thoughtbot

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Technology of Grady's Garden

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a food and nutrition company that help families and communities incorporate a healthier lifestyle

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire thoughtbot to accomplish?

• Build an app as a platform for our comprehensive health-focused curriculum and animated content
• Concept and develop games for the app

SOLUTION

How did you find thoughtbot?

Referral

Why did you select thoughtbot over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from thoughtbot were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We engaged thoughtbot to architect and build our consumer-facing digital education app MVP, which aims to cultivate lifelong healthy habits in children via engaging digital experiences. Their responsibilities included the initial development of the application and its underlying infrastructure, and subsequent feature testing and implementation. The primary outputs were a consumer-facing web application MVP and an associated native app

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

MVP testing with our target ICP resulted in the validation of core features such as gamification and efficient digital education dissemination, positioning us well for initial onboarding and adoption

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

thoughtbot proved to be a dependable and highly professional partner. They consistently delivered quality work on time, and their clear, proactive communication regarding any challenges allowed for seamless adjustments to project plans with stakeholders. Additionally, they were very accommodating of any adjustments we requested and consistently made themselves available for collaborative alignment to benefit the project

What was your primary form of communication with thoughtbot?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

thoughtbot's genuine passion for our project and social mission, reflecting a shared sense of purpose, significantly amplified the positive impact of our partnership for us. The team was highly responsive to our feedback and demonstrated strong problem-solving skills when challenges arose. The team’s proactive approach to identifying potential issues and offering effective solutions was particularly impressive, as was how organized they were

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

One area for potential improvement was the timeliness of the discovery phase and the proposed solution; it was longer than anticipated and resulted in an output which didn't fully align with our vision. This ultimately led us to take a more direct approach to outlining the specific requirements to ensure the final application met our needs and timeline expectations.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of CloseKnit

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

CloseKnit is an a virtaul forward hybrid advanced primary care medical practice.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire thoughtbot to accomplish?

• Develop our core platform
• Accelerate delivery of critical feaures during high growth
• Develop the foundations of our software engineering culture

SOLUTION

How did you find thoughtbot?

Well known in the industry

Why did you select thoughtbot over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from thoughtbot were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

ThoughtBot worked across the full web stack and mobile to deliver a superior rails telehealth application. They coded, designed, and product managed the deliverly along with our own team. The mentored jr devs and helped up implement scrum as we continued to hit our deadlines.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We hit our deadlines and grew our team while building out a solid codebase with little to no code debt.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Srong project management with a high degree of flexiblity. When we needed them to flex they did. We hit our deadlines without much drama and ThoughtBot was always professional and willing to accomodate us when we were in need!

What was your primary form of communication with thoughtbot?

Virtual Meeting

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

They are super strong engineers who all seem to follow the same set of rules and engineering culture. They can really deliver a high-quality software project that is easy to maintain over time.

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

Nothing that I can think of. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of Clara

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Clara connects families with in-home caregivers for seniors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire thoughtbot to accomplish?

• Set the foundation for our Ruby on Rails app
• Explore AI agentic solutions for customer support
• Train our internal engineering team in Ruby and Rails best practices

SOLUTION

How did you find thoughtbot?

Online Search

Why did you select thoughtbot over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Technology expertise (Ruby on Rails)

How many teammates from thoughtbot were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

○ Finish caregiver/coordinator dashboards

○ Fully automated payroll system for domestic employers in California

○ MVP AI-powered customer support tooling tied into Close CRM workflows

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Our payroll process takes half the time it did when they started
• Our MVP AI agent is able to respond correctly, with no human editing, 30% of the time and growing
• We have live products for both sides of our marketplace -- the families and the caregivers

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Thoughtbot has been incredibly flexible, adapting to fit our project management style. We switched tools from Notion to Linear, stopped and started standups at various times, and had a bit of the normal startup chaos but they stuck it out with good attitudes throughout

What was your primary form of communication with thoughtbot?

Email or Messaging App

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

• Ruby on Rails expertise
• All developers have been self-directed, thoughtful about technology, and make good tradeoffs
• Strong communication throughout

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

Pricing is high. The value is still there given the quality of the engineers but it is high.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Director of Engineering of a home services company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We empower people to make life's most important financial decisions confidently, starting with their homes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire thoughtbot to accomplish?

• Build a new consumer facing digital product to keep homeowners informed about their neighborhood.

SOLUTION

How did you find thoughtbot?

Referral

Why did you select thoughtbot over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from thoughtbot were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We hired Thoughtbot to help build and launch a consumer facing digital product that keeps homeowners informed about events happening within their neighborhood. The scope of work included: initial application development and infrastructure set-up, ongoing feature development, bug fixes & maintenance, as well as assisting with long-term technical strategy. The key deliverables were a consumer-facing web application and several web-based microservices responsible for data ingestion & processing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The application has scaled to millions of homeowners with over 1.4 billion alert/notifications sent about local neighborhoods.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Thoughtbot was always extremely professional. They routinely delivered work on time and with a high degree of quality. When complications did arise, they were quick to communicate the issue to key stakeholders so that timelines or scope could be adjusted appropriately. 

