks a tenant screening service based in Connecticut. We do background checks on renters for Realtors, Landlords and Property Management firms in Southern New England and several other states.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

PHP development to create a system of acquiring data and then processing the information to generate a consumer report on that rental applicant.

SOLUTION

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

It was just being at the right place in time. Their business was just starting and we met via a software engineer who was looking for new developers.

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

It was a turn key project and they handled everything from front end work, admin-panel control and back-end data processing

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

3, Lukasz, the owner and lead programmer and Dominic, the coder that works mainly on our site and most recently a new individual also names Lukasz that is working on Social media integrations and alike

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have handled adding new product and system updates for us. Being a regulated industry, we have often been required to make security and system upgrades and every time, they handled the entire process without incident

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

We have daily communications including email, Task Management in Asana, Slack channels and a weekly Zoom meeting

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

They completely cleaned up and cleared out the code that the original designers created. They have completed all their tasks in an efficient and cost-effective fashion

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

I don't have anything to really input here, I am satisfied with their performance

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the managing Director, we provide social media services to automotive dealerships & estate agencies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Due to the amount of clients we had, it was becoming a concern regarding scaling the business & employing more staff. We had the idea to create some automation software that would help staff speed up processes and allow up to grow quickly without the need to take on more staff. After discussing our model with Sailingbyte, we had the idea to automate design templates, meaning we no longer needed to manually use photoshop etc.

From there, we then looked at automating text content. This resulted in us going from needing 1 member of staff per 25 clients to be able to manage over 2000 clients with only 3 staff members. We are now working on automating more of our processes to make the entire system fully automated including the use of ai.

SOLUTION

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

We found them through a referral, after looking at 1 or 2 of there previous projects and also discussing our needs, it was enough for me to happily choose Sailingbyte for our software development.

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

Alot of our work was social media based, so we started mainly with API from Facebook & Instagram. From there, we needed custom software for automation scripts, ai for vehicle recognition, payment terminals & email marketing via API for Keap / Infusionsoft. Everything combined created a system that now runs with minimal staff input.

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

We mainly work with 2 sailingbyte team members - frontend and backend. When projects are more time sensitive, more team members are added to our projects. Often they will all discuss ideas amongst themselves, to come up with the best plan / strategy.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Previously we would require 1 x staff per 25 x clients - with our new software we are able to manage 1500+ with a team of 3 staff. Alot of our manual processes have been turned into automation, meaning we can concentrate more on growth rather than small, time consuming tasks

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

The project management style is perfect. We often discuss plans for the week on a Monday morning. We have a dashboard in which I am able to talk in realtime chat with sailingbyte for which they respond instantly to any and all questions.

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

The most impressive thing about sailingbyte is that nothing is ever to difficult - I am yet to find anything they say they cannot do. All my crazy ideas are met with solutions.

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

Everything was perfect

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of my wife’s company. She’s a doctor, so the idea for her business is telemedicine: working on medical consultation and providing medicine prescriptions online.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sailing Byte?

We brought in Sailing Byte to help us with this software integration.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I sketched and designed an idea of how the system was supposed to work, and Sailing Byte developed the system. This included taking all the questionaries of the initial interview with the patients and transforming them into an electronic form.

What is the team composition?

I work with five people from Sailing Byte. They’re all software developers; some of them take care of the frontend, and others take care of the backend.

How did you come to work with Sailing Byte?

Sailing Byte was a recommendation of a good friend of mine. He used to be the Sailing Byte owner’s teacher.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent just above $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and I’m still working with them on an ongoing basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The cooperation with Sailing Byte has been very fruitful, and the first sign of our engagement's success is that the system works as expected and designed. The second sign is that the system has never had any critical defects, and Sailing Byte has quickly and professionally taken care of all the small issues that have arisen. Finally, thanks to their fast response, we’ve never suspended our services due to a problem with the system.

How did Sailing Byte perform from a project management standpoint?

For the day-to-day work and the current development, Sailing Byte takes care of the project through a ticketing system. We set up a system between our company and theirs where we log everything that comes across, such as things that can be improved or added, and they take care of them in the next sprint or cycle.

We do this in two categories: development and support. Their team gives us constant updates on the tickets, so we’re not losing anything.

If there is an urgent situation, and the system detects an error, it automatically reports the issue to me and Sailing Byte. These cases are considered of high priority and attended to immediately. However, in the last 12 months, we’ve only got 2–3 500 errors.

Finally, if a critical error were to come up, Sailing Byte has a direct phone line, so I can immediately call them, even in the middle of the night.

What did you find most impressive about them?

First of all, Sailing Byte does what they say they would do. Secondly, the quality of their communication and understanding is very good, so I’m not losing any information or getting lost in the translation. They’re always on top of our discussions.

Their third strength is that they have a very professional way of handling things, and they always go straight to the point. Finally, they have strong timekeeping. We’ve had some tight deadlines, but they’ve always been kept.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. Sailing Byte suits me well, and I’m pretty comfortable with them. I can’t think of anything that they could improve on.

I just hope that the service that I’m getting doesn’t get regulated by any stretch in the future. So far, our collaboration has been very easy, and it all has gone smoothly. Maybe this is because I’m also an engineer, so I know what to expect from them, and they know what to expect from me.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Sailing Byte has great technical capabilities, delivers on time, and has excellent communication skills. Those three elements are key for the success of your development.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner and director of WeThinkup Limited, a boutique agency specialising in providing technology services to various clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Sailing Byte?

Sailing Byte were hired to provide ongoing and long term support for the development and provision of cloud based technology services for Cambridge University Press. This included LEMP stack development, hosting and CMS (Joomla) provision. Sailing Byte have provided long term support across a number of realms, including PEN testing, server support and triage, hosting, creative development, experience design and game development.

SOLUTION

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

We required help with initial development tasks, which turned into a longer trusted business relationship.

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

Server triage, sizing and redevelopment of various web projects. Hosting transformation, ongoing support and SLA development under retainer.

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

PM, 3 to 4 developers, experience designer, server admin personnel.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The biggest indicator of success is the ongoing working relationship that has developed from trust in services and expertise.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They are very efficient and straightforward. They very clearly delineated the team's requirements, roles, and responsibilities.

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

Expertise, efficiencies, value for money, and trust.

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

No