Salt & Pepper

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are selling online tickets for concerts, clubs, pubs, theaters and any other public or private events that needs a ticketing platform. I am the general manager of the company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Salt & Pepper?

We have hired Salt & Pepper for developing our online ticketing platform and our ticket scanning mobile app.

What were your goals for this project?

Our main goal for this project was to develop a self ticketing platform. Here the promoter or the event manager can create an event and can start selling tickets with no technical knowledge needed. In under 3 minutes the event can be up and running.

Also, another main goal was to implement a split payment process between our commission and the remaining sum from the ticket price which is automatically transferred into the promoter bank account in 3 business days.

How did you select this vendor?

There were two other vendors, but they didn't have the experience and the knowledge to develop such a complex platform. Here we found a great team, always willing to improve our app and with great ideas.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They made the entire project, design, configuration, development and so on. I have presented my idea, and once we approved the mockups and wireframes, the production began in the form of 2 week sprints. Also, I was always in touch with the team and I was there if something was unclear.

What was the team composition?

The team has about 6 members. We have a project manager with whom we are in direct contact, but we are interacting with the developers and the designers too.

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

We can easily say that this project is our business core. The entire activity of the company is developed around this ticketing platform developed by Salt & Pepper.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We are having a junior project manager who is trying his best and we really appreciate that. We had some little timeline problems, but overall everything is ok.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team is always coming up with new ideas to improve the platform and always when we are having some problems in production, they are here to help as soon as possible.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Given the fact that the company is still at a very young age, you can see some blind spots in regards with their employees seniority. I think that they will need to think about investing in hiring more experienced or senior software engineers.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of the company currently called FastOrder, we provide SaaS solutions for the hospitality industry. At the moment we have a product for online food ordering and another one for virtual concierge in luxury hotels

For what projects/services did your company hire Salt & Pepper?

We are launching a new product for corporate lunch, called Group Order, where corporate employees can easily order food together for delivery, the food being delivered at the same time so they can eat together without waiting for all the deliveries to arrive and without the hustle of organising a group order

What were your goals for this project?

This project should be a tailor made food ordering app for corporate lunch, taking in consideration the work environment and how employees interact with each other during lunch time, as well as consider that work related issues can come up during lunch that we have to handle in the app so that it doesn't affect the whole group

How did you select this vendor?

We chose Salt & Pepper because besides having the best design portfolio we've seen, they can also guide though the process of discovering all the user flows and behaviours through the ordering process.

Describe the project in detail.

At the beginning we've had a detailed briefing about our expectations on the project. Following our expectations, Salt & Pepper came up with new ideas and also suggested we give up some of ours which was a good thing and we agreed to most of them. They went beyond the design process and also came up with marketing ideas that could be tied up to some decisions. Once we've had all the details in place we've moved on building the wireframes for the whole up, afterwards we've agreed on the design guidelines and finally they've extended the design to the whole app and prepared the design and branding guidelines book.

What was the team composition?

There were 3 team members from the beginning until the end: the design team lead monitoring the project and intervened when necessary, the designer that executed the project and a project manager which made sure all the deadlines were respected or adjusted the deadlines and budgets when necessary

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

We had very high expectations for this project which were reached. Besides the clean design, user friendly experience, we are most happy for their idea of designing this product similar to other tools corporate employees use (Like Jira, Gmail, Slack) so that it fits among them

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We've been using Jira and Invision. The workflow was comfortable for us, we've always felt things are in control and also everything was transparent. Also deadlines were always met

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What we find most impressive, being also the reason we've chose to work with them, is that they go beyond the technical product into understanding the whole business and user context and experience, and they contribute on multiple areas leading to a comprehensive product

Are there any areas for improvement?

We didn't find any major areas that are worthed for improvement. Maybe the communication could have been a little bit easier but considering that we've started this project together with the corona virus crisis and everyone was adapting to the new way of working, I think everything was allright.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Cittago is a digital agency in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. We help clients find cost-effective solutions to their needs. We offer them branding, design, web design & development, consulting and full marketing services. My position in Cittago is Sales and Project Manager.

For what projects/services did your company hire Salt & Pepper?

We started working with Salt & Pepper since they started the business. We have been collaborating on many different projects, the biggest ones are: www.vieco.de - Web design + Corporate Identity www.executiveitaly.com - Web design & development La Villa Mobile App - Design, development and maintenance www.suculviu.ro - Web design & development And others... When it comes to big projects I know I can rely on their services. What I love most, is their quality in the design area, but also I love the fact that we can rely on them when it comes to tight deadlines. In any case their company has never let us down!

What were your goals for this project?

1. Cost-effective solutions; 2. Quality in details; 3. Precise Deadlines.

How did you select this vendor?

At the beginning we started with some small website projects, after we saw the quality of the results we knew that we can do bigger projects together.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They offered us different services: - Business analysis - Product Development - Project Management - UI / UX Design - Frontend & Backend Development - QA Testing

What was the team composition?