What was your primary form of communication with thoughtbot?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I was routinely impressed by thoughtbot's commitment to building high-quality software and their discipline in following engineering best-practices. They know how to build software "the right way", with solutions that are well-tested, well-monitored, scalable, and secure.

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

The flightdeck/AWS Platform modules and tooling are well-intentioned (enforce security best practices, simplify K8s cluster set-up, etc.), however they create an extra layer of obfuscation around industry-standard tooling that requires extra learning/ramp-up time when onboarding new teammates. They also create an additional dependency which can complicate updating certain components of the tech stack (upgrading the AWS terraform provider version for example, or the K8s version of the EKS cluster). 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Executive at Prolegis

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Provides software for congressional staff to help them in their daily work on capitol hill.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire thoughtbot to accomplish?

• Software development of new features within application
• Redesign software interface
• Implement SDLC best practices to engineering function
• Migrate cloud provider

SOLUTION

How did you find thoughtbot?

• Online Search
• Referral

Why did you select thoughtbot over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from thoughtbot were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We started with Thoughtbot on a smaller engagement in July 2022 to address short-term concern about the Elastic Search service (which was outdated) and asked them to do a code audit and roadmap of future improvements. From there Thoughtbot started on those improvements, and then ramped up from there to accomplish everything on the roadmap across multiple projects, and then helped hire and train new development team members. 
The last engineering project accomplished together, outside of the ongoing platform support they still provide, was developing and launching the first version of the enhanced product for our biggest customer to date. on time and under the original estimated budget.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Cloud migration of data and application from Huawei Cloud to AWS. 
• Partnering on the projects from UI/UX overhaul of application to development of custom functionality within application for Prolegis' largest client to date, on time and under budget. 
• Continued support of the production, demo, and staging environments as well as providing technical leadership when requested. 
• Partnered with Prolegis in hiring process of new developers and then with the training of those developers.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Thoughtbot was extremely organized and communicated on a reliable cadence with progress, issues, and timelines within the multiple projects with our company. All projects were delivered on time or early. Thoughtbot has always and continues to be extremely responsive to all of our needs and requests.

What was your primary form of communication with thoughtbot?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The overall skill of all the staff we interacted with was of the highest level from a technical and professional perspective. Those are qualities which can be found in many companies, however, what sets Thoughtbot apart from others is the true 'partner' approach, they were able to integrate themselves seamlessly into the process and culture of our company; we've built a relationship that we hope will last beyond the contract.

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

None that I can think of at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I lead marketing and e-commerce at Antelope Pets, which owns Doggo, a pet insurance and training services provider.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

thoughtbot helped create and design our website a few years ago, and we wanted to migrate to a CMS where a non-technical person could update the site content.

SOLUTION

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

We had previously worked with thoughtbot and it was great. We ultimately went with them again because they had been thoughtful and efficient with their time previously, and because they had historical context on the account.

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

We had a kick-off meeting to align on the site roadmap and goals. We had a hard limit for our budget, and prioritized each goal based on urgency. We used Notion and Basecamp for project management, ultimately migrated onto Contentful. thoughtbot was able to complete all of our P1s and P2s over the course of 6 weeks. We did not get to P3s.

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

We had a project manager and a developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are able to update our site without the help of developers now. Our developer stayed on through the entire day for our last day with them to work out any smaller kinks or bugs we hadn't caught earlier.

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

They used Basecamp for project management, Slack for communication. Daily syncs from Monday through Thursday, every Thursday would be a demo and every Monday would be planning for the week. We often switched these around based on what priorities were for the week.

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

Very responsive, developer worked with our team easily despite having no technical members of our team. They actually pulled in someone on their end to help QA since we couldn't.

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

Generally very laid back, sometimes we could've used some more guidance, particularly on the dev side, for how something should be set up. More of a lack of skills on our end rather than theirs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Warriors for Humanity, a global citizen movement that provides a platform for people to make a difference and leave a legacy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with thoughtbot?

We wanted help with a concept that promotes writing handwritten letters and honoring the legacy of people like teachers, community members, and coaches while they’re alive. The movement encourages people to write to these figures and acknowledge their legacies and the impact they’ve had, and then plant a tree to honor that legacy. 

The goal of this idea is to have a personal and environmental impact. Moreover, we thought we could create this initiative on every continent. After identifying the challenge, we wanted to narrow down the idea and go to market. We hired thoughtbot to help us create marketing ideas and concepts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

thoughtbot has created product design sprints to help us uncover our value proposition. They’ve conducted customer research to gather information and test our ideas. The team has also created a clickable prototype of our website to see what the product will look like. They’ve helped us create materials and talking points to help us navigate future stakeholder and investor conversations. 

