TechWings

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Co Founder

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Full stack development from data collection through algorithmic grading to web and mobile presentation.

SOLUTION

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

Our tech leader found and interviewed.

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

Would rather keep that as our own information.

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

4-5, team leader, architect and developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Timely, great development, architecture and service.

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

Ongoing conversations, super professional

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

We like their knowledge as well as their professional work habits.

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

Not really.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder of an early stage educational technology (EdTech) startup

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire TechWings?

To design the UI/UX of our solution (a web application)

SOLUTION

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

Techwings were referred to by a contact who has used their services for a similar scope (web app design). We selected them out of a pool of 5 vendors, although they quoted on the higher end of the range, as they came across as professionals and they had solid relevant track record.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

I will not describe in details but the project was split into few phases starting with a mind map then concepts before moving into UX/wireframes and UI and adaptations.

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

At start, we were in touch with a sales person but she had good understanding of technology as well. Later, we dealt with a project manager and designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

our team was very happy with the final product and the developers (another 3rd party agency) commended the thoroughness of the design. The major concern is that the project was slightly longer than and above budget than initially anticipated

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was top notch and ensured proper communication and raised concerns/flags early on.

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

The quality of their talent is commendable.

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

I think they can be a bit more competitive when it comes to rates especially for smaller companies. Also, they need to entertain fixed contract approach as that ensures alignment.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Co-Founder

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mentalstack?

We hired Mentalstack to design the Ux/Ui frameworks for our webapp, mobile app and tablet.

SOLUTION

How did you select Mentalstack?

Based on reviews from previous clients and positive communication with their business development personnel.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Ux/Ui design for a savings and investing platform

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

Two, a project manager and a senior designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work on the Ux/Ui design was amazing, leaving the team satisfied with the end product. They are responsive, and are flexible to meet when needed.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Effective.

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

Their designs and communication have stood out in the workflow.

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

none

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Im the CEO of a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We created an admin portal for an insurance broker portal. We created a react-page according to a figma design

SOLUTION

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

Selected after experience and prize

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

We outstaffed two developer from Mentalstack . They were integrated in our workflow, i.e. used GitLab and our infrastructure.

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

Two frontend developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We cannot since we didnt launch yet

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

Their managements communication tools were upwork chat and emails. Their developers communicated with us via mattermost and GitLab. The responses were quick

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

They have a very good understanding of CSS

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

They couldve abstracted their react components better instead of reusing redundant code

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an architectural design and build platform in Australia and I engaged Mentalstack after comparing them to several other options.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mentalstack?

We required a complete UX and UI re-design of our primary app and we hired Mentalstack to work alongside our internal Product Management team to develop the new interface.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals were to create a world-leading user interface for the industry were in to help coordinate projects.

SOLUTION

How did you select Mentalstack?

We found Mentalstack on Upwork.

Describe the project in detail.

The project involved the design of the app interface from both a UX and UI perspective.

What was the team composition?

We have 3 people on our side involved in the project and there are 2 people on Mentalstack side.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So far the team at MS have been great. Very happy with progress meeting all expectations. We have now reached the high fidelity UI design phase and we are about to put to user testing.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Workflow has been very good.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They're just very good all around. The quality of the design work from Julia has been first class and have Maria as the project manager to help streamline communication makes for a great combination.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. Happy with everything for now.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Modento is a patient communication platform for dentistry and I'm one of the founders.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mentalstack?

We needed a new website with a modern design which would reflect how innovative our product is. We needed something light and elegant.

What were your goals for this project?

Design and develop a modern home page for our tech startup. We needed something that will stand out compared to our competition.

SOLUTION

How did you select Mentalstack?

I reviewed about 20 proposals and the one from Mentalstack stood out as the best offer in terms of pricing, reviews, and the quality of portfolio project.

Describe the project in detail.

A complete revamp of our website including landing page, blog, partners page, contact page and individual pages describing our features. The project was delivered in Word Press.

What was the team composition?

A designer, a developer, and a project manager have been assigned to our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project has been delivered successfully and meeting the requirements and expectations. Everyone is complementing our new website.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Regular conference calls to review the progress and plan the next steps. The team adjusted to my time zone in the US which was really helpful.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their design skills are on a world-class level.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing that stood our for me.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO at a tech-enabled HR-company. We are actively growing our tech product and, in addition to tech, in my responsibilities to oversee the overall product direction.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mentalstack?

We hired Mentalstack to build web UI. for our client protal.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to build a modern and nice-looking design, using exiting wireframes.

SOLUTION

How did you select Mentalstack?

I found Mentalstack on Upwork, they were quick to respond, the price was competitive and the portfolio was looking great.

Describe the project in detail.

The web UI for the client port it's a complex UX\UI which allows our client to get full control of a temporary staff we supply, as well as create new orders and generate reports.

What was the team composition?

