The Software House

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a company that issues credit cards to startups and scale-up businesses.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Software House?

We needed help designing the UI/UX of our online platform. We wanted to ensure that users with disabilities could access it easily.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by providing The Software House with preliminary guidelines for our platform. Then, we worked together on the entire design-thinking process, which included describing user personas and mapping them. Then, the team used Figma to create lo-fi and hi-fi mock-ups for the UI/UX design. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a salesperson, three designers, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with The Software House? 

I found The Software House through a referral from someone who had a good experience working with them. They had an extensive portfolio with high-quality designs, and I was confident in their ability to deliver our project. Once we negotiated the contract, we started working together.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with The Software House from August–October 2022. 

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

Since we haven’t launched the platform yet, we don’t have any metrics, but their designs exceeded my expectations. During the customer testing phase, we found the designs to be intuitive and convenient. One of our main goals was to make the platform as intuitive as possible, and I’ve been very satisfied with the results. 

How did The Software House perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, I was very satisfied with how The Software House handled the project. Even though English isn’t their primary language, they did a great job communicating with us. The team was very professional and worked according to today’s standards. They were very efficient, and working with them was easy. We communicated via Slack and had daily check-ins via Google Meet. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Software House was very professional, and they listened to our needs and implemented our requests. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing The Software House could improve on. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend reviewing their portfolio and working with The Software House. Also, keep the communication flowing so they can serve you to the best of their ability.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an executive producer at a New York-based digital design and marketing agency.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Software House?

A client approached us to develop an educational app in the wellness space. We wanted to augment our staff with a dedicated team outside our current technology department.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired The Software House to develop a web-based MVP. It started as a React and Next.js website, which we are converting into a native mobile application for iOS and Android devices. The web-based app is the template and the schematic for the requirements to develop the native mobile applications after the fact. This approach was part of the plan to make it a much easier lift to get from the web version of the site, repurpose the available code base, and convert that into usable native app code.

We also leverage existing service technologies for infrastructure components like Stripe, Auth0, and AWS. We're actually in the act of writing a scope for maintenance. The Software House has been great to work with, and they know all the ins and outs of what they built, so it makes sense to keep them involved.

What is the team composition?

We've worked with a six-person team from The Software House on this project, including a senior product designer, a backend architect, two front-end developers, a QA specialist, and a project manager.

We have also had great support from their account management team.

How did you come to work with The Software House?

The Software House had previously participated in a much smaller engagement. Our CTO loved working with them and wanted to develop that relationship further, so when this project came along, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get them involved in a much larger, longer-term engagement.

How much have you invested with them?

The budget spend is about $185,000 for this project so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

The product has not had a public launch yet, so we don't have any success metrics. But I can say that the efficiencies in terms of project flow have been significant for us. The whole idea was that this web app, in the long run, would save the client money. The client first wanted to focus on a mobile application, which they could have spent a lot of capital on because it takes longer to do the development without precise requirements, and in the end, they may not have produced something they would have been happy with. 

The web-based MVP approach allowed us to develop the requirements, clear unforeseen hurdles, and quickly create a model to prove all the requirements, then convert it into a native app.

How did The Software House perform from a project management standpoint?

The Software House has performed well in terms of project management. We find many clients struggle with sprint-based methodology, so we've been doing a lot of hybrid project planning. We use a traditional waterfall approach to take the client from the requirements development phase through design and user experience. We then move into an agile methodology for development. That's worked out well for us.

We use Zoom, Jira, Confluence, and GIT-HUB for collaborative project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Software House is incredibly collaborative and easy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was one instance where we felt that The TSH could have gone a little bit deeper in problem-solving a specific registration flow, but everyone pulled together, and it all worked out in the end.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you are a US-based company, consider the timezone. Try to have as much advanced communication as possible. The TSH team is very responsive and does a fantastic job with that challenge. Still, you will need to understand how well your company can support real-time communication with teh time differences.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an engineer at an energy solutions company.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Software House?

We needed help with programming and AWS deployment. We wanted to install some AWS software and were looking for companies to help us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Software House has helped us install infrastructure to help with cybersecurity and our entire cloud-based system. Before starting the work, we provided context about our company and any documentation they needed to learn about us and get the whole process started.

