SP//DEV

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of an education technology company supporting world language teachers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our the front end of our website was 50% completed. SP//DEV was hired to finish the MVP.

SOLUTION

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

After interviewing the owner of the company and the software developer, we decided to go with this company because their developer was competent in Nuxt.js and Vuetify, their price range was reasonable, and the developer was proficient in English.

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

Work was mainly defined on a biweekly basis. We would define the specifications for a section of the front end and review together. Our site contains a portal for teacher and a portal for students. This developer oversaw the development of the student portal and also refined the teacher portal. Everything was made to be mobile friendly. The front end was written using Nuxt.js and Vuetify. They also incorporated Google Analytics.

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

We worked with 1 person from the company who was a front end wed developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After finishing the MVP, we were able to release it to our first customer and received very positive feedback.

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

We used Jira as well as google docs to define the scope of the work. When front end work started to closely in parallel with the back end changes we met most days for 30 min to 1hr to go over bugs and modifications.

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

We had ease working with SP//DEV, who was very competent and friendly. The company was also very flexible on timeline.

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

No major issues.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We have a web and design agency and I'm the General manager of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We need the support of SP/DEV to be able to scale rapidly for on demand clients. They allow us to respond to all demands, as we take care of the design and they cover the rest.

SOLUTION

How did you select SP//DEV and what were the deciding factors?

Their technical approach was the most innovative. They were proactive in their communication and always delivered on time or earlier which was essential in our project. Their cost/benefit ratio was also outstanding.

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

They helped us organize the project first and rearranged the tickets in the project management tool. We set up the reporting tool together. We were forced by the client to use Wordpress but they made use of WPML for the translation plugin, to toast for SEO and ACF for the page structure and coding. Key deliverables were the site in itself with different steps in the font end and tweaking of the backend.

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

We were only in contact with the Project manager and CEO of the company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site didn't exist before, so no real metrics to compare to.

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

Communication tools: were Slack, Asana, and google Drive for file sharing

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

Respect of the engagements, and proactivity towards them. Deadline respected!

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

We would just love to meet someone so helpful and who's part of the team now

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a small web design agency here in France. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SP//DEV?

We need a team that will help us integrate our designs into websites. We want to focus on delivering custom websites and not produce similar projects. It will be challenging on a technical level because they will need to apply the design, and make it both responsive, and look nice.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve been working with SP//DEV for five years now, and they are our technical counterparts. We have the design goals and technical functions asked by our clients. Our team produces the design and they help integrate those into a website. We’re integrated into the whole process. 

SP//DEV uses the CMS that we ask of them, which is WordPress. However, the CMS can be an open part, like a Laravel framework, too.

We’ve done complex projects with SP//DEV including landing pages and e-commerce websites. We’ve also built a CRM for an insurance company with specific needs like web calculations for tax rates. 

We check the sites before we push them for production and before we market them. There’s some back and forth between us when they first finish the bulk of a site. We then publish it and we have a quality process where we validate and recheck things to make sure it's perfect in the end.

What is the team composition?

From their team, we have 4–5 developers and one manager who handles the routine work and tasks management. The CEO also works with us but not on a daily basis.

How did you come to work with SP//DEV?

We’ve met them through a recommendation of another freelance developer whom I’ve known for a long time. I also already worked with their CEO five years ago because he had good reviews then. 

I didn’t make any comparisons to other agencies or benchmarks. I only tried them for one project then and it went well so I continue working with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested €200,000–€250,000 (approximately $240,000–$300,000).

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement started in November 2016 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our clients are happy. Our team also checks the quality of their work and it’s good. We don’t have specific metrics or the percentage of people happy with the sites.  We have specific customers with unique designs in mind, and they’re happy. 

We’ve been very happy with SP//DEV. Honestly, they’re doing a great job at the tasks. They adapt to everything we send, including complex designs. They take our tasks and they deliver good quality integration. The team goes deep to accommodate us and they match everything we need. 

How did SP//DEV perform from a project management standpoint?

