STRV

BACKGROUND

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

• Build a mobile app

SOLUTION

• High ratings
• Great culture fit

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of digital marketing and technology for Barry’s. We’re a boutique fitness company with 85 locations across the globe. Our development partners help bring this gym experience to life for our clients. We utilize B2B technology to make this happen and integrate all of our systems together. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We hired STRV to be our development partner. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

STRV does custom development for us, including backend, frontend, web, iOS, and Android development — they do it all. When we have a new piece of work, our teams discuss what we’re trying to accomplish and talk about high-level requirements. I work with their product management team to scope out and estimate the work. Then, they present their proposals back to us. We agree on a solution and SOW and start the project from there. 

We’ve done everything with STRV. They’ve built our entire digital fitness app, our backend admin and CMS, the frontend consumer-facing web app, and our mobile apps. They’ve built these front scratch on top of our booking management system. However, they’ve also inherited platforms and helped us maintain and improve them. They’ve built a few different middleware for us as well. 

Where the project requires it, we work closely with their product design team to make designs come to life. For instance, we’re currently doing a key feature change, and we’re working with their design and product teams to make it happen. We’ll send the project to the engineering team afterward. 

What is the team composition?

The team composition depends on the scope of work. It depends on our timelines, budget, and what is the right team size for a particular project. My primary account contacts are Tyna (Senior Product Manager) and Ligia (Director of Client Services). 

How did you come to work with STRV?

Our company’s relationship with STRV predates my joining the company. I didn’t make the decision to hire them, but we decided to continue using them as our primary development partner.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $1 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the partnership in April 2022, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven’t had any technical issues with STRV. One example of their resilience is when one of our partners accidentally deleted our entire staging instance a week before the launch of a new feature. This could have derailed the entire project, but Tyna came up with a creative solution and found a way to test and release the feature on time. 

In other words, they’re highly collaborative even if the issue doesn’t come from their side. They don’t worry about where it comes from — they simply stay solution-oriented around us and aim to hit our business goals rather than letting issues cause more issues. 

Overall, the quality of their work is excellent. They have clear queries and documentation, and their members are willing to take critiques and feedback. They iterate consistently to ensure the quality of their outputs is beyond the standard. 

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

STRV has been highly transparent in terms of deadlines and budgets. We’ve been paying attention to that, and they’re highly collaborative in that sense. We’ve had some tight deadlines, but they’re honest with us about what’s realistic and what’s not. We collaborate to find the best ways to meet our needs in the most effective manner. 

Tyna and Ligia are truly collaborative partners in the way they deliver solutions that meet our needs. We’re grateful that Tyna is available as a knowledge resource for us since she knows so much about our ecosystem. 

For tools, we mainly communicate through Slack. They do use Jira to manage projects, but we aren’t as involved in Jira on a daily basis. They’re also great at putting together ways to best articulate our goals whenever we need to communicate with business stakeholders. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their collaborative and problem-solving skills are excellent when compared to other providers I’ve worked with, so I highly recommend them. Moreover, they’re highly flexible in terms of scheduling and meeting with our partners. Their resources are willing to work across time zones to meet necessary parties. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Treat STRV as a partner and work on solutions together. Be clear about your objectives and collaborate with them to figure out the best technical solutions to meet those needs. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of a company that is building an observability tool or developer tool for engineers to monitor and observe the correct behavior of their applications in production. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We were about to launch our beta platform, and we hired STRV for development work to help meet a deadline. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

STRV was responsible for working on a specific feature set within a product. We had 2–3 calls with STRV to determine our needs. After that, we had a kickoff where we spent time onboarding their engineers. Their team helped us with specific parts of delivering the robot and worked side by side with our team. 

We worked with engineers who were experienced with data, analysis, and visualization and were interested in Web3. The engineers worked on the frontend of the solution. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with two engineers from STRV. 

How did you come to work with STRV?

