SD Squared

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are Dropit Inc. We have developed a mobile app to “Engage and Entertain Millennials to Increase Revenue” for major league sports teams, brands, and retailers. I am the Chief Operating Officer.

What challenge were you trying to address with SD2 Labs?

We needed some more bandwidth for software development to build the app SDKs [software development kits] at the request of the San Francisco 49ers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Those guys are project managing this body of work and doing all of the backend web and mobile development. We’re building SDKs for iOS and Android. These SDKs are generic; it’s all the same, basically one size fits all for the clients. There’s no customization at this point. The tools we’re using include Pivotal Tracker, Github, Slack, and Zoom.

How did you come to work with SD2 Labs?

We were at RocketSpace, the incubator/accelerator in San Francisco, and we put a group email out for a company to assist us with an Amazon Web Services migration. The SD2 guys jumped into the email chain and contacted us because they were in the same building at the time and have extensive AWS experience. We started working together, and they did a really good job of the migration for us, so we decided that when this project came up, to engage them again.

How much have you invested with SD2 Labs?

Around $90,000 - $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since probably April of this year.

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

The SDK project isn’t finished, so there’s nothing I can really share there. We’re a couple of weeks away from completing that project. Our product runs inside Major League sports teams’ apps and on the stadium jumbotrons simultaneously. SD2 has been good at translating the app into the jumbotron output. DROPIT is a gamified auction where people compete to buy premium items at potentially large discounts, and users also receive prizes for participating. It’s a fan engagement tool that has been picked up by the NFL.

How did SD2 Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

For communication, we use Slack, email, and Zoom for video conferencing once a week. We use Pivotal Tracker to manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about SD2 Labs?

They’re organized with regards to the project management side of things. Their fixed cost monthly billing is cost-effective as well.

Is there anything SD2 Labs could have improved or done differently?

Maybe just more of a focus on graphic design quality assurance.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our business is an online financial services application.

I am the founder. I manage our product. Our online web application enables individuals to access certain financial services.

What challenge were you trying to address with SD2 Labs?

We were looking to augment the pace of our engineering work by adding contracted resources to conduct a similar level of work on our application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed Ruby on Rails developers that were capable and had a fair amount of ability to execute on user friendly front end development, as well as manage a broader engineering process, including the management of their own resources. The application is available on the web, but it’s optimized for mobile.

How did you come to work with SD2 Labs?

We met them through mutual friends. We decided to work with them after conducting due diligence on a number of potential partners. We were impressed by their professionalism, and they made sense from a cost perspective.

How much have you invested with SD2 Labs?

We have spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started with them in February-March of this year. The work is ongoing.

How did SD2 Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve been happy with their work overall. We’ve been generally impressed by the quality of resources that they’ve assigned to us. They’ve been flexible in changing deployment timelines. They’ve done well. They’ve kept on top of deadlines, and they’ve created a robust process for managing the project. It’s worked pretty well.

What did you find most impressive about SD2 Labs?

I think they do a good job at being flexible with our needs. They’ve allowed us to scale our team up and down really easily. We started with five people from their team and now we’re down to two.

Are there any areas SD2 Labs could improve?

No. We’re happy with their work.