Simform

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of an ecommerce company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We build software solutions that enable and automate Distributed eCommerce Operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Simform to accomplish?

• Build a robust set of Automated QA Tests for our application.
• Document & Train our team on QA Automation Testing.

SOLUTION

How did you find Simform?

Online Search

Why did you select Simform over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Simform were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Simform is assisting us mature our testing strategies at our company by building out a robust set of Automated Tests against our APIs as well as training our team afterwards so that our existing resources are able to take ownership of these automated tests and continue to expand on test coverage.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our primary domains / API endpoints all have baseline test coverage. These test cases and the QA Automation process as a whole are well documented. Our existing QA Resources are trained on Automation Testing and capable of writing automated tests on their own after the engagement ends.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

We assigned their QA Automation Tester onto an existing team and managed their work deliverables similarly to how we manage our existing Dev/QA resource work deliverables. If things were ever off-track, we were kept in the loop by our existing Scrum framework and addressed gaps directly with resources. While we did not need to leverage this, Simform also had a dedicated Customer Success resource that we could leverage if we were unable to address these gaps directly with our assigned resource.

What was your primary form of communication with Simform?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Our assigned resource was competent, a great communicator, and quick to ramp-up on our project to provide value. The company seems easy to work with and is willing to work within our framework to reduce the overhead on our side.

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

Nothing that comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Programs Manager of a nonprofit company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a nonprofit organization working to address local food insecurity.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Simform to accomplish?

• Recreate mobile application
• Recreate web application
• Add new features to mobile and web applications
• Improve user experience of app

SOLUTION

How did you find Simform?

Clutch Site

Why did you select Simform over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Simform were assigned to this project?

More than 10

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Simform developed a mobile and web app for us. Both apps are available in 11 languages, and include maps with large datasets, along with many other features. Simform also set up an admin panel for us to easily manage the data, and they set up our analytics, including a lot of custom events tracking.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Number of users 
• Bounce rate on the web app 
• Number of tech-related feedback submissions

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes, we have a great project manager. Our project manager is US-based, but we also have an India-based project manager assigned to our team. They have always been very responsive and transparent, and have taken our feedback and needs seriously. We initially had an extremely short timeline for delivery, and development work often has delays, so we extended that timeline.

What was your primary form of communication with Simform?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They do a good job of reporting on their work. During the busiest time of the project, we had more than 20 people from Simform working on our project. Every day, the teams posted a daily update on Slack so we could see if there were any roadblocks, questions, or issues. 

Now that the apps are live, we have a maintenance contract with Simform. We have fewer developers on our team, but we still get weekly reports via email of how our hours were spent, and we also have weekly check-in calls. 

Also, they've been responsive to our needs as a nonprofit. They've been willing to offer slightly discounted rates in order to help us fit the work into our budget, and they've helped us with technical language as we've applied to grants for this work.

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

We've had to work on clarifying our communication a bit. Our organization does not have much tech-related experience or language, so sometimes there have been some miscommunications with developers. However, Simform has always been eager to get it right and willing to make adjustments. Our project manager has also been a very helpful liaison.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the owner of a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Simform?
I hired Simform to help us retool our software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 
I provided Simform with a rough draft of the project description and asked them to help me work on that so we could have the description ready when they started the work.
They used React Native and React.

What is the team composition?
Unfortunately, I was in contact with just about everyone at Simform.

How did you come to work with Simform?
I found them online.

How much have you invested in them?
I invested about $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?
I worked with Simform from December 2022–May 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.
This experience had a disastrous impact on our business. We spent $120,000 and got nothing out of the partnership with Simform. I now have to spend another $20,000 to $30,000 to fix the problems. They pushed our timeline back by a year. They were very nice people but were absolutely useless. The whole experience was very traumatic for our company.

How did your relationship with Simform evolve?
I went to Simform for help, and instead, they had absolutely zero concern for the outcome of the project. They were a big company interested in growing and making money, and they were all happy as long as the billing clock kept going. 
When I contacted Simform with the draft of the project description and asked them to help me, they immediately assigned a team of about 30 developers and started working on the project without a description. When I asked them why, I couldn’t get an answer. When there were problems, they were unable to address them. They wanted me to meet with a customer success teammate. 
I never leave reviews, but after seeing all the positive reviews for Simform, which made them sound great, I felt it was only fair that there was some balance in the reviews online based on my experience.

How was project management handled?
The only efficient process Simform had was the billing. They had processes linked directly to billing, and as long as those processes were running, they didn’t care what was happening for the customer. The cost ended up being twice as much as they said it’d be, and in the end, the work wasn’t done right. 
Simform knew that we were a US-based company and still assigned a team without any proficient English speakers even though they had English speakers on their team. This made it a nightmare to talk to them in daily meetings. The 30 teammates sat around, and no one understood a word. We communicated through meetings, emails, and Slack, and I also met with them at their office.
As a business owner, I care about the outcome for my customers. If a customer tells me something isn’t working for them, I will stop everything and ask what I can do to make it better. If necessary, I will lose money on it to make the customer happy. Simform was utterly oblivious to the outcome.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?
They were very nice people.

