Softnauts

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a social networking company in the mental health sector. I started the company while working in a different industry as a way to keep contacts up to date on my new projects. But once the platform got picked up by a mental health institution, I decided to continue developing it in that direction. We currently offer a web and mobile app that allows mental health professionals to interact and discuss the different issues they run into with clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

I’d been outsourcing to a company in India, but the long-distance relationship became too difficult to manage. My perception of the concepts simply didn’t match theirs, which led to lots of frustration and work I couldn’t use. Based on that, I decided to look for a new development team a bit closer to home.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially hired them to take our web app and create a mobile app version, but they performed so well that we eventually transferred our front- and backend web development to them, too.

One of their primary tasks was replicating the functionalities of our web platform in an iOS/Android mobile app. Push notifications were especially important since we have a social networking platform. We ended up liking the very first design Softnauts produced, so we chose to keep developing it.

Beyond that, we’re hoping to start migrating our platform over to React. They’ve hired a backend developer specifically for us who has that coding expertise, so we’re looking to start that soon.

What is the team composition?

We have a project manager; Android, iOS, and backend developers; and a QA tester. The CEO also meets with us occasionally.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

They were the best fit out of all the companies we researched. Konrad (CEO, Softnauts) is around my age and made sure to have personal contact with us, which is a major reason we’ve stuck with their company for so long. He understood us well and made it feel like we had control over the direction of our projects.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $200,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since August 2016, and the work is ongoing.

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

They’ve significantly reduced the development time for new functionalities for our products, which has been a big improvement over our previous vendor. Now that the mobile app has launched, we’ve also received lots of positive feedback about its usability. Since we deal with mental health professionals, our users are a bit on the older side, but they’ve reported that the app is intuitive and user-friendly.

Going forward, we have at least another year’s worth of improvements and new features to roll out. Softnauts has done good work, and we’re especially appreciative of the backend developer they hired specifically to meet our needs. That’s sped up our development process a lot.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

We work in two-week sprints and manage them with weekly calls. Our in-house project manager coordinates with theirs via Slack most of the time. We can also use Slack to get in touch with the developers if we need to, but their project manager usually handles everything. Besides that, we use Jira and Confluence to keep track of project tasks and use GoToMeeting for voice calls with screen-sharing. We also visit their office in person at least four times a year.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Whenever we make a trip to their offices, the CEO invites us to have lunch with him and always makes it feel like we’re a top priority. He’ll spend two or three full days listening in on meetings with our team. It helps us feel like we’re all part of a unified team and that he really understands what’s going on with our account. It’s a big risk to have all development done by a single party, for continuity reasons. But they make it clear that they’re invested in our business from top to bottom. Having the ability to sit down and discuss our issues with the CEO directly is a great comfort, especially after feeling like we were lost in the shuffle with our previous vendor.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s always room to improve, but I don’t really have anything to complain about. There are always some bugs that appear after you release new functionalities in an app, and with Softnauts it doesn’t happen very often. Their QA tester does a good job.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to maintain constant contact when outsourcing, both by using Slack and also by organizing weekly phone calls at a fixed time so the whole team can meet. Even if there’s nothing to discuss, it’s still beneficial to spend five or ten minutes touching base with the team in order to build stronger rapport and team spirit.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I own Cool Running Software and Olmsted Ice. The former develops operations software for ice businesses.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

Originally, the software was a server-based system that ran on a Windows mobile app and an SQL database. We then needed to transition to an Android app when Windows Mobile became obsolete.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We asked Softnauts to write an Android app that would work with the Windows system. However, that was a mistake because we needed to rebuild the entire system, which they finally did a few years later for our cloud-based server. We just launched the new system in beta with a web-based system for the app’s licensing. Since those licenses are stored in the cloud, I’ve asked Softnauts to develop an emergency bypass feature that will ensure our partners won’t lose data. They’re now building that functionality, and continue to do bug fixes and enhancements. The team is also creating push notifications, which will run from mobile app to the web system.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

I researched mobile app developers via Upwork and met with a few international agencies. Although I was hesitant to hire a foreign vendor, Softnauts’ English skills made them stand out.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent at least $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2014 and the partnership is ongoing.

