Teczon Labs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO at Grove 86, an IT consulting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Teczon Labs?

We needed help developing our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our Drupal website and continue to maintain it. We did the architecture and gave them the requirements and designs. They built it to our requirements. They developed some components from scratch and, for others, picked up where previous developers had left off. They also did some Google Analytics work for us.

What is the team composition?

We communicated directly with the project manager. There were 2-3 developers who worked on the project.

How did you come to work with Teczon Labs?

We found them on a website called Freelance.com.

How much have you invested with them?

Around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2014 and the website was completed in 6 months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site is reliable and dynamic. It integrates some very advanced and sophisticated elements. We haven’t had any problems with bugs.

How did Teczon Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

We outsource to them and work remotely. The company was definitely skillful. They have very experienced programmers. They knew what they were doing but they had some issues meeting our quality standards at first. It’s risky for us to depend on their quality so we monitor and follow up with them to ask them to check things. We don’t give them a task and then see it for the first time on the delivery date. We watch closely.

I’m confident that now they know our requirements and quality standards. Instead of hiring a new person, going through that process and onboarding, it’s easier for me to assign them tasks and have them delivered.

They’re very responsive. They have evolved a lot since we started with them. Early on they would fall out of touch and, because of the time zones, they weren’t available. Now they have improved a lot.

We communicate with them through email and phone. We also use Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very consistent in terms of communication. They always come back to us if there's anything that they didn’t understand. They always follow up on the logic that we're trying to achieve.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be more proactive. I'm not sure how they engage with their other clients but, with us, we have to dictate everything. I think they’re learning a lot from us because we’re also an IT consulting company. We have very high requirements and standards. Maybe because of that, they always wait for our guidance. The way we deal with our clients is to be proactive, suggest improvements, what we can do and what can be expected. I think that’s what they’re lacking.

They are very good technical developers. They’re a bit weaker on the creative side of design and art, but it’s becoming a strong point.