Uruit by Nearsure

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO at a telecom carrier. We’re one of the largest local mobile operators and part of an international telecommunications group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

We’ve been working with UruIT for a few years on a variety of development projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UruIT developed a website, created a sales site, and transformed the front– and backend of our mobile site. They also worked on our mobile app for iOS and Android. The app has many functionalities for our clients, including credit recharge, allowing them to check and pay their bills online, and consulting their balance.

What is the team composition?

It changes, depending on the project. On average, we work with around ten to 12 people.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

At the time, we were looking for an IT services provider that worked with Microsoft technologies. After evaluating different local companies, we found UruIT. Their team gave an interesting proposal, so we gave them a test with a few small projects. Our collaboration has grown since.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with UruIT around five years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

UruIT managed to launch an app from zero. In just three months, the app was ranked highly, almost five stars. Thanks to their work dynamics, we’ve avoided delays, workarounds, and duplicated work.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

UruIT met all the requirements. We had an agile work process with weekly meetings. We used Trello as a project management tool. In general, they’re well-organized and fast. We’re comfortable working with UruIT because they understand our needs and can adapt accordingly. When working with a software company, that is valuable.

What did you find most impressive about them?

To summarize, I can say their adaptability, agility, and ability to meet deadlines. They run an agile operation that allows us to think and focus on the business. Their team makes us feel safe and confident that we will not have any problems with development. They’re also great at UX development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their team could improve on their budgeting. The original budget and work hours often changed and needed to be recalculated at some point during the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of engineering for a small software company. We write distribution and scheduling software and custom hardware for broadcast media companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

We hired UruIT for staff augmentation services. We were looking for extra developers to help us push towards launching a new platform that was going to be the basis for consolidating multiple product lines into one platform. When we were looking for augmentation, we could’ve hired in-house, but knew that was going to take longer and we wanted to move fast.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We operate on a MERN stack, using a Node.js backend and a React-Redux frontend on a MongoDB. While I was familiar with the technologies, not as many developers in-house had the experience and guidance to mentor younger developers on the team. Before we brought UruIT in, we’d done about a month of work on our own because we were moving quickly without automated testing in place.

Although UruIT provided full-stack developers, they primarily work on the frontend and do some work on our backend repositories. They’ve primarily stuck with the React-Redux portion of work, helping architect the system. After a couple of weeks, the developers began understanding our product, space, and customers better. They started writing the infrastructure needed for an automated test.

What is the team composition?

We work with two developers and use the services of their scrum master. She is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

Before I started, our company was working with a contracting company, and their partnership ended a couple of years ago. There were challenges due to the time difference and some concerns about the language barrier. UruIT was recommended to me by a former colleague that was impressed with their services. He said that their developers were better than others he’d worked with, and there was no communication barrier. They sounded like part of an in-house development staff, being skilled and well-trained in agile methodologies. A positive review like that from him made me take notice.

We interviewed several development companies, dismissing a few immediately. UruIT won out, largely because of their professionalism. We talked to developers that asked a lot of great questions. Their price was better, and the time difference was pretty insignificant. We wanted to align during the work day as much as possible.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe they quoted us around $45 an hour per developer.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement started with UruIT in March 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

UruIT is still actively developing, operating mainly on a month to month basis. Since we have plenty of work to do with them, there have been no plans to terminate the contract. I’ve been impressed with their knowledgeability of React. I’ve freed some of my time and focus on managerial work since I’m not the sole person responsible for architecture development and mentoring our junior developers.

Their developers ask helpful questions. One of the topics that they first brought up dealt with our feelings on refactoring and testing. As a developer myself, all of those factors are important to me. I want a clean code that’s easy to read and maintain. UruIT pushed the entire in-house team, challenging us at times. They make sure the team follows the right practices and processes. I’ve been pleased with how they’ve approached everything, considering its contract work. They sincerely care about the success of the project.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Slack and Jira for communication, and it’s been fantastic. There have been no issues with the understanding between our teams.  The scrum master helps with retrospectives, scheduling, billing, and other deals outside of the development process. She also lets us know if any holidays or vacations coming up so that we can prepare.