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

Our customers have been very happy despite initial concerns that their employees were too old to handle the new technology. Although there have been a few issues, Softnauts successfully streamlined my business’ technical components in a step-by-step process with immediate fixes.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management role has experienced turnover, but new resources onboarded quickly by leveraging their predecessors’ comprehensive documentation. The team works effectively with our in-house web and API developers, adhering to our requirements. We use Trello, which keeps everyone in constant contact and in the loop. We’ve only met via Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They provided feedback and responsive service, even when the office was closed. I’m always able to message the owner and get someone online to provide assistance in real-time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish I could pay less, but costs are good.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Get full quotes upfront–ones that include the cost of bug fixes.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the former mobile solutions manager at Unibet, an online gaming company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

We needed additional development resources to improve one of our existing applications for a client.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Softnauts integrated with our team on various projects, including a client-server application. They helped develop a mobile app, for example, including a database and server within an API consisting of an admin panel that allowed the customer to manage the backend. They even helped reshape the design requirements of the project, mostly using JavaScript and Native environments to build the apps.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, a team of web and mobile app developers, and some designers.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

I was looking for developers in Poland specifically, because the location was more accessible to us from the UK than other vendors in areas like the Ukraine and India, and there's less of a language barrier. We chose to work with Softnauts, because their prices were competitive and we liked their approach after meeting with their team in person.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $150,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

At Unibet, I worked with them from 2015 to around November 2017 on a specific project. They continue to work with that client on maintenance and improvements as needed, and I've also continued my relationship with them in my new role at a different company since.

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

The project Softnauts worked on was a huge success, leaving the client very happy. In fact, that client has continued their relationship with Softnauts as a result of their high-quality work.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

Softnauts' project management approach is seamless. They were accessible and stayed organized through Jira, which I always felt helped keep me in the loop throughout the stages of the project. They're also good about following client requirements and providing additional feedback where they feel it would improve outcomes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm most impressed by their agile approach to projects; they keep an open mind throughout the process, which can be hard to find in most vendors. They remained positive and proactive, without fluctuating in cost, even when we had to make changes to the scope of work. I felt like they genuinely cared about client satisfaction at the end of the day. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more detailed your requirements for development are, the better. Make sure you know what you want and it's clear within the initial scope of work for more the most accurate outcomes.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We support small and medium-sized companies in the implementation of management systems. We offer our customers web application software. We also advise customers in the area of ​​management systems.

For what projects/services did your company hire Softnauts?

Softnauts has developed everything for us from the concept to the end product. This includes design, development and project management. Also the structure of our server structure.

What were your goals for this project?

A working web application with API interfaces. Software as simple as possible so that it can be developed further.

How did you select this vendor?

By a recommendation from a supplier.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Design development in invision. Logo designs. the design for the complete branding. Website in cooperation with our supplier. Complete web development. Project management in Trello and Jira. weekly meetings of progress.

What was the team composition?

On our side two company owners. From the Softnauts to the meetings mostly project managers and developers or designers. At meetings in the office, usually the owner is also present.

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

Softnauts is our most important strategic partner. All of our development has been outsourced to them. Also the further development of the system that we do at Softnauts.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was very good. Receive weekly reports. Weekly sessions conducted. Also worked with good tools like Trello or Jira.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The company is like a family. The Softnauts have so many employees that the necessary expertise can be found everywhere.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Conduct more customer visits.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Attractiv B.V., a rating and dating app.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

I needed a company to help me develop an app and a landing page for our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed my iOS and Android app for rating and dating, as well as a landing page. People upload their picture, then other users rate them based on that picture. They end up in a ranking. The dating part comes into place where people can look at the rankings and filter the results to see, for example the highly-rated people in their area, based on gender preferences, age, and distance. They then can wink at each other and start dating. The website was to explain the app and encourage people to download it. I had the script and they developed the wireframes.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Konrad (CEO/Founder, Softnauts), a project manager, and a developer. There were multiple developers working on the project.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

I found them through a friend who had worked with them on several projects. He was very happy with their partnership.

How much have you invested with them?

75,000 euros [$88,440 USD].

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2016 until April 2018.

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

We had some issues launching the iOS app because Apple didn’t allow it. We then developed the Android one. We had a soft launch, then a real launch of the Android app.

We performed several tests during the development, working with test groups and users. Those experiences were really good and helped us to nail the product quickly. Users provide positive feedback and continue to return to the app. We’re going to launch it in the Netherlands and hopefully see real results there.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

They give very rapid feedback with very tiered scheduling. If something isn’t possible time-wise or technology-wise, they’re very clear about it. Their communication is very good­—we used email and Google Docs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The price for the quality is unmatched.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we wanted to develop the Android app, they didn’t have Android developers at that moment. They worked it out though.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear in your briefings to avoid going back and forth since you’ll be working with a lot of people remotely.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Herzog Neue Medien & Marketing, a consulting firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

We needed help with development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Softnauts provides all kinds of web and application development. We create the concepts, and Softnauts does graphic design, mockups, and development.

Most recently, they developed a web app with scheduling software. They started with the development of a landing page for a hospital group in Switzerland. They also did an online booking system with a remote session solution for those doctors. The scenario was that their patients couldn’t meet the doctors in person due to COVID-19.

