Tooploox

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at a computer games company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tooploox?

We wanted to build an entirely new product offering with a partner of ours. Still, we couldn’t do it ourselves in terms of staff and expertise, so we reached out to Tooploox to help us with software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tooploox has been providing custom software development for us. We started by working with their account manager to identify members of their internal team who might be a good fit for our project.

In terms of tasks, they’ve been responsible for working with our team to define the product requirements for what we’re building and are also helping us with technical architect solutions, code writing, and making the interfaces to put the product on the market.

Regarding technologies, they’ve provided expertise in TypeScript, React, data engineering, and general software architecture and backend services.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with their account manager, project manager, a designer, a backend engineer, and four software developers from their team.

How did you come to work with Tooploox?

They were referred to me when I was at my former company, and I decided to reach out to them for this new project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2021, and the engagement is ongoing; we’ve been working for two quarters already, and we plan to continue with that indefinitely.

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

Our partners are pleased with the progress so far. Tooploox has done a good job with our development cycles; they’ve been very consistent in delivering products that exceed our expectations.

How did Tooploox perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management has been excellent; they have a world-class approach to ensure success for every project we work on together. It’s a structured process where they make sure that everyone has everything they need for a certain task, including a clear idea of what needs to be done through the information they upload to our ticketing system. Overall, their team is professional and organized.

In terms of tools and communication, we use Slack, video calls, emails, Jira, Confluence, and Miro.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their work is great; it’s difficult to find professional software developers experienced with large companies, but Tooploox brings great expertise to our software necessities, is good at communication, and has the technical skills to execute what we need.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should hire more people to ensure that they can serve more customers.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear idea of the product you’re trying to build; Toploox does a great job working collaboratively to ensure a good execution if you provide them with a clear plan.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-founder and co-CEO of a technology startup. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Tooploox?

We hired Tooploox to help develop our mobile app. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tooploox has developed a social discovery iOS mobile app that allows users to chat with each other. What really sets this development apart is that they've used technology that hasn't been used on mobile apps before — the users find each other on the app using Bluetooth when they're within 200 feet of each other. Once users find each other, they can message each other in chat boxes. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with 6–8 teammates from Tooploox, including the account manager, project manager, iOS developers, QA tester, and backend developer. 

How did you come to work with Tooploox?

A friend referred Tooploox to us, and they also came up in our searches on Google and Clutch.co. One of the main reasons we hired them was because they provided a reasonable quote that was significantly less than what other firms quoted.  

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested $110,000 with Tooploox, but our original quote was around $180,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

This project with Tooploox was from August 2021–January 2022. However, we've recently rehired them to update the app.  

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

Tooploox has delivered exactly what they promised and their service is excellent — the app is successful. Their team was honest and adapted the final cost to match the work they ended up providing. 

How did Tooploox perform from a project management standpoint?

We had regular meetings to discuss what needed to get done for the next stage of the project and the cost. Tooploox always met their deadlines, even when we'd add extra tasks to the weekly project task list. They always ensured they delivered what we needed and never overcharged us. Typically, we communicated via Slack and used Jira to manage the project.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Tooploox's work ethic was excellent and we never had to remind them to complete tasks. Also, they collaborated so well with us that it always felt like we were on the same team. Their feedback and suggestions were incredibly valuable. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything for Tooploox to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I'd suggest that customers be upfront about what they need from the project with Tooploox so they can help walk through the processes. Also, if Tooploox doesn't think a project is doable, they'll convey it. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of an "industrial robot integrator" company called Workshop 4.0 based in Sierre Switzerland.

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

We hired tooploox as an expert in computer vision systems to help us detect 3d objects for a robot cell integration. The goal was to find the center topmost point in cartesian coordinates (X,Y,Z,C) of a wooden panels pile so that the robot could accurately pick them and place them in a CNC machine.

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

Tooploox was highly recommended to us by someone in the same business in Switzerland. The deciding factors were: the skills of the engineers and final cost.

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

The scope of work was to create and develop from scratch a unique computer vision system, including the hardware, algorithms and communications of the data to the robot. We started with a detailed description of our needs and then proceeded with a feasibility study. Next step was the r&d phase in which we worked together in order to understand what was realistically doable and cost friendly. Once the hardware was delivered to us we got to install it and then the testing phase followed. The technologies involved were: structured light in combination with image recognition and ultrasound distance sensors.