Form our it were me and PO, from Metalstack it were designer and project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within 3 weeks we achieved all defined goals. All stakeholders were completely satisfied with the results.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The communication between. our team member and Mental stack were excellent. Their team is very responsive and professional.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The designed Yulia did everything with high attention to details and used here experience to solve UX challenges we had.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything was great.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO and co-founder of Snapmentor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed velocity in our delivery to meet our customers needs and to push out a completely new extension to our services. The project ended up in a information architectural change which led to a UI rewrite of our main web application. The goal of the project was to build up a simple design system of components that together would compose the web app pages.

SOLUTION

How did you select Mentalstack and what were the deciding factors?

We did an extensive interview process with a lot of designers on UpWork. What was a deciding factors with Mentalstack was their professionalism and structure in project management.

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

The scope of work was to extend Snapmentors main software with a knowledgebase that added a lot of complexity and features for our customers. We relied on a heavily agile work process. We worked in sprints with bi-daily standups to discuss and review design and development. Key deliveries were design wireframes and Pull requests made with react and storybooks. The technologies used was mainly figma for design along with well known web development framework technologies such as react, styled-components, storybook etc.

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

We had one designer, one developer and one project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

For measurable outcomes that is still a bit early. We are making the final changes before our release to customers now a days. What we know is that through user interviews, usability testing and observation we see that in general this meets our customers needs and is scalable for our business.

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

We mainly used slack for communication and it was super easy with Mentalstack. They are provisient in english and professional. For task management we used trello. Maria, the manager was very good. She kept structure and was also on top of details regarding the design. I don't know how much they communicated on their side, but they had no problems handling all the details. I think we had a very good communication throughout the project.

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

For what I see, the combination of a project manager along with a technical resource was a good combination because the manager handled a lot of the structure which allowed the technical resource to focus on the creativity and difficult things.

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

We had a slight miscommunication in the beginning of development where some design had deviated from how the functionality would work, so we lost perhaps one day of work in the wrong direction. Asking clearifying questions are very important and a short feedback loop equally important. For the design, I understand it is hard, but if I would work with mentalstack the next time, I would like to have a shorter feedback loop from design to implementation than we had. We discovered that we had some gaps where when we started the implementation we found some issues, which is something you normally do, but then we had completed the design contract.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the EA for the company and Project Coordinator for the design initiative.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mentalstack?

We have a web page design for our product that was created internally and we wanted to have a new perspective on our landing page.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to get a new modern and active landing page for our product.

SOLUTION

How did you select Mentalstack?

We ran some interviews through Upwork and they are the ones that appealed to us the most by looking top-notch professional.

Describe the project in detail.

We discussed the details about deliverables, timeframe, and content. We then started by shuffling the mood board that the designer team prepared and we picked the ones that were the closest to where we wanted to go. Then, we were asked to pick a color scheme and layout. We submitted our text blocks and the designer created imagery. We then had a fully functioning page where we would keep analyzing and submit feedback until we were satisfied.

What was the team composition?

We had a PM and a designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got our material and are ready to post our webpage.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was easy to communicate through Figma and emails.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are very patient and resourceful.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are satisfied with the team and hope to work with them soon!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Co-Founder of a startup that is helping people navigate the career space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mentalstack?

Design and Web Development

What were your goals for this project?

Build an MVP that we can use to test the market, get feedback and begin conversations with potential investors

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We had an existing contract with them for Design services so we continued the partnership

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed our front & back end and deployed our project. Also developed our home page. They also did all of our integrations with 3rd party tools such as Stripe, Sendgrid and others. Also developed complex functionality such as Video/Audio within our platform.

What was the team composition?

Team consisted of front-end and back end developers, designers, Testers, QA and Dev Ops. Our main point of contact was a dedicated project manager who was our key liaison. We interfaced primarily through the PM and MentalStack dialed resources up based on deadlines, etc.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The financial impact is too early to tell as we are just in early days of our company. However, having a tangible project gives us the ability to now begin our feedback loop with customers and have demo days with investors. So for us, this is tremendous value as we have moved from ideation into practical application / deployment.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Skype was the main mode of communication which was highly effective. Also, given the fact that there is a 6hr time difference, we didn't feel it at all as the team was readily available or got back to us as soon as possible. Jira is used to manage tasks which was also effective to have consistent transparency.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

There is a single point of contact. There is work being done in the background however, you don't get bogged down with who has rolled on and off the project. They have a pool of talent and they can dynamically adjust their staffing model to accommodate what is happening on the project, however, the stress of that happening was invisible to us. Our designated PM keeps everything moving seamlessly. Also, for an offshore company the English proficiency is extremely high and they also understand cultural nuances and references.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The only thing would be if your not a highly technical founder/co-founder, its important to ask questions and understand the complexities of what your building. Certain features are highly complex in nature, especially if you are integrating with any 3rd party tools, and can cause unexpected or additional effort to get right, which means it can impact your budget. It's important to discuss all of these possibilities and potential scenarios in advance.