What is the team composition?

We usually work with the graphic designer, one frontend developer, and one backend developer. There’s also a project manager.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

We’ve done 20 projects with them already.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $10,000–$49,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

For this particular project, we worked together from April 2019–May 2020.

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

The end client is very happy. It’s very likely that we’ll develop further features for the scheduling software. A doctor I met the other day said that it was one of the most pleasant cooperations he’s been involved in. They deliver quality work on time. We’re happy working with them. We will have more reliable metrics in June.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is very good. They had some recent changes on the project management team, which has been the hardest part of the cooperation. However, I’ve never worked with any project manager from their side that wasn’t reliable. They do their job very well and meet the deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I have a good relationship with their CEO. We meet twice a year in Poland or Switzerland. They have a very skilled, young staff. The knowledge transfer is brilliant.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be nice if the project managers could stay a little bit longer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I have a few clients that now work with them quite closely. It’s a very pleasant cooperation. For Swiss companies outsourcing the first time, it’s hard to give away some control. It’s very important that you bring in a certain amount of trust. They’ve never underdelivered. It was always perfect. It can be hard for Swiss people to let go, and they expect very detailed reports. Softnauts has a very agile project management, and they do a very good job. My advice is to trust in their skills and project management.

Please describe your organization.

We contracted Softnauts to work with two different companies, the first one being Gift Card Granny. That company is like a Kayak.com of gift cards. It aggregates various discount gift card deals and gives users the best deal. The other company was SaveYa, which buys and sells discount gift cards from users.

What is your position?

I am the mobile platforms manager, in charge of Android and Apple app development for both products.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

We've contracted Softnauts to develop everything in the app and every feature in regard to our mobile strategy. We incorporated them with all our internal development and used that to augment our productivity year to realize the features that we wanted to build in our apps.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They were involved primarily with the development. We would come up with specs, mockups, and rough ideas, and then we would send it to them. They were great at providing the standards of modern app development with regard to Android and Apple. They definitely helped influence the direction of features. They would give us the code, we would test it, and we were the ones who would release it.

On the Gift Card Granny side, I know they had integrations with the device location system. Basically, all the apps that they worked on communicated with our APIs [application programming interfaces], which did all the real heavy lifting of integrating with other systems. They handled user logins.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

My CEO actually came across them. I think from some sort of website review. I'm not exactly 100 percent on that. We reached out to them and started doing a trial period with Gift Card Granny. They actually started out with two developers, one Android and one iOS on our Gift Card Granny product. After working with them, we saw the value of having them, so we incorporated them into our other project.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It cost between $50,000 and $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

They work until next week [July 2016], I think. We started building up our team internally, which removed the need to have external development.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our apps consistently grow in retained users. That, of course, is a multipronged effort of marketing and other aspects of the company.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

Softnauts were great. They were very proficient in English which could be an issue working with an offshore team. Communicating with them was very easy. Softnauts turned around the features very fast, and they were always done very well. There was very little QA [quality assurance]. We could take what they had done in a prior sprint and do a minimal amount of testing on it and release it to production without issue.

What distinguishes Softnauts from other providers?

Personally, I have never managed any international contractors, so I don't have a great base to compare them to. It was nice being able to communicate directly with the development resources. Oftentimes, if you work with a contracted company, you're playing the telephone game where you communicate one thing, they communicate it to another person and, by the time it gets to the developer, it's all misconstrued. Being able to communicate with those developers directly was an excellent service that Softnauts provided.

Is there anything Softnauts could have improved or done differently?

There's probably stuff that we could have done on our end. Softnauts exceeded our expectations. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an international marketing specialist at AGH University of Science and Technology.

What challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

I needed an IT company to develop a geo-location mobile app for our university. We have the largest campus in Poland, and countless international students informed us they needed help navigating it.  

What was the scope of their involvement?

I gave them specifications, and they developed an iOS and Android mobile app and a landing page. The app and landing page are available in Polish and English. The app features a geo-location and navigation feature that helps students locate themselves on campus when they’re lost. Other vital information such as opening hours, sports/clubs, and copy centers is easy to access. Important locations on campus have their own profile that displays photo galleries and information about staff members (via a program connected to our university database).

What is the team composition?

We worked with around nine people. I only met the project manager and the designer, but I loved their whole team.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

I looked online for IT companies and was impressed with Softnauts.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent between $25,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November 2018 until January 2019. Their speed was quite impressive.

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

People were very impressed by the app’s innovative design and simple onboarding process. It’s aesthetically pleasing and will be very useful for our university.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project manager performed very well. She was always available to come to a meeting or talk to me, even after hours. I couldn’t believe she made time to have personal meetings with me. Normally, we communicated over email and phone. She also gave me access to a panel when I could comment on their work.