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

We got to work with 2 people, one person as manager for administrating the project and another person as computer vision engineer.

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

There is not much to say apart from the fact that all the set goals were accomplished with very satisfactory results so far.

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

We had weekly meetings through teleconference tools on updates, reports and checkpoints, we were always in close contact and felt quite supported during the whole process. Very flexible and understanding on changes in our schedule.

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

They easily accepted difficult challenges in innovation and research and development.

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

Not much to say, we did not feel any hiccups or problems.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our product is a platform where you can improve your mental well-being, learn how to manage your thoughts and emotions, support your body, or build your support system through relationships with people. I'm CTO and coordinated Tooploox work during MVP development.

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

We hired Tooploox to have a dedicated team working on building our SaaS platform, both frontend and backend, as soon as possible without time lost on scaling internal team. Goal was to get traction with customers after only 3 months and we managed to ship beta version of application in that time.

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

Tooploox was recommended by different sources from our VC and network as software house that has already experiences with development of similar solutions for US companies. Fast they could scale team and provide necessary skills and competences in short term were key for us.

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

Tooploox dev team broken down requirements and high level mockups of application into specific frontend and backend solutions. First they started by designing a monolithic backend in Python based on Django framework, created models for key objects and transaction with necessary API REST endpoints for communication. In parallel along API frontend application was created with React & TypeScript. Everything was published on AWS infrastructure for each of development environments with CI/CD, performance monitoring & tests.

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

In peak we had 3 python backend developers, 3 frontend developers & 1 project manager.

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

We managed to launch beta version a month earlier than original estimated and MVP according to previously made estimated based on high level plans only. All key deliverables were done on time without any issues.

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

We communicated via Slack, used Jira & Confluence for project management and GitHub for repository management. Ultimately everything was delivered, thou some wiggling was necessary at some point.

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

We had access to entire team directly, got really good specialists in their field that got really involved in the project. Team was great.

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

We didnt encounter big issues or problems, so probably nothing that I can think of.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief technology advisory of a D2C healthcare provider focusing on obesity treatment.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tooploox?

We needed to engineer solutions quickly to address our challenges.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tooploox provides the skills and resources we need. For example, if we need a Python engineer, they’ll provide one. If we need someone experienced with data warehouse technology, they’ll provide someone with that skill set.

We don’t have a project-based relationship; rather they provide additional team members to support our existing engineering team to build in-house, proprietary software.

What is the team composition?

Currently, we’re working with six people from Tooploox.

How did you come to work with Tooploox?

They’ve worked with me on multiple projects for previous companies, always providing skilled engineering and product support.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together at my current company since August 2020.

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

We always strive to get better, and Tooploox is essential to our continuous improvement.

How did Tooploox perform from a project management standpoint?

We have daily meetings, as well as plenty of documentation on Google Docs and Jira. Everybody stays in sync and up to date on the requirements and context of what we’re doing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Tooploox is extremely transparent and upfront about what they can and can’t achieve.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re in a difficult space trying to provide engineering resources to help companies expand, so they need to have a constant pipeline of people.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be transparent and set expectations upfront, in addition to creating success metrics. This gives the whole team something to work toward.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of VoiceDrop, an early startup. We’re working on a consumer social app that lets users pair memes with audio content. So, users can pair images with their voices or clips from TV shows and movies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tooploox?

In the early days, we were trying to put together prototypes and run experiments to test whether or not our ideas had any market value. It was still too early to bring on full-time engineering teams, so we brought on Tooploox to get us through the early iteration stages. We wanted to get to the point where we could figure out if there's actually any traction in our product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re working with a designer, who provided the designs to Tooploox. Their core task has been Android and iOS app development.

What is the team composition?

We’ve set up the project in a traditional agile scrum team, so we work directly with a project manger. Then we work two iOS engineers and one Android engineer.

How did you come to work with Tooploox?

One of my co-founders is a pretty active angel investor. He reached out to a lot of companies he has invested in and asked if they had experience with any good development shops. We received a few names, had some early screening meetings, put together proposals, and ultimately worked with Tooploox.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $300,000–$400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since June 2020.

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

We’ve been running a bunch of user tests and experiments. The app is live and in a bunch of hands already. Tooploox’s work is high-quality. Of course, their coding isn’t perfect, but they’re definitely meeting our standards.

At this point, we want to focus on finishing the project before perfecting it, so we do run into bugs like we would with any software team. We’re currently running tests and getting feedback.