In what specific areas can they improve?
The project was completely incompetently handled. I kept asking Simform about the status, but things just kept getting worse. The first problem we had was a deal killer; it just ruined the whole project, and yet, we kept going and tried to make it right even though the project was already ruined from the start. 
At every turn, the project kept getting worse to the point where we suggested that we would just use a couple of Simform’s developers, which they agreed to; however, when I spoke to my team two days later, they said they couldn’t reach the developers from Simform. My lead developer told me he would rather be alone than work with Simform.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?
Find a different partner. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at a software company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our company introduces the world’s first intelligent, autonomous loyalty and customer engagement solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Simform to accomplish?

• Improve our talent pipeline for engineering
• Shorten our time to fill the open positions

SOLUTION

How did you find Simform?

• Referral

Why did you select Simform over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Simform were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Staff augmentation services in the areas of DevOps, Frontend, Backend engineering.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Performance and contributions of the software developers hired and integrated with our company.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The talents provided to us are a mix of average to above average. The deliverables we assign to the team are mostly achieved on time, there may be set backs along the way and we continuously address these as a team. 

Simform team is very much integrated into our culture and way of working, this is key to the success of our partnership. Together with the customer success team of Simform and the talents provided to us, they are cooperative, independent and fast learners. They are also passionate about our product and helps us drive customer success.

What was your primary form of communication with Simform?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their team is well trained, had been with them for a long time which says a lot about their healthy culture. They have a pool of a wide range of talents. They are very responsive and reliable.

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

Ensuring that the some of the policies of Simform must be in line with their client's should be clarified and structured at the initial stage. A case in point - the process alignment in managing leave policies, against ours or internal communications.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a software company, we develop technology to help student-athletes monetize their NIL and improve their lifestyle.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to optimize and add features to our social mobile application that contains a chat and feeds application. We also had some performance issues that we wanted to improve.

SOLUTION

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

We interviewed a few off-short contracting companies and Simform has the best response time and service. They also offered the most reasonable price for our startup.

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

We had ongoing tasks listed in Jira for the React Native project. We ran biweekly sprints and iterated through multiple initiatives.

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

We hired one full-time React Native developer and a few other complimentary consultations.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The developer was able to improve the app performance drastically and single-handedly develop all of the planned features. We had no complaints about the work and were consistently impressed with the time of delivery.

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

We communicated via Slack and managed initiatives in Jira.

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

I'm impressed by the company's ability to ask good questions to fully understand the problems before solving them. They were always able to deliver results on time and had no communication issues.

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

Can't think of any.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a medical technology company. We focus on respiratory diseases through our certified medical software and devices.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Simform?

One of our customers wanted an app with our services integrated into it, but we didn’t have that product, so we decided to look for a partner to develop it for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Simform developed an Android and iOS app. In addition, they coded the app based on the UI/UX design that a third-party created. In terms of functionalities, the app allows users to put their devices next to their bed and night to monitor the sounds they make during their sleep and make an analysis of the users’ lung health.

What was the team composition? 

We worked with a project manager, an iOS developer, and an Android developer from their team.

How did you come to work with Simform?

They reached out to us. We chose them after we asked them to create a mock-up app so we could get a feeling of how they work, and their results and price were the best among our list of potential partners.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent $55,000–$60,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2021–February 2022. Still, they’re open to answering our questions without charging extra fees, which is nice.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We could serve and deliver the product to our customers, who paid us, were satisfied with the outcome, and validated our technology — this was an important project for us. In addition, they could integrate our technology into theirs, which was key to the engagement’s success.

How did Simform perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team delivered everything on time and within budget. We had some trouble with the lack of efficient communication from our internal developers with Simform’s team, but we managed and solved that at the end of the day. In addition, they could make more resources available for us whenever we were under time pressure, which was important due to the huge deadline our customers set up for us.

Regarding tools and communication, we used Microsoft Teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were professional, adapted to our short-notice needs, documented everything, and were transparent and smooth throughout the process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This was a difficult project, but all things considered, they did a great job and delivered it on time. Nonetheless, they could get a better Android developer — we ended up doing part of their job because they couldn’t manage it for themselves.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ensure that you have the expertise in-house to help them with project tasks and speed up the process. You must get your hands dirty to get the most out of the project and achieve your goals.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a material procurement platform that specifically works in construction.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to develop an app to connect workers in the field with their procurement teams in the back office. We hired Simform to create, with us, an app that is intuitive and simple to use for people of varying technical ability.

SOLUTION

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

We saw they had done a similar project in a neighboring industry, and we reached out. After interviewing with them a few times, we discovered many alignments and felt very comfortable working with them.