First, we spent 4–5 days scoping out the idea and brainstorming. On the first day, we met to start defining the concept and narrowing down our messaging. We then had two days of workshops where we refined the messaging and defined what the concept would look like in terms of marketing. Then, we collaborated to develop user flows for our website. From there, they helped us design comprehensive product market research and surveyed potential customers using SurveyMonkey. 

After that, thoughtbot went through the product design phase, where they created the clickable website prototype from a number of angles. When that was finished, they invited 5–10 market researchers to test the prototype and give us feedback. Based on the testers’ feedback, the team is helping us tweak the user flow. Additionally, they’re developing a slide deck for us to present to investors. 

What is the team composition?

We work with a product strategist and two designers. 

How did you come to work with thoughtbot?

A few people recommended them and put me in touch with them, and I knew one of their teammates going in. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $25,000–$30,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The impact of this engagement has been massive because we now have a much deeper understanding of my customers. Moreover, the prototype has allowed us to get feedback on our initiative early on and understand where to start in order to make the most impact. thoughtbot provided influential senior testers with the right background that we couldn’t have gotten without them. These testers were really honest and provided useful feedback. 

As a result of our work with thoughtbot, we have several investors interested in working with us. We’re also more confident in our business plan and have a far more compelling story to tell based on the design sprint findings. The team has helped us find nuggets of information and a strategy that I couldn’t have come up with on my own. Overall, I’m happy with where we are and excited about the future. I’m confident we’ll get the investment we need to get off the ground. 

The team works independently, which is wonderful. Additionally, their flexibility is really impressive, and it has allowed us to walk through the stages in a way that adapts to our time availability. 

How did thoughtbot perform from a project management standpoint?

I give their project management a top rating. They use Miro for brainstorming, planning sprints, and storyboarding. Additionally, we use Google Docs, Google Meet, WhatsApp, and email, where we’re in regular contact. We also talk on the phone and have a regular conference call. They’re always available to take our calls or messages. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

thoughtbot really cares, loves the concept, and wants to educate us on why they do what they do. They’re very proactive, friendly, and genuine in their interest in what we’re doing. The team is very sensitive in terms of how they approach advice and direction. 

Their design sprints and the uncovering of the value proposition have been amazing. The team’s research and prototyping work are also really strong; thanks to them, our story for our investors is far better. I also appreciate the way they’ve walked us through the storyboarding. Additionally, thoughtbot’s customer relationship management is fantastic. They’re interested in me as a customer, our product, and relationship development between the individuals involved. I can’t speak highly enough about them; they’ve made us feel valued. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything has been top-class. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Regardless of what stage your idea is at, the thoughtbot team can help you. They care and will work to educate you on why they do things the way they do. To work with them, you must have the time and buy into the process. Trusting them will save you time and money; by the end, you’ll have a clear, concise, and compelling story. 

This is an exciting process to go through because you’ll work together to create something. Plus, it takes you out of the weeds, and you get a helicopter view of where you stand. You’ll also get an expert opinion that yields amazing feedback and suggestions. In all, the nuggets of gold you’ll get from them will be invaluable.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm one of the cofounders of Baton, a two-sided marketplace for small business acquisitions, helping small business owners understand the value of their business and work towards a lucrative sale.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We're a seed stage startup and needed to build our Minimum Lovable Product for a beta launch in September. Our Head of Engineering has a backend/data focus so we were looking to augment the team with Front End resources to support us until we're able to make full-time hires. We brought on the Thoughtbot team to build the front end of our small business owner onboarding flow from scratch.

SOLUTION

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

I had worked with a Thoughtbot engineer previously at Kickstarter and had a great experience, so I thought of Thoughtbot for this project for a few reasons. I knew we wanted to bring on senior engineers who could make architecture decisions and set us up for long-term success, as well as bring a high attention to detail and ability to work with a high degree of uncertainty in an agile fashion given how early we are. It was important to us that the team was embedded with us day-to-day and could participate in sprint ceremonies so they'd have proper context and collaborate with the rest of the team.

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

We kicked off the project in late June, and at that point, we essentially had user flow wireframes. From there the Thoughtbot team scaffolded the front-end application, setting up the React codebase and integrating Storybook and other tooling. We built out backend support in parallel to the front end work, building react components along the way, integrating with several 3rd party tools, implementing behavioral tracking, and then finishing with implementing our new design system.