Additionally, they redesigned and developed our website. We already had a site in place but decided to scrap it and get a new one, which The Software House created from scratch. The platform is encrypted and has more modern features than the older one, with a more secure and contemporary look.

What is the team composition?

We worked with around ten members of their team, including a lead developer and a project manager.

How did you come to work with The Software House?

A colleague of mine recommended them. I saw they gave free consultations, so I booked a meeting to hear what they had to offer. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $35,000–$40,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November 2020–April 2022.

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

The quality of their work was incredible; each person we dealt with was extremely smart and skilled. Also, we could always see what they were doing and they held our hands at every step. Additionally, thanks to their work, we were able to brand out more as a business, make our website faster, and improve the flow of our website traffic.

How did The Software House perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed extremely well with project management; their team delivered on time and within budget. Regarding tools, we used email and Asana.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It's impressive how they're able to make each project so affordable. Any other company would've charged us 2–3 times the amount they did. I like their accessible pricing and ability to deliver quality work that surpasses the competition.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on; I didn't have any complaints, and they exceeded our expectations.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you want to build a cloud-based platform, but your business has limited funds, I recommend The Software House. Also, have a clear and straight goal.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company builds, designs, and supports charitable and other positive organizations. I’m the head of a division within the firm that provides services and support to those organizations through technology.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Software House?

We were looking for a company to provide additional support to our technical team on a major project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were working to develop a specific software for a large UK bank’s grant program. The solution was complicated and expensive, so we relied on The Software House’s specific technical development and program management expertise. They’re effectively the entire development team, offering full-stack support and design services.

We provide the specifications and requirements, based on our own client, and monitor their work to ensure everyone is aligned. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a team of 13 people, including a dedicated project manager. 

How did you come to work with The Software House?

After researching several companies, we decided The Software House’s capabilities exceeded their competitors’. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $300,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with The Software House in May 2019, and the project is ongoing.

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

The team has done a fantastic job. The quality of work we were able to deliver to our client couldn’t have been achieved without The Software House.

The solution is reliable and functional, and our client is extremely pleased with it.

How did The Software House perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform very well. The project manager makes dealing with the rather large team easy and simple.

The Software House delivers all their work on time and within budget. We track the project on Jira, communicate through Slack, and employ Zeplin and InVision as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Software House is far more diligent and conscientious than other agencies I’ve worked with in the past. They often come up with potential issues and solutions for those issues before they even arise, which is incredibly helpful. 

It’s evident that the whole team is engaged with the project. If there are delays on the client’s side, they make a concerted effort to still deliver work within deadline. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that comes to mind. We’re very happy with the quality of work they’re providing and don’t want them to do anything differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear about what’s required in your engagement, and work with them to ensure they understand the project. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the UX manager for a major IT consultancy.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Software House?

We needed help with design and development for the various platforms we're creating.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had multiple projects for The Software House to help us with. The first project was a B2B platform, the second was an accelerated program for entrepreneurs. The third platform was a freelancing system for clients’ use in meetings and projects. The fourth was an e-commerce platform for business owners to post their homemade products online. For each of these systems, The Software House provides design and development assistance. We begin each project by giving them our requirements and the general scope of the work, and they create the platforms and perform QA for each. We continue to give them projects to develop.

 What is the team composition?

We work with a team of 5–8 developers, and they’ve assigned us a dedicated project manager.

How did you come to work with The Software House?

I joined the project after The Software House began working with our company.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $200,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in 2016 and the work is ongoing.

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

Their work is very reliable, and they’ve been quick to meet all of our requirements.

How did The Software House perform from a project management standpoint?

Their scrum masters are aligned with our needs and keep our teams connected for each task. We primarily communicate over Slack and Zoom for video conferences. As a team, they’re responsive to our needs and change team members as needed to fulfill our requirements.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re an organized, flexible team who adapt to our changing needs. They consider our comments, and they’re effective at managing time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Although their design team is great, it would be beneficial if their designers were as strong as the development and project management teams.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You can never go wrong by choosing The Software House for your project.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the CEO of Frisco.pl, an online grocery store that provides home delivery services.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Software House?

