SoftProdukt

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of ioAudio, which is a B2B SaaS platform in the text-to-speech space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SoftProdukt?

We were working with a couple of freelancers and it lacked a bit of structure. I was managing the whole engineering process and we didn’t have a project manager, business analyst, or junior to senior developers. I reached out to SoftProdukt to help with this specific challenge.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoftProdukt did a couple of things for us, one of which is a backend user console. This is an administrator-facing tool where we could manually edit thousands of documents and feed them into the AI and machine learning models. This is a Django Project that required an Apache web server, with the whole thing on AWS.

We’re currently making adjustments and adding on to the console. We’ve started to use it and put it through production. SoftProdukt has also taken over portions of the frontend development for our customer-facing web app. 

What is the team composition?

We kicked it off with David (Account Manager), who introduced us to the whole team at SoftProdukt. We interfaced with Chris (CEO), the project manager, and a couple of developers. 

How did you come to work with SoftProdukt?

I connected with David through LinkedIn. He represents all the business and development sales efforts at SoftProdukt. The experience was fantastic, especially for a non-technical person; they immediately put my mind at ease when it came to the implementation of the right processes. They were also really empathetic to our current situation and made sure that the manner in which everything would be organized was communicated clearly. 

Another factor that made us decide to work with them was their understanding of our strict contract process. We have a lot of requirements since we’re working on fundraisers and private equity, but SoftProdukt accommodated everything. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $20,000–$30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in April 2021 and it is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re still in the middle of development so we can’t yet provide any success metrics, but I will say that SoftProdukt has completed tasks on time and within budget. They’ve been super flexible in terms of working additional hours or reprioritizing tasks. The team has met all of our expectations and their involvement has made it easier for us to plan from a business perspective. 

The team has also demonstrated their technical competence; all of the deliverables work and users have had zero complaints. There have been a couple of bugs here and there, but that’s normal. 

How did SoftProdukt perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of project management, we don’t have to worry about too much since the project manager communicates everything to the developers. We do have direct communication with those developers as well, so it’s easy to reach out through Slack if we need to have something clarified. They have a good company structure in place. They document everything on Google Drive, which helps us see exactly where we are at in terms of progress. 

Everybody from the team is always available, which is pretty amazing for an overseas company. David, in particular, has really stayed through the entire relationship. He didn’t fade into the background once he secured the deal; he has remained highly involved, making sure that the project is running smoothly and that communication between us and the team is clear. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

SoftProdukt is very trustworthy and technically competent. Working with them gives us peace of mind. They communicate constantly with us to confirm if they’ve met our expectations on documentation and invoicing. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Keep an open mind and trust SoftProdukt because they’re great. Whether you want to be involved in the development or prefer to have a hands-off approach, they can definitely do either and will probably exceed your expectations.