We’ve set up meetings where we can talk about issues and present new ideas. The developers have been active participants in that, making them seem like true members of our team. They’re not only developing code but participating in the planning, questioning of features, acting as the voice of the customers and pushing everyone to ask the right questions and pull requests.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve used a few offshore companies in the past, and I’ve appreciated that UruIT feels like part of my team. They don’t act like contractors that we hand work to, but they truly feel invested in making the code is the best it can be. Their team strives to make the development process better through making sure everything is up to date and following the latest guidelines and trends in the industry. They go above and beyond in terms of quality from a product and code perspective.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, no. Anything they’ve struggled with has been part of a learning process with the domain knowledge in the space we’re working in. Their team does an excellent job with planning and making sure the product is as user-friendly as possible. I think if there’s anything that’s ever missed has been because they didn’t know the way something was supposed to work. I haven’t had issues with their quality of work and communication.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the chief product officer at Building Engines, a company that sells SaaS tools to the commercial real estate industry for managing properties, managing tenants within properties, and other functions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

We were in the process of switching platforms, so we needed help with product development involving a whole new stack. We didn't have enough internal resources to fulfill the needs of the project quickly, so we reached out to UruIT for additional support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UruIT provides development staff augmentation services, working on different internal scrum teams on various projects such as native mobile app development. Most of the work involves React on the frontend and Python on the backend. 

What is the team composition? 

We're working with 10 developers from their Colombia location at this point.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

I've known of the company for about nine years, but decided to wait to work with them until they grew and expanded to additional locations. I've always been impressed by their business model and the way they engage clients, so when I reencountered them about a year ago and their team had significantly grown, I felt more comfortable starting a partnership.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested about $600,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them for about a year, starting in 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to their help, we've been able to successfully launch a brand new product in a timely manner. The quality of their work is extremely high and the modern skill sets of their developers are second to none. Their code has performed very well in testing, so we're happy with their services overall.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

We work in agile scrum sprints, and project management is handled on our end. They've been great about participating in daily standup meetings over video conferencing, using Jira, and being responsive on Slack. We also meet with their team in-person every quarter.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have an excellent team of top-notch people from their end. Their skill sets are of the same caliber of our own internal team. They were also able to build up that team for us very quickly, meeting their own deadline of creating it within 6–8 weeks. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't have any concerns yet, and we intend to keep expanding our relationship with them. If anything, it may become an issue in the future that there's a lack in the breadth of the technologies they're trained in.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Branch.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

We hired UruIT to provide software development for multiple React-based applications.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UruIT built two applications using React, JavaScript, and AWS AppSync. The first solution is a consumer-facing app for web, mobile, and tablet, that enables customers to purchase third-party insurance from us. The second is a web- and desktop-based app that our staff uses to support and adjust those insurance policies. During the build, the team wrote HTML and CSS coding around the React language.

What is the team composition?

UruIT recently onboarded another developer. The team now includes one designer and three developers.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

We selected UruIT because the vendor shared our time zone and had a uniquely amiable attitude. What’s more, the team was highly skilled and less expensive than comparable domestic agencies.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2018 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

UruIT delivered functional and visually-appealing applications on time and on budget. Both the quality and long-term maintainability are very high.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

Given my preference to avoid deadline-driven development schedules, we assess UruIT based on their velocity. The team’s performance has been reasonable and appropriate for the scope at hand. They have strong English skills, which make Slack communication and Zoom meetings even more useful. As part of our close ongoing partnership, we recently brought the team to our office for usability testing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The designer delivered a fantastic UX/UI. Her team is also proactive when they need to refactor or fix a component.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

UruIT has a healthy atmosphere and reasonable work expectations. The team put in a full day’s work during the week and do that well. But they won’t get into overtime for developers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of HIPAAExams.com, an online healthcare training provider. We have a learning management system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

We developed the system in-house and hired another vendor to upgrade it from Classic ASP to .NET. Unfortunately, the new programming was substandard. Our team then decided to build it again from scratch with new functionalities for single sign-on integration and HR systems to fulfill client requests.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UruIT redeveloped the system using Node.js and a React frontend. The solution now includes 100 training videos and functionalities for log-in, course registration, and certificate completion. Our internal resources and track users’ progress and assign courses.