How did Tooploox perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team structure works really well. Our project manager helps coordinate everything and manages timelines. He also is my point person for anything logistical. We’re operating in a fairly iterative and agile way, so we have active discussions about timelines every week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a fairly large dev shop, so they have a lot of resources that other development teams don’t seem to have. For example, if we needed support for backend development, but we don’t need a full-time backend engineer, they can flexibly staff that. Also, if we need the opinion of someone who specializes in certain technologies, they usually have that expertise in-house.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Individually, some of their engineers aren’t the best I’ve worked with. What I think differentiates the best of the best from developers like Tooploox, is the ownership of the product beyond just the code. Outstanding developers think through the goals of the product, the goals of the end-user, and fills in the details that we may have missed. We have to fill in those gaps for them, but that’s common with most dev shops.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Treat them like an extension of your team and follow the same practices you would internally. They’re interested in engaging with you, so having daily standups and a scoring process can help you stay in touch and address things as soon as possible.   

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CTO at Granular AI. Our platform empowers various businesses to access real-time geospatial intelligence at global scale via low-code intutive interface.

For what projects/services did your company hire Tooploox?

We hired tooploox to help us understand how best to go-to-market with our AI platform for geospatial analysis.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal with this engagement was to develop our market research skillset that would allow us to validate our ideal target customer as we bring our technology to market.

How did you select Tooploox?

We got access to Tooploox workshop via Techstars Boston 2021 program.

Describe the project in detail.

We worked with Tooploox to identify ideal customer segments for our geospatial analytics technology and perform structured user interviews and hypothesis validation.

Through working with tooploox we developed framework to deepen our understanding of customers through a series of workshops that introduced us to critical frameworks (eg - SPA matrix) and went through a live exercise with them to validate/reject critical business hypotheses developed through these frameworks.

What was the team composition?

Team was composed of 7 people from product design, sales, machine learing, and UI/UX.

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

We were able to capture a PoC.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Fluid and efficient.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The tooploox team was incredibly professional and had highly skilled operators in both the technical and product design arenas. They made excellent use of tools like whiteboards (MIRO) and spreadsheets to teach us about a wide range of topics. They also came to each workshop having done a remarkable amount of research and preparation.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not anything in particular. They did a great job.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of Wysefit. We are helping adults 50+ extend their healthy lifespans with physical exercise. Wysefit is the top app for senior fitness in the US App Store.

For what projects/services did your company hire Tooploox?

We hired Tooploox to create a future version of a user's personal dashboard in Wysefit, with innovative progress and activity tracking features.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted our users to know what progress they are making and what results they are achieving in order to increase user engagement and foster behavioral change.

How did you select Tooploox?

We met Tooploox through the Techstars program and were very impressed with their range of service and case studies.

Describe the project in detail.

Tooploox created an impressive and feature-rich user dashboard with very minimal guidance and input from us. They had to design towards features and functionalities that are not yet live in our app, and they handled the complicated task beautifully.

What was the team composition?

We interacted with the bizdev team to determine the scope of the project, and then with a designer who worked on our project.

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

The dashboard designed by Tooploox is not live yet, so it's hard to share any specific outcome. But we are happy with the results and plan to integrate it with minimal changes.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was effective. They took my minimal guidance and were able to run with it.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We are very impressed with their work and turnaround speed. They are clearly pros in product design. I also enjoyed my interaction with the biz dev team. Overall, great quality of work and very efficient.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I wish I could shrink the timezones between California and Poland.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at a telehealth company. We look to offer direct to consumer healthcare around a number of conditions and a series of brands.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tooploox?

We’re a fast growing and scaling company, so we were looking to bring in more people to help our team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

For us, Tooploox placed a number of different members on our various teams. As opposed to them working on separate projects, they worked as integrated parts of our teams as if they were part of our in-house staff. 

They’ve provided site reliability, backend engineering, frontend engineering, and design services. They’re serving as software engineers doing web application and systems development with our teams, both designing and building the systems. Tooploox works in the languages we use: Python, React, and JavaScript.

What is the team composition?

The total number has gone up and down during our engagement, but it’s around 10. We’ve had project managers who don’t work with us day-to-day, but who check in to make sure all members are doing well and other related topics.

How did you come to work with Tooploox?