We engaged The Software House to augment our internal development team and build new functionalities for our website and store administration panel. We needed the team to develop reliable features and integrations in a flexible manner.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to speed up development to deliver new features quickly and seamlessly. From a business standpoint, we needed to stay responsive to clients’ needs by providing frequent iterations and market testing.

How did you select this vendor?

The Software House had a great reputation in Poland and I had already worked with them on past projects. They were reliable during those engagements.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

The Software House built a CMS and an API. They created coupon codes and did bug fixes. The team also brainstormed new ideas and supported our helpdesk

What was the team composition?

We worked with two full-stack developers and a technical project manager. The latter coordinated with the other technology vendors involved in the project.

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

The staff augmentation enabled us to focus on other priorities. As a result, we built a customer loyalty program, which The Software House has also helped with.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The team’s logistical coordination helped us clean the development process and focus on the business. In addition to planning sessions, we held on-site meetings at our Warsaw office. We communicated via Jira, Basecamp, and email.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were intelligent and engaged; the team felt like an extension of our company. They caught the domain knowledge immediately and actively participated in the whole process.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

No, we had didn’t have any complaints. The Software House was the perfect partner.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief architect at Vaana. We provide service vouchers for municipalities that individuals can use to get healthcare or social services, instead of relying solely on public services.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Software House?

We had an old customer interface that needed to be replaced. The aim was to modernize the platform for further development and modernize the look of the UI.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked on a new version of our software, using Java and PHP. The pilot version is an enhanced version of our old one, with a new look and feel. We’re going to add more functionalities to the interface.

Municipalities use the product to create and manage vouchers that are used to purchase services from providers. The municipalities are one user group of the software, and the other is the service providers. Private companies that offer healthcare, dental, and social services also use it to purchase these services.

What is the team composition?

We have three full-time developers, one part-time tester, and a project manager.

How did you come to work with The Software House?

Our sister company used them to build similar software. We were happy with how that was going so also chose to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2017 and the work is ongoing.

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

We’ve received really good feedback—the new version is much more modern and better looking. It’s not in full production yet, but we’re happy with how it’s been built. They did everything in the correct technical manner.

How did The Software House perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very responsive to any queries and are proactive in suggesting new ways to enhance our cooperation. They use good tools and good practices, including Slack, Hangouts, some email, and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their technical competency is quite good, and we always feel that know what they’re doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There have been some issues with communication. It’s not their fault., as the situation with multiple companies has been very challenging for all parties. We’ve all had a learning experience in that regard.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

No.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the owner of Torchlight Software. We’re a Phoenix-based software consultancy.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Software House?

We needed to develop a hybrid event management mobile app for a client. We were on a tight budget, but we still wanted to build a high-quality solution, so we looked for an outside vendor.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to deliver a comprehensive event management system for iOS, Android, and web-based devices.

How did you select this vendor?

We’d worked with The Software House on a previous project, and we were really happy with the results. When we needed more staff on this project, they were the obvious choice.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

The Software House built and tested a hybrid mobile app, then deployed it to both the iOS and Android app stores. They mainly used Node.js and React technologies. The app guides event coordinators towards success through proven management strategies across communication, billing, and ticketing processes. The Software House handled the majority of the work for this platform, building the high-level features and extensive functionalities. With their understanding of technology in relation to our goals, the team alerted us to any risks or gaps in our service that had been exposed during their development process.

What was the team composition?

We worked with three software developers and a QA tester. There was some team turnover, but we have no complaints. They handled the onboarding process for new members, and it was seamless.

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

The client hasn’t launched the software, but they’re very pleased with the delivered project. We believe this will be a best-in-class application.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We record tasks in Trello and use a Kanban process to manage our work queue. The team has a lot of autonomy in prioritizing tasks and implementation strategies. They’re responsible for pulling requests from our ticketing system and initiating deployments. It has worked out really well. They’re very intelligent and developed a great understanding of our goals.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their technical skills are rock solid. They make good decisions, and they bring issues to our attention when necessary.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

I’d like to see more discussions regarding crucial decisions in their Slack channel or be CCed on a Trello card when the developer is uncertain. Sometimes I’m not totally on board with their decisions, so I’d like to be more involved in the conversation. With that said, I understand it is tough to navigate the time difference, so I appreciate that everyone is doing the best that they can.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a CTO and former Product Owner at TestaViva – the online platform for people looking for easy access to legal consultations as far as wills, proxies, marriage certificates, contracts, and other important documents are concerned. My job is to manage the technical development of the platform and oversee our technical partners.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Software House?