What is the team composition?

We work with one project manager and two developers.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

I searched for a vendor in Latin America due to the shared time zone and my professional experience in the region. The hiring decision came down to cost and UruIT’s in-house familiarity with the desired technologies. Finding a vendor with that internal expertise was hard.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2018 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Based on an internal review, the Node.js code is excellent and holds up to industry standards for documentation.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

The team has strong English skills and the project manager speaks the language perfectly. That helped with teamwide communication as some of my colleagues don’t know Spanish. We communicate via Jira and Slack. UruIT also uses GitHub to store code.

What did you find most impressive about them?

UruIT excels at resource allocation and bug fixes. They sold me on adding a Scrum Master, which I opposed initially because I thought I could do it myself. Watching the Scrum Master map out development during our weekly meetings has been an awesome experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CTO of a corporate wellness firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

I built our platform. Until recently, it was exclusively hosted online. Although there was no mobile component, plenty of people had asked us about an app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed a multimodal offering that brought the website’s functionality to a mobile platform. Having developed mobile apps before on my own, and having done both iOS and Android in tandem, I knew it would be a challenge. I wanted a development team that used a framework like Xamarin so that we could essentially develop the app once for multiple devices.

They used Xamarin as a core technology for this project. They’re using a backend REST API that I developed, along with Docker, Slack, and Swagger. They use Microsoft App Center for distributions.

What is the team composition?

I work with four people from their team: two developers, a proxy team lead, and a designer.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

I had selected them for another project two or three years ago. At that time, I went through an elaborate process of looking at various shops in Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, India, and China, and had narrowed it down to eight development shops.

I spoke to each of them individually and was impressed by the fact that UruIT had such an elaborate process for winnowing out their development staff. They only hire one out of every 20 people they interview, which really shows. Before I chose them, everyone I worked with and talked to seemed extremely competent. When I had a project that needed them, it was a natural fit. I also wanted a team that was confident, nearshore and had some overlap with me in terms of time zone.

The big knock on offshore development shops is that you get an army full of people for cheaper than American developers, but that the quality suffers. So far, everyone I have worked with from UruIT is as good or better than the staff I expect to hire in the United States.

When I first talked to them, I got a sense of competency. They’re not a raw development shop; they evaluated my product and my project to see if they wanted to work on it. We interviewed each other on a much more level playing field in terms to determine if this partnership would work. Fortunately, it did.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent about $25,000 and expect to spend $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November of 2017, and it is an ongoing development project expected to be finished by March.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They are an Agile development shop, and I went down to their office to work with their developers as a kickoff. At the end of the week I was there, we had a beginning app running and deployed to my phone. It didn’t have user interface or logos, but it was a working application. Every week or two we completed a sprint and released something.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

I use Slack, which they use internally, to talk with them when we are not meeting every day. We do a daily Scrum where I call in on a web conference phone line to talk for 5-10 minutes. They use Trello to compile to-do lists and see where things are. A lot of it was informal, since they are very strong on Agile.

When I visited them, we spent an entire week talking about the project, drilling down on user story, talking about success, discussing the sort of things that would keep us up at night, and identifying our fears. As a part of their very comprehensive process, we went through two fairly long daily meetings in both the morning and the afternoon.

They had prepared the entire week for me by the time I got down there, and I just had to attend the meetings. They had a very thorough approach to the project. We used a daily touchpoint to check in and find out where the project was operationally.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Visiting Uruguay to work with their developers was invaluable to me. When I originally talked to them on a conference call, we didn’t have a good connection and I had a hard time understanding everyone on the team. When I sat around a table with them to work, I had no problem whatsoever understanding them. After I went back and had the same type of conference calls, I knew exactly who was speaking, and I never had a problem with vocabulary or grammar.

