Sphinx Solutions

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a startup food delivery company located in Malaysia.

What is your position?

I am the co-founder and chief technology officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Sphinx Solution?

We wanted to get support for technology development as fast and as cheap as possible. In the beginning of our startup days, we didn't have any internal funds, so we needed to rely on contracting companies instead of hiring developers full time.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Sphinx Solution developed mobile applications for Android and iOS for us. They worked on back-end development using Java String and MongoDB, and created an internal administration tool, too. They assigned a five-person team to our project. We interact with them directly and through their project manager.

How did you come to work with Sphinx Solution?

I posted a job on Elance and looked through 40 to 50 companies. I had a call with Sphinx Solution and gave them a small test project to evaluate their communication skills and test the quality of their work. Based on that initial assessment, I hired them.

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

The total cost of the project has been around $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

They are professionals and do everything asked of them, but they're not proactive in coming up with ideas without being asked. We expected this kind of relationship, and they've done a good job.

How did Sphinx Solution perform from a project management standpoint?

The majority of their delivered work was within budget and on time. They were late in, at most, 10 percent of the cases. We initially used Trello for project tracking and then switched to JIRA because it's a more professional solution.

What distinguishes Sphinx Solution from other providers?

They're extremely reliable. I don't have much experience with other technology providers, but I found the process very easy. They bring good people to the table.

Is there anything Sphinx Solution could have improved or done differently?

I don't have anything specific to recommend for Sphinx. My recommendation for any prospective customers who are lacking in experience working with an outsourced vendor is to be exact when establishing their requirements. If Sphinx Solution knows what the client wants, it will be better for everyone. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our organization has developed the world's most popular wine app. We have 13 million users around the world, and we're growing rapidly with 25,000 new users every day. The core feature of the app is being able to take a picture of any wine bottle in the world and retrieve ratings and reviews for it. Our biggest presence is on the mobile market, but we're also popular on the web, getting close to having the largest wine website.

What is your position?

I am the founder and chief executive officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Sphinx Solution?

We needed to grow our business reasonably fast with limited funds. We needed to develop our software infrastructure. We didn't have the technical skills available to us and, at the same time, we didn't want to spend all of our resources on the technical side. We wanted to balance price and capability.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We've worked on much of development projects with them. Among those, Sphinx Solution has built scrapers for us that run through wine merchants' websites, identifying names and prices for each product.

Right now, we have a 20-person team working for us. On past projects, they provided up to 100 developers for our company. We're always involved in the selection process for the people that work for us. We communicate the account manager assigned to us and have gotten to know their CEO [Anand Mahajan] quite well. We design all the products they build for us, and we handle quality assurance internally.

How did you come to work with Sphinx Solution?

We've worked with them in the past. I don't remember how we came to find them. We started our collaboration by giving them a small test project. They handled it well, and we continued to work with them. We looked for factors like how well they listened to our directions and their general discipline. Remote work can be hard and communication skills are important.

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

Our total costs have surpassed $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2010.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The quality they deliver can vary a lot. Overall, we consider them the best team we've worked with in India. Working with them has been a learning process. In the beginning, we saw some implementation errors. As we built our relationship, Sphinx Solution got better at understanding what we needed.

How did Sphinx Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We use GitHub for project management, and we communicate through a ticketing system. We used Skype in the early days but eventually switched over to Slack, which has been our tool of choice. 

What distinguishes Sphinx Solution from other providers?

The reason we've worked with them for so long is that they are very disciplined and provide consistent quality work. Lack of discipline is a problem in India.

Is there anything Sphinx Solution could have improved or done differently?

There isn't anything. Generally, any client looking to hire a remote developer should keep them very close and communicate constantly – too much rather than too little. Sending requirements for a project and receiving it two weeks later is not what happens in the real world. Something will be delivered, but it won't be that project. Communication needs to happen on a daily basis.