Spiral Scout

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner and CEO of a K-12 curriculum company.

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

We hired Spiral Scout to create a web-based application for teachers to use with their students to improve reading fluency. Our goal was to create an effective and affordable tool for teachers.

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

Spiral Scout had experience in the K-12 curriculum space. They also recommended completing a Business Analysis prior to the project. This BA created a solid blueprint and cost estimate for the project.

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

The initial Business Analysis allowed us to create detailed user stories, wireframes, and an itemized list of the entire project. Once we started on the project, the Spiral Scout team has a systematic and efficient development schedule. They established 2-week sprint periods with clear deliverables and due dates. They kept up informed about the project via weekly SCRUM meetings and via Confluence and Jira.

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

There were 4 people on the team: 1 project manager, 1 head developer, 1 quality assurance tester, and 1 general supervisor. In addition to these members, I was able to directly communicate with the owners/CEOs at any time.

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

We launched the product in February 2021 with great success. We had over 300 teachers sign up in the first 45 days. We continue to have teachers join every day and have received several purchase order requests from schools and districts across the US. The positive feedback we have received from teachers has been overwhelming. We anticipate a huge influx of new members in the late summer and early fall of 2021.

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

The project management team provided exceptional communication. In addition to being very responsive to emails, they used Jira and Confluence to keep us informed of every minor detail. They also conducted weekly zoom meetings. So far we have had two project managers, and both did an amazing job responding to our concerns and explaining the process of development.

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

Spiral Scout exemplifies integrity. Every team member follows through with what they promise, and they make every effort to ensure our satisfaction and the satisfaction of the users. The team is also very patient--even though we are unfamiliar with program development, they did an excellent job explaining things to us and they were always open to our questions.

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

We honestly can't think of one thing Spiral Scout had done differently. We couldn't be more pleased with work they have done for us, and we look forward to working with the company for years to come.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are Temporal, the open source microservices orchestration platform for running mission critical code at any scale. We provide a service which enables developers to build highly reliable applications in the language of their choice. I serve as Head of Product but am currently responsible for Sales, Marketing, Devrel and a few other functions.

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

The core of Temporal is our backend, which is agnostic to the language developers write workflows in.

To actually use Temporal, developers write applications using clientside libraries we provide in a few popular languages. As a project and a company, our ability to attract developers is directly limited by the number of languages we support. Adding support for a new language is not a trivial exercise.

For one, we strive to make sure each language experience reflects the methodology and best practices for that language. This means that the anyone writing a new language SDK for Temporal really needs to understand the language inside and out. Regardless of the language, implementing a Temporal SDK requires deep understanding of distributed systems, race conditions and Temporal itself.

Until last August all SDK's were created and maintained exclusively by the Temporal team. We knew that our language support was not growing at the rate we hoped. When Spiral Scout approached us last August and offered to build a PHP SDK for Temporal, we were very interested.

Once we felt that they had the right set of skills to tackle the job, we engaged with them officially and started working together closely.

How did you select Spiral Scout and what were the deciding factors?

The effort and competency required to build a new language SDK for Temporal is so high that we completely assumed it would always fall on us. When Spiral Scout approached us and showed serious interest in doing the work, we were very excited and interested.

Although the work is very complex, it makes it quite easy to validate if someone is capable of doing it at all. After a number of sessions with Spiral Scout it was clear that they had very strong engineers who could dive deep into system details.

A major concern was that even a skilled team would require so much hand holding such that it would invalidate the value they added in the first place. It became immediately clear that this was not an issue with Spiral Scout.

As a group they are incredibly driven and self motivated, almost always able to find solutions to the problems they encounter. They're also great about knowing when to not waste time and just ask for help. It's a hard balance to strike.