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

We worked with two senior front-end engineers as well as an account manager. The communication was great and we really enjoyed our collaboration from start to finish.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're about to launch these new features but the impact of this work is extremely high for us as it is the first custom feature work we're putting out into the world with our new branding. Our north star goal is focused on owner acquisition, so this onboarding flow is critical to us hitting our goals for the year. We've been getting excellent user feedback ahead of the launch, and once we've released, this will empower the growth team to scale up top of funnel efforts.

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

We had daily standups in the morning, as well as weekly grooming/planning sessions, bi-weekly retrospectives, and weekly design reviews. We used slack for daily communications, JIRA for project management, Notion for documentation, and Github for version management. The engineers were very self-sufficient and often filed and groomed their own tickets, which was a huge help. We had a fun time working together!

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

The engineering team has great attention to detail and is product-minded, often thinking about complex edge cases and communicating often about their needs and blockers. I've worked with a lot of agencies and this level of communication and attention to detail are rare to find.

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

When we got started, we only booked one engineer and got feedback a few weeks in that we really needed to add a second resource to get the scope implemented in time. We had a limited budget and they worked with us which was much appreciated given we're a pre-seed company and need to be cautious with resources.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief customer officer for the Multi-State Partnership for Prevention.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with thoughtbot?

We brought them on to help us scale and maintain a SaaS software devoted to public health.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

thoughtbot has helped us with the conversion from Heroku to AWS, so they’ve helped us a lot with our system architecture and the code behind the features. Since our company is entirely virtual, they’re fully virtual members of our team. Moreover, they help us build out the skills in our team. While they work to improve the performance and features of our system, they also mentor and upskill our team members. We’ve never intended to have them forever, so they teach our team how to do this.

What is the team composition?

The team always has between 5–7 developers. We’ve worked with Chad (Founder & COO) and Joe (CTO).

How did you come to work with thoughtbot?

They were recommended to us.  We interviewed them as potential technical partners. We decided to engage them based on the interview and the references we got.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $1 million with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2021, and our relationship is ongoing. We now have only a few specialized people, but we still have a great partnership.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our system is performing perfectly. We don’t have metrics, but we’re 100% sure that we wouldn’t be in the business anymore if it weren’t for thoughtbot. They came in and identified how to scale the system and maintain it. Moreover, they did a complex migration without downtime for our customers.

How did thoughtbot perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. They’ve set the standards for our technical and project communication. We were having trouble scaling up to our business demands; thoughtbot helped us structure the foundation for project management and communication that we still use today.

We use Jira to manage and track the tickets and development. Also, we primarily use Slack and Zoom to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

From day one, they’ve helped us as team members, not outside consultants. They function like us, celebrate our wins, and help us with downtime. We feel like extremely close partners. Additionally, the team has the expertise we need, but they’re also conscientious and ethical. If they make a mistake, they lead by example and are accountable for it. The people in our organization have seen that and understood that this is how partners treat each other. They’ve helped us develop our engineering culture.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. Bringing them in is one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. We’re still working with them, so I don’t have anything to complain about.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If your project meets their capabilities, I’d highly recommend them. thoughtbot is a great partner, and they’re very knowledgeable. Also, they have an excellent reputation in the engineering world.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder and Managing Director of Contractuali UG (haftungsbeschränkt) a (future) contract management SaaS, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire thoughtbot?

We engaged thoughtbot to design and develop a prototype representative of the Contractuali MVP to test with users and give investors a more concrete illustration of what capabilities the product will provide.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We requested proposals from two vendors that have capabilities in the tech stack in which we plan to build the service. We were impressed by thoughtbot's level of interaction and feedback during the proposal process as well as the proposed structure of the design sprint. Thoughtbot also took our previous designs and planning into account, allowing us to significantly reduce the cost of the engagement.

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

The design sprint took place over the course of a week and was broken down to quickly and efficiently move from ideation, sketches, and storyboards to an interactive prototype. The produced prototype was then tested across five users from our target and related markets. The testers provided feedback on the UX/UI as well as the usefulness of the product within their respective markets.

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

The design sprint was very collaborative. We worked directly with two thoughtbot UX/UI designers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Given the duration of the sprint was only one week, we are extremely pleased with the delivered prototype and feel it accurately represents the vision we have for the product. This was reflected by the positive feedback we received from users. Overall, we now have a great blueprint to guide our engineering push!

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication with the UX/UI designers was frequent and timely. In fact, for most of the sprint, we were collaborating directly with each other on video calls as we worked through the prototyping process. The sprint wrapped up nicely with a post-mortem meeting in which the findings of the test sessions were shared and recommended next steps were outlined.

A member of the thoughtbot engineering team was also on this call to get a leg up on any technical challenges that the prototype presents.

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

The UX/UI work was really top notch. I was extremely pleased by how polished the prototype was, given the number of features it covered.

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

Not this time. This was a fairly short engagement with almost constant face-to-face interaction. As such it was not prone to some of the pitfalls surrounding communication, deadlines, etc. of longer engagements.