Spiral Scout

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technology consultant for a B2B strategy company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Spiral Scout?

We needed someone to help our client provide their customers with better service access.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re engaged with Spiral Scout to build a particular component for an e-commerce platform. The team is building the software, a customer-facing platform, from scratch and designing the UX.

What is the team composition?

I’ve mainly been communicating with a project manager, head of UX, head of design, and their management team.

How did you come to work with Spiral Scout?

I’ve already worked with Spiral Scout from a previous company, so I recommended them to be the primary development partner for this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in March 2022.

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

We’re still in the development phase, but their team has been consistently responsive and easy to work with, and we’re very satisfied with the quality of their work.

How did Spiral Scout perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a good job of keeping the project on track and are upfront about the development changes and updates. They also strictly adhere to the budget and timeline of the project, so the partnership has been smooth.

We use Confluent to manage the project and typically communicate through Slack and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with their development experience and approach to communication.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this point, I don’t have any constructive feedback because I’m very satisfied with our partnership with Spiral Scout.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise you to come up with a defined set of requirements to give them a clear picture of what you’re looking for. However, Spiral Scout does offer a complete development team solution including their own BA's to document the requirements.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Co-Founder and Art Director of the web design and branding agency.

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

We worked with the Spiral Scout team on a comprehensive development process for one of the sites we had redesigned. We needed their help to build the site so that it kept the engaging feel of the design while remaining smooth and fast for a good UX. From a technical standpoint, everything had to be easily editable from the admin panel for the client.

The client also wanted the website to feel alive by having a section on the homepage updated with recent events and publications. This required a well-structured homepage and accompanying pages that were in a common, engaging style that was adaptable to new and regular content.

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

We had worked together on Spiral Scout's corporate website. We had completed a redesign for them, and then Spiral Scout handled the development, release, and technical troubleshooting for their own site.

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

Once we had completed the design stage, Spiral Scout’s team worked on the site's development based on our design and UI style kit. Their team was managing the entire development process, QA, and regularly communicating with the client.

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

At least four people from the Spiral Scout team were involved in the management and communication process, and several other developers were involved in the project under very tight deadlines.

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

The main result – a happy client. Together with the Spiral Scout team, we were working a lot to understand the client’s vision and having lots of calls to coordinate our actions and share opinions. I think our close collaboration and communication was the reason for a successful project. Together with the Spiral Scout team, we were constantly strategizing about the best solution for the filters, how we could display all the items in the most efficient way for users, and more. The Spiral team proposed a number of brilliant ideas, and all of them were happily accepted by the client.

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

It was great. Everyone in the project team knew their responsibility and role. PMs and team leads were very professional, responsible, and pleasant. The communication was immediate and concrete, which helped move things along smoothly while adhering to a tight deadline. Every comment or insight from the client was documented and detailed, including what we should do, when, and how. The team always asked the client to clarify any unclear details if required to understand the client’s vision in full - never working off assumptions.

The developers also made a huge impact on the successful finishing of this project. They always worked and communicated with great patience and professionalism, explaining technical topics in simple, non-tech language, and implemented the changes inside the code several times until the website was perfect. Thank you to all of them for the opportunity to work with them, it was a great experience.

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

Well-coordinated work, clear division of competencies, attention to detail, compliance with deadlines, high professionalism, full immersion in the project, and attention to detail.

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

No.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm founder of Loop Golf, which is the online platform connecting courses and golfers together to create the absolute best on-course golfing experience.

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

We needed help developing our MVP app product so we could get it in the hands of early beta testers and prove out key hypotheses necessary to help build our compnany. That help included front-end and back-end development as well as design.

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

Quality of developer was the number one criteria, which we found to be very good in terms of professionalism, code quality, dedication to the project/team, flexibility in working across vastly different timezones and communication. SpiralScout as a broader organization has been very accommodating, responsive, and helpful in sourcing the right type of talent to help us progress quickly on our project.

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

We needed a capable product designer, SWIFT developer for our iOS app and back-end development support (ruby, postgres, firebase) in order to build all facets of the iOS app and the defined MVP features.

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

As a product manager by trade, I needed to assemble a team around me who could help execute on the product vision I outlined, provide feedback and input on execution strategy/sequencing and guidance on how to minimize cost/scope in order to achieve the best initial product we could build. That team included a product designer, mobile developer and backend developer.

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

Within 1-2 months we had a test app live in Testflight that enabled us to live test many functions of the app. Within 5 months of part-time work we had a fully functional, feature rich app live in the app store, enabling us to do live beta testing and start the path to iterating on our core features with feedback from users.

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

I served as project manager given my previous expertise in this area. We leveraged Pivotal's Tracker ticketing system, Trello, slack, figma. We held standups 3x per week with a sprint planning meeting every 2-weeks, which enabled us to plan our our work, identify blockers and collaborate on scope/timing/features.