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

The key deliverable was a full fledged PHP SDK for Temporal. On top of the usual complexity that comes with a new language SDK, this project also had additional complexity. Instead of implementing things from scratch, there were limitations that required it to be implemented on the base of our existing Golang SDK. This meant that Spiral Scout's team not only needed to be proficient with PHP but also Golang. Once we agreed on high level details, the process was very iterative. Spiral Scout was great about constantly giving us updates about the current status and raising issues sooner rather than later. They happily adopted our processes such as GitHub, Slack etc. Overall the engagement was very consistent. There were never points where we felt worried or disconnected, it was a constant stream of information.

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

Quite a few developers on the SpiralScout team who were involved with the project. Our main point of contact was Anton, who did an outstanding job on all fronts. He was expected to both understand the incredibly complex technical requirements but also the high level deliverables and business value. Anton is an exceptional communicator, technologist and strategic thinker. I would feel comfortable essentially having him and the team work on any technical challenge.

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

The major outcome was a fully functional PHP SDK for Temporal. This task has been 100% delivered on with no exceptions. Overall its very hard to fault any of the work Spiral Scout did. Even nice to haves such as documentation were handled without us asking. The quality of work across the board is consistently high.

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

Project management style was seemingly very well planned and detail oriented. In general it's hard to design a working Temporal SDK without thinking ahead quite a bit. As I previously mentioned, Anton is an awesome communicator and we were constantly updated about any critical changes or concerns.

They used a combination of internal project tracking tool and the GitHub repo to stay on top of issues and requests. Timelines were in general very transparent although the project did go over projected by a bit.

SpiralScout never asked us to pay for the overage although we did because the work was outstanding. In the end, scoping a Temporal SDK is incredibly difficult even for us so I find it very difficult to fault Spiral Scout for the outcome. We value reliability far more than velocity, and I felt SpiralScout does too.

They probably could have delivered on the original timeline but with something less premium. I'm happy they didn't do that.

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

They took an incredibly broad task and delivered a high-quality result with zero experience in our domain. Not only did they overcome an immense technical challenge but also married it to their specific area of expertise (PHP) in a way we could never have done. I would also say the communication and transparency stood out.

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

In all honesty there is not much I can think of. I have no complaints.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for a web development company, specializing in training and educational software. I am the Producer for various in-house and client projects.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

We hired Spiral Scout developers to assist our internal leads with day-to-day development tasks. Developers have to learn and be comfortable with proprietary software and strict use guidelines.

What were your goals for this project?

In addition to limited custom-code solutions, developers have to primarily identify solutions and build courses using proprietary software tools. They must support the ecosystem with robust investigation, reporting, and overall documentation to boost the ecosystem while simultaneously delivering quality course products on time.

How did you select this vendor?

Spiral Scout was chosen for their experience with the required toolset and familiarity with what the end-goal products are. They adapt well to changes and are amenable to shifting needs.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Spiral Scout developers are usually pulled into a project after content & design teams have created high-fidelity wireframes with detailed copy & user flows. They are responsible for using proprietary tools to build out these highly detailed courses.

Whenever the toolset does not provide the ability to execute on design, developers will conduct further investigation into what is needed to update the tools in order to execute. They will often come up with alternate solutions until an update or fix to proprietary tools can be made, at which point they will update accordingly.

Developers also have to coordinate with cross-disciplinary teams to help guide design where there is uncertainty about what can be built. Often attending various meetings to review design concepts and provide insight as to what design options can be completed.

What was the team composition?

Courses typically have a stable product team consisting of a Product Owner, Project Manager, and Producer. 1-2 Tech Leads depending on the scope of the course. 2-4 developers or more depending on scope. The art and content teams can range a bit more but developers will typically only interact with leads and the above core product team.