SP//DEV respects our deadlines. We sit together to make design briefs and set deadlines. Sometimes, web projects can be quite adjustable, depending on the products’ needs or when clients change their minds in the middle of the project. However, the team always respects the deadlines, so it’s nice to work with them. We mostly use Trello to track the tasks. It’s almost like a partnership because we work every day together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The fact that they can adapt to whatever we require has a lot of value. We can come to them with a specific project that we’ve never encountered before, and they may have a solution straight away, or they’ll try to find one.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When I started working with SP//DEV, they were a small team. Now, they’re growing and it’s hard to keep the same level of quality and organization as they grow fast. There were a couple of times where we had to adjust the methodologies and the way we work together.

When they were a small team, we directly worked with them and there weren't a lot of managers. The challenge is as they grow, they need to maintain the quality level of the work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re open-minded and you can reach out to them. They’re okay to adjust their workflow to their clients’ needs. The only thing I can say is to communicate with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the owners at a marketing agency. We do normal marketing activities including PR and video, but also more complex data-related projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SP//DEV?

We had a freelancer programmer develop a prototype of a web app for one of our clients and we wanted to find a partner to develop the full solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before we started work, we wrote a detailed requirements document and full storyboard, which we provide to them. Then, we had a series of briefings since it was a large, complex project. They went into action after that to execute the project.

SP//DEV started over from scratch, using the existing prototype as an example of the concept. I can’t say too much about the product because of confidentiality considerations, but it did involve a very high degree of graphical capability. There are also a whole series of database integrations and account management features. Finally, there are data comprehension and exporting options.

What is the team composition?

I primarily dealt with their developer and account manager.

How did you come to work with SP//DEV?

We sent our existing code and prototype to several organizations and asked them to make some modifications on it as a competency test. SP//DEV came out on top.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $25,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March until September 2020. We’ve handed the finished product to our client and it’s fully functional. We’re just waiting on the client to provide the information we need to integrate it into their system.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product has been working for several weeks and the bug reports and minimal. The quality of the work has been very high because they’ve followed all of our design recommendations. We didn’t give them free rein; the documentation was very exacting. It also had to integrate with other systems. Getting into the fine details of what exactly we could and couldn’t do, they never said no. They just executed.

How did SP//DEV perform from a project management standpoint?

We had weekly formal calls with the project manager but the main developer was in-touch progressively more and more throughout the project, up until we were speaking many times per day.

The manager was fairly hands-off as we didn’t encounter any problems with time or budget. They let the technical people do their job, which is what I believe they should do. They didn’t need to intervene at all. Whenever I needed to contact them they would respond immediately.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re bright people and nice to work with. They understood what we were trying to do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were no problems I can think of. When we do another project with them we might change some things, including integrating this software planning tool they have.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Part of the reason our project went well is that we gave them a really good brief.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a online short stay rental company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We started hiring a developer from SPDeveloper for small issues we had in our core software and our WordPress Plugin.

We were very pleased by the good communication skills , the speed of understanding our existing system and quality of the applied changes. When we needed to make changes in our online price calculations due to local tax changes we also asked SPDeveloper.

SOLUTION

How did you select SPDeveloper and what were the deciding factors?

SPDeveloper was suggested to me via an existing business relation. They helped us with a small issue at that time, really helpful people with good skills. That lead to more and ongoing projects.

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

Our system consist of a back-office system that retrieves data from external systems (availability and pricing of apartments) and sends back booking data via our booking websites.

All projects that have been worked on by SPDeveloper involved PHP, JS and MYSQL work. Deliverables: adjusted api connections to lower the server load, front-end programming to improve user experience, changes in price-calculations and improvement of our WordPress plugin and Booking CMS.

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

We worked with one dedicated senior developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have decreased the server load, it even allowed us to use a smaller less expensive server setup. Some tasks that we needed to do with external tools are now rebuild in our own booking CMS.

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

We had direct contact with the developer. We used Trello as a system to prioritise tasks.

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

The speed of understanding a complex system build by another developer was most impressive. The eagerness to solve problems and the understanding of priorities.

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

Not that I can think of at this moment.