Being able to spend a short amount of time with the team face-to-face makes a huge difference in project communication. Offering that was important to me. One thing that struck me when I was down there was how strong the team was. They essentially adopted me as a member.

It is basically an independent development team with four or five people, and it doesn’t seem like there is any real strong oversight from the CEO or CTO. They are trusted to be autonomous and to do good work. They all watch out for each other and review each other’s code, as opposed to the model I have seen with Indian or Chinese teams, in which everything is reviewed through an entire stack. UruIT have hired the right people and got the cream of the crop, which has made a difference.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t really think of anything in particular.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

During a development project, team dynamics are extremely important. I would recommend taking the time to visit their team in Montevideo. It makes a huge difference, and is well worth the trip and the expense to visit. I feel it has had a transformative, multiplying influence on our productivity for the rest of the project. We got to know everyone on the team and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Getting that done in person sped up the entire project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the president of a software firm which provides software for the first response community.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

We were in need of developing an Android and iOS version of a product in a short amount of time, and we didn’t have the resources internally to do this.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They used Xamarin, which is what we use internally. This was important for us as this is our internal development platform where we can take control of that source code and support our client going forward if need be.

What is the team composition?

From a development standpoint, there were 3 people involved who had different functions. We also worked with 2–3 other people in project management and administration.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

I did a Google search on Xamarin development, and they were 1 of the first organizations that popped up. I reached out to them and explained our very simple project. I didn’t do an exhaustive analysis, but I was convinced that they had the resources and expertise to develop it as they had done similar things in the past. It was cost-effective and within our budget to work with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in late June of this year, and the project was completed in August.

There is a possibility of phase 2 in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The goal was to deliver a product that our customer could utilize and would allow them to demonstrate to the people above them within their geographical area that we had a functional product that could work on Android and iOS platform. We were able to deliver that. They did a test and were able to conduct a transaction which showed up on our website and presented to them that we had this capability within the system. They delivered the product in a short amount of time, which was wonderful.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated with them by video conference via Skype a lot. In addition, they used a project management tool which kept me apprised of all the work they were doing. They did a version of Agile internally, and they did sprints. Everything they were focusing on was laid out. When we had our weekly conference calls, they reviewed what they did that particular week and invited feedback along the way. They had a good tool set, more than what I needed to manage the project from my end.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I hadn’t planned on spending a lot of effort on the interface for the application, but 1 of their developers took our logo and modified it and did such a wonderful job, which is something I was amazed by. It was 1 of the first things they did and provided a great flair to the outcome, which was really helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is nothing significant that stands out. Most of the people spoke English very well, and I had no trouble whatsoever, but there was a bit of a challenge to understand 1 developer. However, I could eventually understand him.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there

I am one of the marketing leads of Movistar Telefonica in Uruguay. I’ve been with the company for 20 years and I manage all of the digital channels within the marketing department, our public and private website, and mobile apps development.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was the scope of their involvement?

With them, we developed everything related to the ‘Proximon’. This database has the API’s and links to our clients. We have all the correct information for our clients there. This year we started the integration process of this Proximon towards full-stack which was installed in a soft launch format in April this year, and the full launch for the migration of our entire client database with more than 1 million clients in the country. We did this with another provider. This was a successful operation within Telefonica and we were the first in Latin America to do the migration of 100% of our clients' database in full-stack.

This also allowed us to have an important and detailed migration project. It required lots of personalization so that these clients were able to do the same things with the tool that they were able to do previously. This was the biggest challenge we addressed with UruIT.

What is the team dynamic?

Currently, we have two permanent contracts with them for support and development. They rotate but we always have 2 people. Developers also provide support at times. We are always solving problems. They manage to keep their people motivated. We’ve had up to 6 developers and we have a daily and very personalized relationship. They used full stack and Microsoft technologies.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

They used to work with us before I started in this role, but it must have been through local references in this market. It’s hard to find local providers with this type of personalized approach and it takes time for them to get to know our business.
 

How much have you invested with UruIT?

We have two contracts for development and support. Development hours are more or less $350,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have an ongoing collaboration.