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

The work done by Spiral Scout has been a key contributor to a healthy partnership with our client. That partnership has grown tremendously from a client/vendor relationship where we previously worked on one or two courses per year, to over 10 in 2020.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The Spiral Scout team always provides timely communication throughout any given project. We communicate daily via Google Chat / Hangouts, Gmail and within JIRA, GitHub, and wherever needed.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their adaptability, commitment to our needs, and quality work impressed us. They respond well to all requests and provide easy to understand feedback for non-technical roles to understand.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Very little to suggest for improvement. I have great confidence in the team here that if any suggestions or requests were made by a client, Spiral Scout would be happy to accommodate.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Human Touch is the leading provider of high-quality, innovative lifestyle products, massage chairs, and experiences that have been delivering indispensable, life-changing benefits to an ever-growing number of consumers for over 40 years. Products are available at fine furniture stores, back care specialty stores, and mass-market retailers across the U.S., through international retailers and distributors in more than 40 countries, and online at www.humantouch.com. My role within the company is to function as a Digital Marketing Manager, overseeing the company's eCommerce website and managing digital content and advertising on a multitude of online platforms.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

Spiral Scout completed a major platform migration for us and were extremely flexible, communicated promptly and worked long hours to deliver on time. Their work has received positive feedback from several people in our company ranging from our CEO to our Accounting Department who were impressed with their ability to stay in budget on such a large scale project.

We continue to use them for our web development and intend to keep increasing their scope of work as we discover the broad range of services that is covered by their knowledgeable teams. Spiral Scout leadership is highly collaborative and is always willing to pivot rapidly to meet business goals.

Our project manager is detail oriented and organized and excels at follow-up and keeping our team informed and focused. They have been an excellent fit with our organization.

What were your goals for this project?

We had just over 3 months to complete this migration, in order to meet the Magento 1 platform support cutoff date. We also needed this done in tandem with our regular website maintenance, and had a number of custom website modules that would need to be reconfigured for the new platform.

How did you select this vendor?

We found Spiral Scout on Clutch.com!

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Spiral Scout has provided us with website development work by way of both maintenance and migration support, as well as exceptional organization and project management support.

They have suggested a number of helpful tools so that we can stay on top of both large and small projects, and have had excellent communication throughout this entire process. We have also sought them out for SEO work, website design, and digital advertising analysis.

What was the team composition?

Spiral Scout has provided us with support from their CEO, Project Manager, Technical Team, SEO Management team, and several website developers. This team has remained much the same size since we initially engaged with them.

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

Our website migration was seamless, without any type of negative impact on our ranking or website performance, despite the rushed deadline we asked of Spiral Scout.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We used Jira, as well as Confluence to coordinate project management tasks. Until this point, our team had no experience with either of these tools, and Spiral Scout has been wonderful at helping us to understand and maximize our use of these tools.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Spiral Scout has been amazing to work with. They have really impressed us with their excellent communication, organizational skills, technical knowledge, and willingness to work long hours when needed.

We enjoy our routine maintenance calls with them, and they have been provided us with friendly and informative support for both the migration and also our regular website maintenance.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There really aren't many things I would change about our relationship with this team, and I say that with 100% honesty. Their CEO is always quick to hop on a call with us if we have questions, and they have really been helpful as they explain situations where we may struggle to grasp some of the more technical concepts of these website projects.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO and co-founder of Cheque.

What challenge were you trying to address with Spiral Scout?

We needed to build our product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Basically, we presented them with a scope of work. We reviewed the scope together, talked about our goals, and discussed how they would address specific features. And then, they started to build the app and the CMS.

The product was released in March, which was intended as our beta version. It was meant to be an in-person product — a scan and go app with a backend inventory piece. But then, COVID-19 hit and everything closed.

We quickly transitioned to an online solution, so our beta product became our main, live product. We had real merchants and real shoppers having real experiences on the platform right out of the gate.

What is the team composition?

We had three points of contact. One is a project manager who oversaw the initiative. Another person acted as the brains behind the operation. And then the third person focused on the business aspects of the project. We spoke to them about invoicing and sprints.

How did you come to work with Spiral Scout?

We found them through word of mouth and decided to work with them based on their references. We called and spoke with a bunch of their customers. All of them were happy, so we decided to give them a shot.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $350,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in November 2019 and the product rolled out in March 2020.