Their team was professional, friendly, and responsive and delivered high-quality work for a reasonable price. The focus on brainstorming and creativity led me to develop ideas I hadn’t thought of before. Beyond their physical work, they possess an intangible value that makes cooperating with them worthwhile.

What did you find most impressive about them?

While allocating plenty of room for creativity, they still worked within stable procedures. Their combination of price, quality, and speed was great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I was aware of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients shouldn’t be afraid of laying out their vision. Softnauts provides space for your ideas and gives reasonable feedback. They’ll tell you what’s possible for your price.

Please describe your organization.

Our company makes construction equipment for recycling industries. We export the machines from Ireland to various countries in the world. Our biggest export market would be Europe. We also have a growing base in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and some parts of Asia.

What is your position?

I’m the office manager of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

We were looking to create an app that we could distribute to our sales personnel.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Softnauts was fully responsible for building our iOS app that our sales team uses end-to-end. It’s a simple app that shows dealers photographs of machines, videos and specification sheets. It allows the dealers to go online and browse. There’s a backend content management system that I have access to, which allows me to upload videos, photographs, and documents. The content can then be downloaded, saved locally and accessed offline.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

We had tried a few other contractors and the results were not good. In fact, one of the contractors we had from Europe actually ended up being paid for work that they didn’t deliver. We used oDesk (now Upwork) and it turned out that the guy was fraudulent. That cost us a few thousand dollars, and we were very skeptical about using another offshore development company. I spoke to the guys at Softnauts, and they seemed to be more professional in their approach. We went with them and it turned out great.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The cost of the project was about $7,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them back in June of this year [2015]. The project was finished about a month ago. It didn’t take them very long. Softnauts did a good job. They were very responsive to, any questions I had and they understood what I wanted very quickly.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I’ve only really started to push it out to our dealers. They’ve all been happy with the app. It’s not something you can measure, but it helps the dealers meet with their customers. In the past, they had hard copies of brochures and now, this way, they have everything on their iPods. Our process is a lot more efficient thanks to the app.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

Softnauts were very thorough. Madeline was the initial contact that I had. She pulled the quote together. They were very professional and quick at coming back with prices. Once we agreed to a price, it was handed over to Chris, who was the project manager. There were two developers working on the app. It was seamless; the first prototype didn’t have any bugs. Whatever internal processes they had, it seemed to get most of the bugs out before it was delivered to us. They got me to sign onto Amazon Web Services as well. Once it was all finished, they published it to the app store. I didn’t have to give them a whole lot of direction. They were very tuned into what I wanted.

Is there anything Softnauts could have improved or done differently?

They took my initial design and ran with that. They didn’t actually provide any variations. I didn’t ask them to either. They did everything I wanted them to do, and there wasn’t anything they didn’t do properly. I would use them again. It was a simple project, but they still did a great job.

Please describe your organization.

Our company builds websites for art galleries. We build an online system for those galleries to manage their inventory.

What is your position?

I'm the IT [information technology] director of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Softnauts?

We needed additional manpower. We needed to find good, talented developers that we could work with and establish an ongoing relationship with. We work with Softnauts to develop both our inventory application and custom websites. It's worked out quite well. We talk to them every day and even though they're on the other side of the world we consider them part of the team.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We do all the design. We'll deliver the design and requirements to the development team at Softnauts, and they develop the platform from there. We use the Symfony framework on PHP. We use MySQL back-end, and we use our own proprietary administration tool, which they haven't had any trouble adapting to. It's all proprietary so it's probably not the easiest thing to understand, and they've done really well with it.

How did you come to work with Softnauts?

I think originally they responded to an advertisement we put out on Stack Overflow.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Altogether, the projects have cost between $50,000 to $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them for three years [as of October 2015].

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I cannot share any statistics to respect our clients' privacy. They're responsive even though the time zones are different. We seemed to work with the different time zones really well. When we start our day, they're half way through theirs. They've got something ready for us to see in the morning. Then, we can work with them the rest of the day before they wrap up. They've been good about bringing on new developers if we need to ramp up. That's been a plus. On short notice, they can get someone new if we need someone new for a short-term project.

How did Softnauts perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well. We've rarely had any issues. If we have, we've gone back, and they've made it right quickly. We have a great working relationship with Softnauts.

What distinguishes Softnauts from other providers?

I've worked with many remote developers in many different countries and in many different time zones. The Polish culture and American culture seem to get along very well. We seem to have the same values and the same type of culture. We get along well, and they feel like they are a part of our team.

Is there anything Softnauts could have improved or done differently?

No. I feel that would be my responsibility. If I wanted something done differently than I would say so, and I'm confident that they would make it happen.