We’d heard about them previously and had been impressed with their work. They were also referred to us, and at that point, we decided to move forward. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between February–May 2023. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to deliver everything within the deadlines, and wouldn’t have been able to complete the project without their assistance. We now have more than 250 users since launching three weeks ago. 

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

The engineers and product and project managers joined our weekly sprints and daily meetings; STRV worked as a part of our team. The team worked remotely for the most part, but we met in person a few times. STRV stayed on budget and within deadlines. We used Linear for project management and Slack, email, and Around for communication. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ease of integration was incredibly smooth, and they got up to speed quickly. STRV had strong communication skills, and they collaborated effectively. The team was professional and kept our needs in mind throughout the engagement. We were impressed with their ability to put together a team that was passionate about our project and the level of experience they brought to the engagement. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing we can come up with. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clearly scope the project and communicate your expectations because that will make the whole process easier. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager at an identity management company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We needed to update our Android and iOS mobile applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had previously worked with STRV on another project and contacted them again to update our mobile apps. The apps are native applications already developed, and STRV has updated them with our requirements. STRV has created the appropriate framework and has a backend server we communicate with. 

What is the team composition?

I work with two developers and one part-time project manager from STRV. 

How did you come to work with STRV?

STRV was referred to us by a mutual acquaintance. I chose them based on the personal connection we had. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership with STRV started in September 2022. We have a contract for a nine-month engagement. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

STRV has consistently met our projected release dates, and our team is happy with the results. I’m pleased with STRV’s work. 

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

STRV meets deadlines and stays on budget. We use Jira for project management and communicate through daily and weekly meetings in Microsoft Teams. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with STRV’s excellent communication. Moreover, STRV’s developers are well-trained and can ramp up quickly — they make significant contributions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for STRV to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend to show respect and appreciation for STRV’s highly skilled developers. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at Kindred. We’re a home-swapping company that’s focused on getting people to live a travel-rich lifestyle for just a fraction of the cost.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We hired them for their custom software development services. We needed to build out our product capabilities.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

STRV provided development services. We worked collaboratively with their software engineers to develop our internal tooling systems, as well as a mobile application that’s compatible with iOS.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 5–6 people from their company, including software and quality engineers.

How did you come to work with STRV?

We found them through a recommendation from one of our company’s co-founders.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $600,000–$1.2 million on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with STRV from November 2021–2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

STRV exceeded our expectations — they did a great job of helping us build our first mobile application. Needless to say, we couldn’t have done this without them.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

They always met our deadlines and stayed within budget. They were also very responsive. For communication, we used Slack and held daily meetings via Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

STRV’s biggest strength was their team, which consisted of very smart and skilled people who were easy to work with. They also followed best practices for development and made sure each output aligned with our company’s vision.

Are there any areas they could improve on?

I can’t think of anything that STRV could’ve improved on. They were a pleasure to work with.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend hiring STRV early so that you have time to work together on building initial prototypes of your product.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief people officer for a consumer sports stock market. We’re a licensed gambling product in New Jersey, but people can download the app throughout the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We needed someone to build our marketing tools from the ground up for our website and application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we tried STRV for a month to see if they were able to build a piece of marketing tech stack. Then, we expanded the engagement and kept their team to build the rest of the marketing tools, such as referral programs and marketing promotions. Our team has provided specific design parameters, but STRV builds the code and tech stack from scratch. We’ve allowed them to determine the best way to build the tools we want, and they’ve used Go, Swift, and Kotlin.

STRV continues to build additional marketing tools. Every time we come up with a new idea, promotion, or referral program, they develop it. They’re currently in the process of building our referral program.

What is the team composition?

They operate as a squad; we’ve worked with about six people. The squad includes a product manager, a backend engineer, an iOS frontend engineer, and a QA engineer. We recently added an Android engineer.

How did you come to work with STRV?