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

Their flexibility, especially for a small, early-stage start up. Most companies won't take on smaller companies at our stage given the smaller budgets and uncertainty. They've been an excellent partner helping us slowly build and grow over time and we've chosen to continue to expand our investment with them.

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

I can't think of anything. They've been exceptionally well organized and professional the entire time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and president of a funeral establishment that specializes in cremation arrangements that can be made online.

What challenge were you trying to address with Spiral Scout?

We needed to build an e-commerce platform with a high amount of automation built in.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We first had some conversations with Spiral Scout’s co-founder, John, during which he answered some of our questions to help define the project and its initial scope. He also provided us with a ballpark estimate of the project’s price.

Given that we were a new business doing things that no one had done before, Spiral Scout suggested that we spend a few weeks working with their business analysts. Thus, we spent about two months working with one of their business analysts, revisiting the client’s journey on our site from start to finish. This person answered all of our questions and helped us understand the details on which the developers would be working during the development phase.

After the discovery phase, we spent about five months working with the developers until they finished building the site. Currently, we touch base with Spiral Scout once per month. They keep making improvements to the site and maintaining it to ensure that everything works well.

In traditional funeral homes, people who want to make their arrangements would have to visit them or call them to have guidance on making those arrangements. However, Spiral Scout has built our site so that people can easily make their cremation arrangements themselves. The site has some intensive user flows and built-in integrations with third parties like Stripe so that, based on what the families select, they can find all the paperwork needed, make payments, and track the statuses of their arrangements.

What is the team composition?

Our initial point of contact was John, but we then worked with the business analyst during the discovery phase. Since then, the project manager has been our main point of contact. Still, I know that there has been a team of 7–8 developers and QA engineers working in the background.

How did you come to work with Spiral Scout?

We researched and shortlisted around 10 different providers based in the Bay Area and other parts of the country. Speaking of Spiral Scout specifically, we found them through a ranked list of the Bay Area’s best web developers. We interviewed the 10 companies we found and narrowed down our options to three companies. After narrowing down the list, we had extensive interviews with each company, and it was very obvious that Spiral Scout understood our project better and fit our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and we launched the site in October 2021. Still, our engagement is ongoing.

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

One of the most important success metrics is how useful this site has been to families. We’ve had feedback from them saying that, in the past, it took them a couple of hours and either numerous calls or a visit to the funeral home to make the arrangements. Now, it takes them less than 15 minutes to make the same arrangements through our site. We don’t have any metrics regarding traffic or lead generation, but the UX that Spiral Scout has created for our clients is significantly better than the experience they had traditionally hiring these services.

How did Spiral Scout perform from a project management standpoint?

Spiral Scout has done a great job managing the project. It was very important for us from the beginning to have a clear idea of the project’s price. They first gave us a pricing range, and they were very honest about it, detailing the number of hours required to complete the project and the costs associated with that. Still, given that we were a new business, we needed a fixed cost. Spiral Scout was very willing to work with us in capping the number of hours required to build the site.

In addition to that, their communication has been incredible. They gave us access to Jira from the get-go to see the project progress, and we had weekly Zoom or Google Meet calls during the development phase. Now, our meetings are monthly, and we communicate via email if needed. Whenever we send them an email, they respond within 24 hours.

On top of their great communication and budget management skills, Spiral Scout has no issues with the timelines; they’ve always met the deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Spiral Scout has excelled in two aspects. Firstly, they were very quick to understand what we were trying to do. Not every vendor got our business or believed in it, but Spiral Scout believed in our project and understood our competitors far better than everyone else.

Secondly, their business analysis process is impressive. Working with Spiral Scout’s business analyst during the discovery phase almost certainly saved us tens of thousands of dollars. In correlation with that aspect, the fact that they wanted to understand everything they possibly could about our process meant a lot to us.

Although Spiral Scout is very quick to understand, their moves and processes are very deliberated. For example, if we ask for changes, they don’t make them without first considering all the implications those changes would have across the site and the potential problems they could create.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. The only aspect is that we’ve needed to adjust to their schedule, but this is not necessarily an area of opportunity because they work that way, and it hasn’t presented a problem.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spiral Scout treats their employees very well, and you can see it by how happily they work. As part of their work culture and environment, they’re very respectful of their work hours and don’t work a lot of overtime. Thus, you should be aware that they don’t work on weekends, and they take every other Friday off, so you’ll need to adjust to their schedule. Still, they’re very responsive.

Additionally, be aware that most of Spiral Scout’s employees aren’t native English speakers. We’ve had some issues with their copywriting, so don’t assume that what they deliver will be proofread. It is better to have someone on your team double-checking their copywriting.

Furthermore, I recommend that you leverage their business analyst and go through that process. Although the discovery phase takes some time to complete initially, it will save you time and money in the long run.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.