I worked with Tooploox at past companies as well. I found them to be quite strong not just on the technical side, but also as a vendor who acts as an actual partner in solving our challenges and problems, and thinking ahead for our business. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $500,000–$1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in July 2019 and is ongoing.

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

Because they’re integrated into our teams, I can’t necessarily pluck out Tooploox’s contributions relative to the overall teams. I will say that we treat their team members exactly like ours and include them in our internal reviews. In all cases, Tooploox team members score within the range of good to some of the best people on the team. They perform well, and the teams are hitting their goals.

How did Tooploox perform from a project management standpoint?

Tooploox is definitely responsive to our needs. They’re able to adapt to our needs as a rapidly growing and changing company. In that regard, their project management has been great. 

They’ve also been leaders in some cases as well, suggesting opportunities for us to do things differently.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A lot of development shops are interested in billing hours and building revenue. Tooploox is genuinely interested in our overall success. They’ve invested in understanding our business and becoming part of our team. We don’t feel like Tooploox is a vendor and we’re a client: we feel like partners working toward a common goal. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Because they have such a strong culture, it’s hard for them to add more people to the team. When we grew and looked to them for help, they weren’t necessarily able to bring more resources to bear at certain times. 

That was mostly a result of what happened on our own contract. I don’t have much other than that; Tooploox is a great partner.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re bringing Tooploox on to be a part of your team, you have to treat them as if they’re members of your own team, with the exact same approach, expectations, goals, and investment.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a Swiss startup developing software for architects. I’m a co-founder, COO, and product owner of the company. I work with users, draft specs, and work with the dev team to build the product.

What challenge were you trying to address with Tooploox?

We went to them to develop our product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tooploox is developing our application in ReactJS. The architecture pattern used is event sourcing. We started developing it in Firebase, but we’re going to migrate gradually to using our own services to reduce our dependency on Google services. Some of those have been discontinued along the way, and that can be problematic in the long term.

Tooploox assisted us on our journey from the very beginning. They assigned a tech lead and product specialist to help us at the very beginning. They had workshops with users in order to define the business problem and MVP, after which we went into development. Tooploox took over the whole technical side, namely architecture design and subsequent development.

What is the team composition?

We’re currently working with a team of four developers and one UI/UX designer.

How did you come to work with Tooploox?

It was through a personal connection. I’d worked with one of their senior developers, and I trusted him in terms of project execution.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $400,000 so far, and we expect the total to be over $500,000 by the end of 2020. The MVP cost around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Tooploox in January 2020, and we went to market with the MVP in late-May. We had two months of bug fixing and iterations after that based on user feedback. 

We started building our user base after that, and we engaged a designer from Tooploox for a UI/UX overhaul. We hadn’t focused that much on it during the MVP stage. We’ve also prepared a roadmap for additional functionalities. We’re doing iterative improvements as well as adding new functionalities.

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

It’s too early to provide metrics. In terms of anecdotal feedback, Tooploox has been very collaborative, and they have mature and proactive developers. They will speak up, challenge, and try to understand the functionalities, and they will ask questions until they understand what the product owner wants from the product. They won’t just go away and code something to then realize that we’d had a misunderstanding. Tooploox’s team is one of the best I’ve worked with, and I’ve worked with a few.

How did Tooploox perform from a project management standpoint?

They come up with solutions on their own. They were able to pick up work and self-organize even when I had insufficient time to work with them. They had a decent understanding of the product, and they determined what milestones and major functionalities were, even without my direct input. We made a plan for the MVP at the beginning that covered all of the milestones, and we stuck to it.

They’re very proactive in communication, and they ask questions and challenge us whenever they don’t understand something or think that it doesn’t make sense. We haven’t had major issues. They’re available whenever we need to talk to someone, including after hours.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s the maturity of their developers, their ability to self-organize, and their engagement. They strive to understand the product and know what we’re doing and why.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The engineers I’m working with are excellent, but they could add a bit more structure to their work. They’ve achieved everything, but there’s room for improvement in terms of proper sprint planning and task management. I can get verbal updates from anyone at any time, but I would appreciate integrating a task management tool like Jira in order to know exactly what each member is working on and where we are with the sprints. Tooploox typically works with startups, so they probably don’t have that big of a need for more structured or corporate workflows.  

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

The client needs to make sure that the developers they’re getting have good chemistry between them and aren’t just a random team. We had to switch some of the developers in the early stage, and the developers we have now are working well with each other.