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

We develop a timeframe after a series of discovery calls with an aggressive delivery date. After this we broke down the project into sprints and formulated a plan to develop the UI with designers while developers were creating a dual platform app that works on tablets as well. Figma, react, and firebase were all used effectively, efficiently, and creatively.

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

A project manager was assigned as our point of contact and managed the team of developers and designers along with some back end developer support. Also, the customer success manager remained in contact throughout the process and made sure everything was going smoothly and to plan.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They went above and beyond with the app and interface. From many focus groups, every contractor that has looked at it and toyed around with it has been very comfortable using it. They delivered within the rapid time frame as well.

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

The project manager and team were all very easy to communicate with. We utilized slack for the majority of communications and held weekly stand ups to make sure everything was on track. On top of that, we held monthly meetings with management team to make sure goals remained aligned, and we had daily updates from each team member letting us on their progress, blocks, and updates. Very, very open communication lines and responsiveness.

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

Their design and understanding of what we wanted from this app are both incredible. We set out with a goal in mind of creating an app that was very familiar to everyone and would be intuitive, and they went above and beyond in creating this.

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

None, from my experience. Everyone worked hard and kept us in the loop. Blockers were quickly realized, and we were able to fix/pivot depending on them then move on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at a hunting regulation startup platform that collects legal information and government regulations about the process of hunting in the US. We provide information on when people can hunt, the dates, the type of animals they can track in every state, and the places that allow it.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Simform?

We needed help with mobile app development, but we didn’t have internal resources, so we wanted to go with an outside hire of an agency that could manage all of the development processes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Simform has been doing a multiplatform mobile app development from scratch using Flutter. They’re responsible for building the front- and backend of the app, managing its coding, and handling the QA for it. In addition, they provide general tech insight and wisdom, including going with AWS rather than some other cloud platforms — they offer recommendations to ensure our product’s success by implementing certain processes to get our app working.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 8–9 members of their team in total — this changes depending on the work we’re currently doing. The people involved included a technical lead, a backend developer, two frontend developers, and a QA specialist.

How did you come to work with Simform?

We found them through online advertising while looking for a development agency. We chose them because they were the best option based on the balance between their body of work, their design repertoire, their ability to produce an app that matched our design requirements, and their pricing. Overall, they were the right balance between quality and affordability.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

So far, we’ve spent $100,000–$200,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we launched the app Simform created for us, we’ve gotten about 5,000 downloads and 3,000 users across all platforms. In addition, they quickly address any bug that arises. Overall, I’m satisfied with their work so far, and they’re meeting my expectations.

How did Simform perform from a project management standpoint?

They always meet deadlines and work with us to establish a realistic budget. Regarding tools and communication, they asked us what we preferred, so we’re using Zoho, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Simform’s team is very communicative and gets back to us immediately when we have an inquiry.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a responsive team — their team is great at ensuring everyone is doing their job, especially during the weeks when we have a lot of work to do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve been trying to rely on their expertise so they can give us specific recommendations on what we’re trying to do and get a better product, but we haven’t received that from them most of the time — maybe it is because they’re used to working with more experienced teams. This makes the difference between them meeting my expectations rather than exceeding them.

In addition, Simform is based in India, so we have a language barrier, which is challenging due to our niche industry. It’s been difficult to teach and communicate some of our concepts, but we knew this could be tricky before going in with the project, so this is not something we’re unsatisfied with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Having your internal development team can be helpful, even just for consultancy, so they can review the process, ensure everything is going smoothly, and walk us through everything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-CEO of a business helping governments automate and streamline their procurement and grant processes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Simform?

Our goals were to have more flexibility regarding time zone access, increase our capacity and speed, and expand our skill set base into various technologies.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Simform provides us with resources to augment our design and engineering teams. These resources have been part of our product design process, as well as the overall development process. With their help, we’ve created features on our product around project management, communications, and usability, and they’ve also helped us create front-facing designs. Moreover, they help us with reporting.

What is the team composition?

We work with a designer, three backend engineers, a frontend engineer, and a report writer.

How did you come to work with Simform?

We found them through Google research. During this research, we found various companies and conducted a vetting process with the final candidates. Ultimately, Simform scored the best.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Throughout our engagement, Simform has managed to develop four new major features, and our clients are very happy with those new features.

How did Simform perform from a project management standpoint?

One project manager has managed our relationship with Simform, and their resources’ performance has been as good as expected. We use a Jira alternative to manage the project and Slack to communicate. Additionally, we have daily video conference meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Simform’s strength is that they have a very large and highly talented team, so they can offer a variety of different skill sets and increase capacity as needed. Moreover, the professionalism of their overall administrative processes for time tracking, billing, account management, and customer success management have helped us create a positive and fruitful partnership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I would have them do differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and communicate it in a very direct manner.