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

Spiral Scout built solid software with clean code, so we haven’t had any downtime. When we launched the product, we quickly had a tremendous volume of users, but everything went seamlessly.

Their team was forward-thinking, creating the design with growth in mind. That helped us tremendously. As we hit the ground running, we were able to make changes and adjustments that Spiral Scout anticipated. They foresaw that needs would arise that we hadn’t written into our development plan.

How did Spiral Scout perform from a project management standpoint?

We talked to our project manager daily. During the development, we had weekly calls when their team showed us their work. We both asked questions and they presented their thoughts.

They’re a responsive team. They showed up at what would be 3 a.m. their time on multiple occasions. Spiral Scout accommodates for any time differences.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team actually thinks about the implications and future applications of development requests. If we said that we needed a widget, their team would ask us why and consider the best way to build it. Their team thinks through the implications of requests before executing them. Spiral Scout’s a great team that we view as part of our company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I wouldn’t change a thing about them.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Marvel Power Group is a boutique consulting and brokerage firm focusing on energy, water, and transportation.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

SpiralScout helped us create our brand, new logo, and they did all of the web design and development for our new site.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed someone that could understand our needs and see our vision for how we wanted to position ourselves in the market, and then help us create a brand and online presence around that. We also needed a one-pager we could send out to our prospective clients. They absolutely nailed it on all fronts.

How did you select this vendor?

After talking with their team we knew they had they could see where we wanted to go with our site and marketing materials. They were also incredibly responsive and easy to work with, and were able to move quickly when speed was of the utmost importance to us. Last, we saw their work with previous clients and loved that they were able to work with a variety of industries and types of brands.

Describe the project in detail.

We started with a logo, and from there we moved to creating our branding and website design. In conjunction with that they helped hone our messaging. After that they led all of the development for our website, mobile site, and marketing materials. We provided input along the way and they usually turned around the changes within hours. They set out a schedule from the beginning and hit every single milestone on time.

What was the team composition?

We primarily communicated with their CEO, John Griffin. John did a really great job being the point person between us and the development team that was working on this for us.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We started with basically nothing and by the end had a full fledged brand and online presence. Each step of the way we were able to provide feedback and make changes, and they were really responsive so we could stay on schedule and on budget.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very. It was seamless. We used Figma to provide feedback on the website development and that made it very easy and efficient.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Three things:

1. Vision/creativity: They could see what we wanted and had some really good ideas to help realize our vision.
2. Professionalism: They were on schedule, on budget, and just very easy and professional to work with. We had zero issues.
3. Quality: There was not one time we didn't have a high quality of work passed over to us for review.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I saw. We are very happy.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the VP of Product at a smart home tech company. We operate an e-commerce and brand website for our business.

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

We use Spiral Scout as our web dev house for net new initiatives as well as regular support/maintenance.

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

We explored a few vendors, but chose Spiral Scout because of good referrals.

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

Sprint based work process, with Sprint Plannings, Standups, and so on. Project Kickoffs also occur for larger scope projects.

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

Brilliant has a project manager that interfaces with the Spiral Scout team - 2 web developers and 1 part-time project manager to ensure timelines are met and things are on track, given the time difference and remote work collaboration.

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

We were pleased with the delivery of their services, which matched our marketing and branding initiatives.

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

Agile methodologies. Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Project Kickoffs, Product Reviews before releasing. Use Slack, Confluence, JIRA, and Github.

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

Responsiveness and communication.

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

Nothing out of the ordinary... but as expected when working remotely and across time zones, some details can always be missed. It is important that as a team, we work diligently to catch bugs before they are released.

Please describe your company and your position there.

4FRNT Ski is a small independent ski manufacturer that recently has adapted our business to enter the D2C marketplace. Since 2018 I have been the Brand Manager and steered the direction of the brand.

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

With the D2C marketplace growing rapidly we needed a lot of help maximizing our Shopify page for easy and fluid customer shopping experience. With our team being so small and inexperienced with web dev, Spiral Scout was able to take the lead and help us really elevate our shopping experience and site functionality. Along with this, Spiral Scout spent time deep diving into our SEO performance and took the reins on ensuring our website outperformed competitors.