We were looking for a company proficient in Symfony framework since our project was a Symfony-based web application with a massive database.

What were your goals for this project?

The main goal of the project was the backend implementation. It required integrating all services and necessary features, creating logic and introducing algorithms.

How did you select this vendor?

We chose The Software House based on their previous web development experience, especially with the Symfony framework. The company was recommended by one of our previous technological partners and it was a perfect match.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

TestaViva platform’s deployment was a multi-layered process and included importing personal data and processing it, designing algorithms for calculation the “life score”, digital signature technology, queuing tasks, safe data entering, and much more.

What was the team composition?

The Software House really cares about a regular team for every project, so we received help from three very experienced PHP Developers and one Quality Assurance Engineer who were involved in the project from the beginning to the end. What’s more, a dedicated Project Manager was overseeing the project’s progress.

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

The project is a grand success. The user feedback is absolutely overwhelming – some people say that if it wasn’t for TestaViva they probably wouldn’t decide on creating a will or get their documents in order. We spread awareness all across Denmark that legal procedures are not as complicated as they seem.

Due to our strong business partner, more than 1.5 million Danes has access to free legal advice through our platform. Up untill now, we have created more than 30,000 legal documents of which 10,000 are wills - thats more than 25% of the total market in Denmark.

We constantly receive 5-star reviews online (Facebook, Google and Trustpilot among others) and “thank you” messages from happy clients.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The Software House works in agile methodology. At the very beginning during scoping sessions, we prepared the entire product roadmap and the development plan for the upcoming months. Every two weeks we organised sprints to discuss what has been done already, view the latest demo and decide what needs to be prepared before the next sprint.

The day-to-day communication was conducted via. daily meetings, Slack and video conferences.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

In general, we were impressed all the way, but if I have to point out one thing, it must be the very skilled, professional and forthcoming staff – all the way from the managers to the developers. The skill level of the developers is very high, and during the project I learned a lot of new stuff.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don’t know if they are already doing this, but more and more of the “near-shore” companies are opening offices in Denmark, to make the communication easier. Not that it really was any problem, but having a go-to person in the local community is always nice.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the marketing director at Abplanalp. We deliver hi-technology in the machining industry.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Software House?

We wanted a simple Android application that could be used by engineers that work on the production floor.

What were your goals for this project?

Mobile technology is just getting prominent in our industry, and we wanted to incorporate it into the client perception of Abplanalp. We aspired to use the app as a marketing channel. For the app to be a success, our company needed it to be useful and reliable. We had one unsuccessful trial, and nothing came of our idea until we met The Software House.

How did you select this vendor?

The Software House approached us at the ITM trade fair. We had a brief conversation about what we needed, and their team got back to us after a couple of days.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

The idea was to build a calculator for CNC (computer numeric control) machine operators, providing mathematical formulas, tables of data, and an optical protractor for drill head angles. The app also contained a marketing element.

The first part of the application was the smart and quick calculator. We liked that users can get a “real” drill head angle measure by using a cell phone screen to check if the angle is correct. The Software House made the complex data table easy to read on small screens.

The marketing component contained news on trade fairs and the latest information in the industry. It also linked to product information. The section is dynamic, and our team can quickly change it.

What was the team composition?

We worked with an Android developer and a project manager.

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

Currently, thousands of engineers have downloaded the app. There are 40 new users each month. Our team considers the app a success.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We worked in weekly sprints. The product owner was on our side, and our teams used Basecamp as the primary communication tool.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The Software House was eager to do something new. We appreciated their open-minded approach and their drive to searching for solutions, even when it doesn’t affect them.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

No, nothing they need to improve on. We were under excellent care. We’ve received feedback that we should launch the app on iOS, so it may be time to work with The Software House again.