Shrewdify Technologies

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a culinary business. We provide recipes through our website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Shrewdify?

I wanted to develop a website including recipes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I shared my ideas of what I wanted. After two days, they shared their proposal and the budget. They developed my website. They used HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and frameworks like jQuery and Bootstrap. They also did the design. They now maintain my website.

How did you come to work with Shrewdify?

I contacted many companies and wanted to go with a subcontractor. I found Shrewdify to be a very good company.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website was launched in November 2017. I got the quality and quantity of the work that I wanted and everything within my budget. It was impressive.

How did Shrewdify perform from a project management standpoint?

Whenever I have a question, even in the midnight hours, they reply very quickly. I use LinkedIn to contact them most of the time. Sometimes I talk to the business analyst and the programmer.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a respectful and supportive team. Also, they have a very good testing team. Their staff members are great. In the future, I want to use them to do more projects for my culinary business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If they could open a branch in the U.S. or expand their software solutions, that could be very helpful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that communication is very clear. I’d recommend starting with a smaller deliverable to make sure they’re on the same page.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO for Uniphy Health, a medical communications company that provides internal communications software for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers. We also enable patients to communicate with hospital systems, including access to medical records.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Shrewdify Technologies?

Five years ago, all our efforts were focused on developing apps with mobile capability. While deploying our mobile apps, it became clear that we needed web-based versions of these services, as well. Hiring a subcontractor helped with staff augmentation to support these efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Shrewdify helped us expand the functionality of our mobile apps by adding in web-based versions to support our staff communications. They worked with another vendor to develop our interactive communications web. Specific technologies used in this project included PHP and message-oriented systems.

What is the team composition?

About five of their staffers have assisted us with customer support, testing, and development, respectively.

How did you come to work with Shrewdify Technologies?

When we were first searching for a development vendor, we primarily focused on trustworthiness, and the ability to think reliably and deliver. I originally found them about 8-10 years ago, when the principal of Shrewdify was a graduate student in New Jersey. We developed a working relationship, and have since used them for three separate projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our most recent project started three years ago, in 2014. It was just completed, on December 14th, 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Shrewdify has provided tremendous value to us. They’re a very honest company. Overhead is relatively low because they do all the work internally, rather than outsourcing it to subcontractors.

Our code repositories have an automated testing system that runs against the code that's committed. Most of the code was written by Shrewdify’s team. Like any organization, we saw ebbs and flows in our results. In our work together, it was great to see that the main result was positive.

How did Shrewdify Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We found them accommodating, communicative, and able to work well within our ticketing system. They're very accessible, even given the time difference. Typically, we hold a stand-up meeting at the end of their workday, which is when ours begins. We gave them feedback on nearly a daily basis. This method of dialogue has worked well for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to take an idea and run with it made them effective partners. They picked up on specific concepts and understood exactly what was meant by our requests. It was almost as if they were in our office. We'd give them ideas, hold collaborative discussions, and let them develop ideas as well.

With other subcontractors, I've had to write a CMM level five specification, and the work was still lacking. In those cases, we'd only get exactly what we asked for, or sometimes less. Shrewdify never had these problems. Ultimately, they came back with a solution that works for us all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When working with any team, especially a remote one, make sure that communication is clear. Every team is going to work in a style that’s based on their previous experience. I'd recommend starting with some smaller deliverables to confirm that you're on the same page about the product and desired result.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of The Infield Group. We’re a boutique consulting firm that specializes in IOT [Internet of Things] and blockchain technologies. Our clientele includes venture capitalists that are looking to acquire assets, so we do a lot of M&A [Mergers and Acquisitions] work. Overall, we do a lot of business and product strategy plans, and system development work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Shrewdify Technologies?

As a startup, we wanted to develop a website that was able to branch out into many of our different verticals. The problem was that we do a lot of different things, and didn’t know how to get this message across visually.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

As a consulting firm that’s trying to become targeted to certain industries, the vision was that we're a boutique company that’s specialized in IOT and blockchain. Prior to that, we were working with Amazon Web Services and doing artificial intelligence types of projects. As we grew and grew, Shrewdify came in and adapted the website visually in a way that attracted more customers. They’re constantly upgrading the website for us.

They host our website as well because we’re starting to increase the output of updates they’re doing for us. They’ve also provided some software development and their founder, Nitin, would often help out and get information on what software we needed to build for a client. They brought in a number of web-based tools, which they would incorporate into our search criteria for clients to find us. That was done on the development side. There was a lot of JavaScript on the server side.

What is the team dynamic?

Nitin is our project manager, but he also has a great team of people working for him. We primarily interacted with him.

How did you come to work with Shrewdify Technologies?

I previously owned another company which was acquired in the U.K. Back in 2010, Nitin was one of our first hires. He went off on his own after the company shut down U.S. operations in 2015, and created Shrewdify around that time. He expanded when he was full-time back in India. It was an easy choice to go with him. I trusted him on numerous of previous projects, and he’s a really top-notch guy. His price was also within reason of the industry standard.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $7,000 this year, but have a budget of $10,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2016, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They came in at cost and with a functional product that met our end-goals. One of the big things is, people will often see the website and ask who made it or how much did we spend. They’re very impressed with the quality of the work. That certainly demonstrates the impact of their visual design work.

I’ve yet to receive any negative feedback. They captured exactly what I wanted and were able to deliver. It’s been all good responses. Each of the requirements set were met correctly, and the price point remained set even with little add-ons. I would sometimes ask them to help on something small that would usually take about an hour, and they kept the cost which was very nice.

How did Shrewdify Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well and were always on time, with all deadlines met. They answered my questions in a timely manner. Right now, we’re doing some major changes to the website involving testimonials, and they’ve been very attentive. They’re halfway across the world, but even with the time change they always seem to be up and working.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Certainly, their level of engagement and how easy and accessible they are. Whenever I had questions, I got a response from Nitin right away. If it was a crazy time, maybe there was a few hours lag but never more than a day.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would be great if they could open up a U.S. office because they’ve got a quality group of people who can really expand their business and help them out. I would like to see them grow the company so they can bring people on-site for work because they’re highly educated, good people, who work really hard for the customer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t be afraid of the time difference with them being based in India. Some companies might be resistant to that because it doesn’t meet their work schedule, but they seem to work around that really well. Also, they’re receptive to technologies not listed in their portfolio. Go ahead and ask because they’ll come up with an approach and look at all the options available.