A fellow entrepreneur used them to build out his consumer app. When we said we needed to find good engineers at an affordable rate, he recommended STRV. He introduced us to the founder, and we enjoyed our conversation with him, so we signed up. The founder mentioned that they also worked in squads, so it was clear that they’d be a good fit. We liked that they took the same approach as us, so there wouldn’t be disruptions in the workflow.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent $250,000. We expect to spend another $100,000 between now and the end of January.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2022, and our relationship is ongoing. We expect the project to run through the end of January 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our company started from scratch, so the outcome is the marketing website that we’re currently using. When we launch the referral program, we hope to see an uptick in the number of new users and deposits on our site.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

They always complete the work on time, and we communicate well via Slack and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overseas companies are often more affordable, but the quality of the engineering work is significantly less. However, STRV has struck a nice balance; they’re not the cheapest option, but their work is high-quality and significantly better.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only painpoint has been their work hours; we’d like more flexibility with their work schedule. Since we have engineers on the East Coast and the West Coast in the US, there’s only a two-three hour window where everybody works simultaneously which isn't the most efficient way to work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We’ve had to be a bit more directive than anticipated, but it’s probably because they work with clients who aren’t as empowering as we are. We’d be okay with what they do as long as they stay with our guardrails.  We want them to tell us how best to build the product vs. wait for us to give instructions on every single step.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an engineer at an educational technology company. We connect teachers, partners, and students to communicate with each other.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We needed to increase our mobile engineering capacities.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve been working with STRV to augment our developing resources. To jumpstart every sprint, we tell them how we work and our expectations, and they start working independently but also contribute to the overall codebase improvements. For our most recent project, STRV has been helping us upgrade our messaging system on the iOS front, which involves updating the data model, implementing the UI, ensuring performance, and adding collateral features like reactions and scheduled messages. 

Regarding tools and technologies, their team has used Swift, SwiftUI, and Core Data.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Martin (CTO) and their engineering and project management teams throughout the partnership.

How did you come to work with STRV?

Someone referred them to us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2015, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to their work on developing core features, our app has been around the top 10 most downloaded apps in August and September, contributing to our app’s revenue and putting us in the top 20 paid subscriptions on the iOS App Store as well.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

Martin has been great in delivering our requests within deadlines and budgets, giving input, and providing helpful feedback. Regarding communication, we use Zoom, email, and in-person meetings — they’re very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their high-quality engineering team is their best attribute; they’re responsive, flexible to our education season schedule, and easy to work with. In addition, STRV also responds to our requests to change the engineering resources they provide.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on — STRV leads a straightforward process and is a quality partner with strong engineers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the asset manager for a private fund that invests in various assets. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

My responsibilities include project management of any assets we’re working on, one of which involves STRV. I work with them on web design and development for one of our projects.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve been working with STRV on creating a website and its backend. The team has done all engineering and advising for the website. For documentation, we’ve provided them with legal documents necessary for the site, such as the site’s terms and conditions and privacy policy. Our team has also shared with them some ideas of what we want to do. 

In terms of features, the site is similar to LinkedIn. Users can create profiles for their careers, specifically in the entertainment business — we’re focusing on women's representation in film and television media in Hollywood. 

Moreover, users can create profiles as someone providing film services or as a hiring manager. The idea behind it is to create a one-stop portal for people in the industry — specifically women and those who identify as women — to find jobs that would otherwise be unavailable to them.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with two teams from STRV. Each team consists of five people. I mainly communicate with the project manager of each team. The other members are engineers and QA specialists. 

How did you come to work with STRV?

I wasn’t the one who contacted STRV; my higher-ups did that, so I didn’t know who referred them to the team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $50,000–$100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. We’ve started the project from scratch, but we’re almost done now. We’re only wrapping up a couple of loose ends. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

STRV’s work has helped bring our vision to life. This is a dear project to us as we work in the entertainment industry, and we hope to bring change to the hiring process of women and those who represent women in the industry. 

