ShakaCode

Please describe your company and your position there.

Printivity—previously known as MGX Copy—is a digital print company dedicated to providing the best possible print experience for customers. We have three production facilities—two in San Diego, and one in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

I’m the Chief Technology Officer responsible for choosing, developing, deploying, and maintaining technologies in line with business goals.

For what projects/services did your company hire ShakaCode?

MGX Copy was growing fast, but our website and our name were limiting our growth plans. We decided to rebrand to Printivity, but our old site didn’t reflect the creativity, quality, or ease-of-use of our new identity.

It also lacked a mobile-friendly UI and SEO capabilities. We also had to cope with a long and expensive IT development cycle to launch new print products. To meet our goals, we needed to build a new e-commerce website that reflected our core processes and commitment to quality.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to build a new website that was fast, modern, scalable, and user-friendly to support our product growth and marketing campaigns. It needed to be mobile friendly with an easy to use interface, and incorporate best practices and processes to maximize the efficiency of our software team. The framework chosen needed to be easily extensible and have enough industry support to ensure longevity.

How did you select this vendor?

We considered several different options but decided on ShakaCode because they were the creator of React-on-Rails and had an established development team experienced in launching real-world applications.

They also offered expert guidance in technology choices and development best practices, along with flexible resource allocation, and competitive pricing.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

ShakaCode was our only technology partner for this project and did the majority of the development. They created a project structure based on industry best practices in terms of code coverage, formatting, testing, and typing.

They integrated our existing application server administrative frontend and created the business logic to integrate the UI with the backend. They also leveraged our current controllers/API interfaces for bidirectional communication between the React frontend and our Ruby on Rails application server.

They also empowered our internal software team through knowledge transfer to run, maintain, and implement new features after launch and handoff.

What was the team composition?

Over the course of the project, we worked with eight or nine different developers and one project manager from ShakaCode, together with myself and two other in-house staff.

While most developers participated only when their specific skills were required, ShakaCode’s primary software engineer was involved throughout the project. He was extremely knowledgeable, fast, thorough, and always available. He documented in detail everything that was done, communicated proactively with the team, and shared what he was doing and why.

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

We went into production on schedule with all of the functionality needed to register accounts, login, view our current product line, add to a cart, and place and track orders.

Within the first month, we saw adoption rates of over 75% as customers moved from the old site to the new, aided in part by the user-friendly, mobile UI. Cleaner product and cart pages, streamlined navigation, and a more straightforward purchasing process resulted in record sales and usage, with internal customer campaigns enjoying higher than expected returns.

From a technical perspective, we’ve also reduced the time it takes to bring new products to market from weeks or months to just a few days, with cost savings of up to 90%.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

ShakaCode’s project manager was flexible and helpful in offering solutions and out-the-box thinking to meet our requirements and operational constraints. Risks were expertly managed, and scope reduced as required.

He never overpromised and carefully explained the time and cost implications of any decision we made. We used Slack, Zoom, Github, and Trello to communicate and manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

This was a high-risk project. We had limited time and resources to develop and deliver a functioning website. We also wanted to have a development, build, and test environment that we could scale after deployment.

ShakaCode was able to manage the risk while leveraging their experience and knowledge to deliver a quality product according to schedule.

Are there any areas for improvement?

A few of SkakaCode’s newer front-end devs developed closely to spec, but not exactly. Some of the completed tasks were close to the diagrams, but not visually fluid across different devices. However, these issues were quickly addressed and fixed once the project manager became aware of them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

ResortPass is an online booking platform that sells non-resident access to the pools, cabanas, gyms, and spas of over 80 resorts and hotels in seven US states, including California, Arizona, Florida, and Hawaii. I was the Lead Software Engineer and Acting Director of Engineering responsible for deciding on and implementing the technical stack.

For what projects/services did your company hire ShakaCode?

The original website was built in WordPress and later ported to Ruby on Rails. However, it wasn’t scalable and the pages loaded really slowly. Users became frustrated when trying to make bookings, so customer retention became a major issue. We’d made the decision to use React on Rails but needed help in making decisions around the technical stack, file structures, and server-side rendering. We didn’t have the expertise in-house, so we brought ShakaCode on board to help with overall guidance, code scalability, and performance.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to deploy a React frontend to help accelerate performance, increase scalability, and enhance the overall user experience. We wanted to provide the foundation which would serve the needs of the business for the next couple of years and which we could build upon in the future.

The design was already complete, but we needed help on the technical side to do the actual port using Webpacker and ShakaCode’s React on Rails gem. We also needed to add an admin portal for providers to manage pricing and inventory.

How did you select this vendor?

After deciding that React was the best choice for the project, we considered outsourcing development to an overseas company but quickly discarded the idea. We wanted someone we could partner with and was invested in the project. I came across Justin Gordon and ShakaCode when doing research and looking for existing gems that could add value.

The thing that really attracted me was ShakCode’s flexible support plan. We didn’t have any React expertise or experience in-house, so the idea of having a scalable support service to rely upon during the project was extremely attractive.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

ShakaCode helped us talk through and validate technical design decisions and manage scope in a collaborative manner. That gave us the confidence we needed moving forward, Once we’d made the decisions, ShakaCode provided the developers to help us implement and document them.

What was the team composition?

ShakaCode provided three extremely experienced developers, each contributing based on the specific needs of the project. Continuity was provided with the lead developer and technical architect/project manager being involved throughout the project.

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

Load speed increased exponentially which was our original goal. ShakaCode also helped us refine our development processes to become more agile. They introduced us to tools that allowed us to build UI components in isolation without having to connect them to the backend, helping us to get more done within the limited time and budget. We definitely got more out of the project than we expected, not just in terms of quality code, but also in terms of best practices that extended well beyond the scope of the project.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

ShakaCode did an excellent job of writing up quantifiable goals that could be reached within the agreed-upon milestones and progress easily communicated to management. They kept the communication flowing and the project moving. As a team, ShakaCode was self-sufficient within the project scope. They created the milestones and stuck to them. We never had to chase them. ShakaCode set up Zoom, Github, and Slack which allowed us to communicate freely.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

After working with a couple of different outsource teams, ShakaCode did the best in terms of partnering and helping us reach our long term goals. ShakaCode didn’t just give us what we asked for. They helped us understand our challenges and offered recommendations without ever forcing their opinions upon us.

They made sure that the solution was properly engineered and maintainable, with the code of a high quality and easily testable. They shared their knowledge with us, helping us to implement best practices and improve our processes. ShakaCode definitely went well above and beyond what we had originally anticipated.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don’t think there are many areas ShakaCode can improve on. ShakaCode’s developers are dedicated engineers and have a passion for delivering the best code out there. However, as individuals with their own styles, each one has an idea as to the best way to do things. It was difficult to keep up at times.