Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We're finishing the messaging part right now. If you send a message, it goes to someone's email. Once that's completed, then I'll really market it the way it should be. From the standpoint of some developers I've had look at it, it runs smoothly. No one's found any major issues or anything like that.
How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?
They performed very well. I haven't had any communication issues. We use Trello for the most part. That's worked out really well. Then we also have a Slack channel, but we don't use that too much. I'm partial to Trello by this time with them.
Sunflower Labs has two partners, from my understanding; Ronak Patel and Yash Patel. Ronak's in Hilliard, Ohio, which is a suburb of Columbus. Yash lives in New Jersey, so I talked mostly with Yash, who would do the design and overview. Ronak's more on the financial side; he's a developer as well. Then I'd deal with a project manager, who's over in India. It was a mix of Yash in New Jersey and the project manager in India. I felt like I had a lot of control over things, too, saying, “Hey, this is what I want. Let's see where you have it in a month from now.” Sometimes, we'd talk twice a week; sometimes we'd only talk once every other week; sometimes we'd talk every day for three weeks.
What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?
Being patient, because I'm not a patient person. They were patient with me and would tell me what I need. Again, this is not my background at all. I know that all the pieces work, just not how they work, and they're patient with me. Customer service was great more than anything.
I love the work that went into it, how much they cared about it and wanted to make it right. If they thought it should go one way and I thought it should go another way, we'd have live discussions about what I wanted, and this is why they think, in the technical world, it should be this way. We'd go back and forth. Sometimes I'd say yes, but sometimes I said, “No, we're going with what I said.” We'd end it there, but we'd always have a discussion about it, so I appreciate that.
Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?
I would say that some of the work is outsourced to India, and I probably would've liked to have known. From midnight to 8 o'clock, sometimes I was going back and forth with someone from India working on it. I didn't mind that; when things come my way, I'd rather get it knocked out. By knowing up front that there's that option, then maybe I could've scheduled my next seven months off of having a different type of sleep schedule.
The updated app has gotten a lot of positive feedback and has much easier navigation and functionality. Sunflower Lab is available 24/7 and was transparent and diligent. They are willing to give recommendations and suggestions, demonstrating a wealth of knowledge and expertise.