For Vieco.de, Adrian was the Creative Director drafting the Website wireframe. Radu Mihai and Catalin designed the corporate identities for the 3 brands. On www.executiveitaly.com I don't recall the names of the website developers, I was keeping in touch with Cristin for the web development and with Adrian for the design part. On www.suculviu.ro, Adrian did the design mockup and Victor was in charge of the backend and Radu was the front end developer. La Villa Mobile App Radu Mihai designed the app mockups based on the wireframes (Screens) that we have agreed with our client. Vlad was the CTO helping with both Android and iOS coding. Ilovan was in charge of the iOS development.

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

I can only say that all my clients with who I have shared projects with salt & pepper are very glad of the work done from all points of view.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

All projects are going through a brief that we develop together with salt and pepper and our client. After salt and pepper gives me a price offer with a estimated timeline and deadline. We have not received yet any complaints from our customers regarding quality issues or deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The fact that when I involve salt & pepper and we start working together on a project, based on the experience of collaboration I am very assured that we will meet clients demands, offer great quality and also benefiting to work with creative young people.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I think every company has always space for improvement. Based on our experience working on different projects and we did non have any issues I don't have any suggestions. What I can point out is that month by month their quality on services grows becoming super professional, I know they never stay in the confort zone and that means they will keep on growing on quality.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Cambridge Exercise Technology, a fit-tech business.

What challenge were you trying to address with Salt & Pepper?

I needed a partner to create my AI-based fitness app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Salt & Pepper created my entire AI app. They created the UI/UX, the backend, the rules engine for the AI, the API, and the fronted.

The app is exclusively available on iOS currently, and we’re talking about expanding to Android very soon.

Our app creates smart workouts. The process is as follows: The user goes through our onboarding stage, in which we take in what equipment the user has, what goals they want to achieve, how often they’d like to train, and how long they’d like to train for. Once we have those parameters, the platform shoots out a workout. As the user goes through the workout, the app asks them how many reps they did, what weight they used, how hard they found the exercise, and how well they performed it; with that information, the workouts become bespoke for the user, and the system automatically updates any changes or progress the user experiences.

What is the team composition?

We worked with six people in total. Cristin (CEO, Salt & Pepper) was the head of our project. Adrian (Creative Director, Salt & Pepper) was in charge of everything involving design. Alexandru (Mobile Team Lead/iOS App Developer) was the head of programming. I mainly spoke with Adrian and Alexandru throughout the whole process.

How did you come to work with Salt & Pepper?

I first heard about Salt & Pepper through one of my advisors, who used them in the past. My business was awarded an innovation grant from the European Regional Development Fund. Salt & Pepper said they could do exactly what we wanted with the amount we were awarded.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested £10,000 (approximately $13,000 USD)

What is the status of this engagement?

This project spanned Mar. – June 2019.

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

I think they boosted the quality of the product. From talking to similarly priced businesses about how they wanted to design the app, I got far more from Salt & Pepper than I was going to get anywhere else. I think the product developed more professionally than I would have gotten in the UK. I believe it’s been great from an overall functionality and reliability standpoint. We release into the App Store sometime this week, and the true test will be to see how the users like it.

They took exactly what I wanted, as a concept, and helped me curate it. There were certain pitfalls that we had to work through, but I think we created a better product, overall.

How did Salt & Pepper perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well in terms of project management. We were in constant communication throughout the whole process. They messaged me on Slack, in case they had any questions. In terms of fixing issues and communication, everything was very good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I found them very impressive, in terms of responsiveness, even though we were in different time zones. If I ever had a question, it was almost immediately answered,

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything on their end they could improve upon. Together we could’ve been a bit clearer about a couple of different things I laid out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

There’s a large benefit in traveling out and meeting them in Romania. Additionally, having as much information as possible, and sending that to them in a very concise and easy manner, will make the project run very smoothly. Finally, as with any remote projects, constant communication is crucial.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Technical lead of a marketing agency that outsourced development work.

For what projects/services did your company hire Salt & Pepper, and what were your goals?

Multiple iOS and Android applications, developing native apps using swift and kotlin. The goals were to deliver best in class apps for our clients by utilising the excellent team at Salt & Pepper.

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

The deciding factors are their incredible attention to detail and attitude towards delivering excellent quality work under tight deadlines.

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

We work with Salt & Pepper on multiple projects; all of them native iOS and Android apps. They were built in a reactive programming languages such as RxSwift and RxKotlin. The applications included many complex features and integrations with bespoke API's.

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

It varied between multiple different projects based on our requirements; but there was always a set of developers, QA engineers and project manager.

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

Projects were delivered on time and within agreed budget constraints.

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

Very agile project management and delivery; the team carried out all scrum ceremonies. We used JIRA for ticket management and slack for communications.

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

The quality of their work is always exceptionally high. They were passionate about delivering the best product they could for any situation.

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

Keep doing what they're doing.