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

The team has delivered everything on time and within our budget. When delays happen, the STRV resources are fantastic at communicating those things to us and helping us sort everything out. To communicate, we use emails; we connect through Zoom or our personal dialers and phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

STRV provides great support in guiding us through the process. We’ve never created a website before, so we had no idea about the field. Their team provides robust explanations of how everything works, what’s the process like, and how long things will take. Whenever we can’t understand something, they always explain things to us well. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. We’ve had such a great experience with them and never had any hiccups or misunderstandings. If we’re not on the same page, it’s quickly cleared up. Whenever there’s any miscommunication, it’s simply because we don’t know what we’re doing, and we rely on them to tell us how to complete our project — they’re great at it. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a product owner for the My Porsche App, which is the central app for Porsche customers who want to connect their smartphones with their vehicles.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

Back in the day, Porsche had several mobile apps for customers. STRV was hired as part of a team to combine these several apps' most important features and bring them together into one.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

STRV staffs one of several product teams. They serve all required domains of a fully self-empowered team: Design, Android, iOS and Backend development plus QA. Those members closely work together with Porsche's product management.

What is the team composition?

We have designers and seven developers overall.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between €1–€1.5 million (approximately $1.2–$2 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in January 2020, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app went live in the summer of 2021; we now have 150,000 active users. From a company perspective, that's a tremendous success. There’s always room to improve, but we’re really happy so far.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re from Prague, so they’re an offshore partner. They’re comparably cheaper than all the other vendors we work with, so there’s nothing to complain about in terms of budget.

Moreover, we constantly work with them. STRV is busy with our daily work, and it’s an ongoing process. We meet daily, and there’s a prototype once a week. We mainly communicate through Slack, and each morning we have a video call.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked in software development for eight years, and I’d never experienced a provider that always delivers such high quality on time. Usually, if you have a large provider that bring all types of people to the table, you can have someone who isn’t that good. However, we have nothing to complain about STRV. They’re excellent in their work. It’s a bold statement, but these people are currently one of the best people we’ve worked with so far.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing they weren’t able to provide was additional backend support at short notice. We tried to get more people, which is currently impossible because the whole market in Europe has a shortage of backend developers. Other than that, there isn’t anything in particular.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If it’s possible, visit their office in Prague.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide blockchain services to B2B clients and are building a cryptocurrency exchange for B2C clients. We also have some cryptocurrency mining operations that help companies invest. I’m the chief product officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

They provided me with design services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We described our challenges, and they came up with possible solutions. Brainstorming took place with both us and the designer, but we didn’t have any specific requirements. We had some preferred colors, but we were rebranding as well, so we were basically starting from scratch. It was more of a collaboration on the creative part, and they executed on the design.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one designer and one project manager.

How did you come to work with STRV?

Their reputation preceded them. I knew about them in general and that they were successful in providing services to clients like design and development. I was hoping that they would provide high-quality service.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July 2021–April 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re still working on implementation, so we don’t have any metrics yet, but the general feedback has been that it was a great cooperation with STRV. They were very professional and got straight to the point. There was no time wasted on meaningless tasks, and the designer we were working with was very talented and knowledgeable about our industry. We didn’t have to educate him, as he was doing his own research very thoroughly. They handed over the files in great condition. We were 100% satisfied.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

This is difficult for me to say, as we introduced a number of changes; there wasn’t a set timeline. Their initial estimate was correct, however, and they built a campaign around it.

Our communication was over Slack and Figma. We didn’t use any sort of management tool like Jira because my team was very hands-on. They were as well. We already knew who was working on what.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really appreciated the research that they did themselves, including looking at the competition and comparable projects, as well as our product from the user perspective. They were able to take the best parts of everything and combine them into nice designs for us.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

At some point, they could have been stricter with us. STRV was very polite about everything, but there were some points when the developer could have let us know that an idea wasn’t going to be profitable. This may not be applicable to other clients, and it could just be a personal preference.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Prepare what you want to achieve and don’t try to micromanage them.