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

Spiral Scout was recommended by a friend. After meeting with them it was clear that their understanding of web development and communication/execution amongst their team was the strongest we had see in competing companies.

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

With our teams limited understanding of web dev, we were able to communicate our wants and needs and allow Spiral Scout to transform that into a technical outline and timeline. Through weekly updates, detailed budget outlines, clear project outlines, and precise execution Spiral Scout was able to turn our big picture ideas into tangible results.

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

Throughout our projects we had weekly updates from a project manager and department leads. It was always very clear who to reach out to with questions and who to look to for updates.

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

Organic traffic to our site is up 41% and new users were up 53%. Average keyword position increased by 10 spots. We completed our Digital Accessibility project.

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

We had weekly stand up meetings to review projects, next steps, and review budgets. Their team was always available through Slack messenger or emails. They provided monthly reports that were catered to the metrics we wanted to see.

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

They execute projects quickly and precisely.

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

Not at this time

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company is a Venture Capital fund. I was the director of events, often in charge of their branding and marketing efforts.

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

Spiral Scout was hired to help develop our company website from scratch.

How did you select Spiral Scout and what were the deciding factors?

The team spent countless hours with me to spec out my project and strategize the best approach, even prior to signing a contract. They were knowledgeable, trustworthy and very responsive. I felt very comfortable in their hands.

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

This project was implemented based on the most modern solution. The team used a mix of Contentful as an API content management platform, Gatsby as a powerful FE framework, and Jamstack delivery platform. This approach created a modern, fast, secure, and easy-to-use website.

Project’s scope included:

• Design audit phase
• Contentful Environment and Models Setup
• Markup implementation phase
• GraphQL implementation phase
• Web-site content adding phase
• Setup of the deployment process
• Setup of the AWS hosting domain
• Integration with Getro's as an automated job board and private talent network
• integration with Cypress test as a tool automated front-end testing tool
• ADA compliance support(edited)

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

I worked with 4 people in total. John, the owner, 1 project manager & 2 developers.

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

All deliverables were completed on time and to spec.

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

We used Asana to project manage and email to communicate.

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

I found them very knowledgeable about their work but also about the investment community.I often leaned on them for advice on how to structure pages on the website based on what they've seen in the industry.

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

Not that I can think of

Please describe your company and your position there.

Content marketing manager for a cloud communications company. I lead content initiatives, including the blog.

For what projects/services did your company hire Spiral Scout?

We hired Spiral Scout to do web design and development for our blog, as well as ongoing support and design work.

What were your goals for this project?

More modern blog design, with greater email and search capabilities, with faster load times and more relevant articles for readers.

How did you select Spiral Scout?

We shortlisted 3-4 vendors, out of nearly a dozen, and Spiral Scout came back with the best look, feel and capabilities for a modern cloud technology company. We knew right away that the mock functionality and designs were what we were looking for, as well as the international/localization angle.

Describe the project in detail.

We had a series of meetings, timelines and benchmarks for success. I took over the project midway through after the previous project manager left the company. I helped gather the right people for things like design, email, localization/translation and IT support. We met weekly for 6 months to monitor our progress, and Spiral Scout was super communicative on expectations and deliverables.

What was the team composition?

Spiral Scout dedicated 4-6 people to the project, from designers to developers to project leads, and the team size hasn't really changed.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The goal was a modern blog, ith great search functionality and more subscriber/email capabilities for our various core languages.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We used spreadsheets, chat and video communications to connect over various time zones.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Spiral Scout is always willing to understand our needs and if they can't, then they gather each side to talk everything through. They're super responsive and really understand trends in web design. They shot down outdated ideas and brought modern ones to the table. Spiral Scout truly cares about the end results.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Some of the time zone differences mean it's harder to communicate in real time, especially when support is needed. But it hasn't been that often.