SOLUTION

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

I’ve been in this position for a year and they were already our providers or strategic partners. We have a very direct relationship. Our internal IT department does not develop solutions that we need for our channels. UruIT is not an in-house team but they practically are, given how much we work with them. They develop an agile system to deliver our solutions. They are our main developers regarding the previously mentioned channels.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a demanding roadmap and calendar. Our digital channels and the web are very dynamic. It’s important to have everything up to date and UruIT has always delivered within their two-week sprints. The objectives are always achieved with them.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Trello, for example, where we have a clear and fast visualization of statuses. Before two-week production sprints, we coordinate with our internal teams to reserve timeframes. We test on Mondays, we get together with the team, revise what will be uploaded and we approve. If anything needs adjustment, we do it then. There are other longer term projects that last months. UruIT’s following-up and project management roles are important for our internal processes in IT, marketing, operations.

What did you find most impressive about UruIT?

In the migration to full-stack, everything was well coordinated with UruIT. The whole plan and announcements to the clients, specific messages depending on each operation and customer service. Everything flowed without any problems. It’s not easy to transition to full-stack in the way it was done and that digital channels accompany this without any issues.

Are there any areas UruIT could improve?

Nothing comes to mind at this point.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a Series-B startup based in San Francisco. We're focusing on mobile experiences by finding a niche between mobile apps and mobile websites. While mobile apps are fairly effective, no one wants to download one except for the few companies that users deal with daily. On the other hand, mobile websites are not that great. We provide a mobile platform that allows companies, mostly enterprises, to use drag-and-drop tools to build powerful, engaging, and beautiful mobile experiences that don't require a native app download.

I am the vice president of product management. I’m in charge of our software-as-a-service platform, including all of the features and functions. Customers use these features in order to build apps, publish them, and watch insights roll in.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

A few months ago, we were strapped on the development side. We have a small team in San Francisco but the job market makes it tough to hire people. We also have a team in Lithuania, but they have been busy managing our staff's application functionality.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UruIT has extended our team, working on features for which we didn't have the bandwidth. They were originally scoped for working on external integrations for partners, like marketing automation and CRM systems. A third feature on which UruIT worked on was integration with Google Drive, enabling our platform to feed content into it.

The first feature built by UruIT was an addition to our sharing capability. After an instance is authored and published, we can share it on a number of different channels like Facebook and Twitter. UruIT extended this to include Campaign Monitor, a marketing automation solution. They added a couple of features to our share tab, allowing us to export the cover image and other elements which are required in an email campaign. It was a small test feature done in order to onboard UruIT's team.

We then offered them a more involved feature, namely an integration with Marketo, a better-known marketing automation solution. It was a real integration, including account linking and authentication on the backend. Authors can enter their credentials, link accounts, and export their products via the Marketo email distribution platform. It can be done as either a single instance or as a bulk export of multiple apps. These features allowed us to become published within Campaign Monitor and Marketo's app stores. As a result, we are able to share a market pipeline.

The Google Drive integration allows our enterprise clients to gather contact information from prospects through forms. It also allows users to download PDFs or other content, for example. Previously, we only allowed users to send that content to themselves via email, which was limiting for an enterprise. This new feature allows users to send any type of information captured via forms to their Drive, populating spreadsheets.

UruIT assigned 2 developers, a technical lead and one part-time project manager for our work. We worked with the full-time developers for almost 3 months. We run an Agile operation so their team needed to conform to this in terms of requirements, designs, and frequency of release cycles. The developers used AngularJS and Java.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

Our CTO reached out to me and suggested UruIT when we were looking for additional developers. I checked the company out and had a couple of calls with UruIT. After those calls, I engaged them with a test project.

How much have you invested with UruIT?

Our average bill was between $20,000 and $30,000 per month. In total, we have spent between $60,000 and $80,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with UruIT in early August of 2016. We're about to have a call with the team and wrap things up.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Qualitatively speaking, UruIT's team are good people, easy to work with, and engaged in the process. They are thorough, not only in development and testing, but also in terms of communication. We always get a head's up on how things are going week-by-week. Our Lithuanian team definitely works faster, but not as diligently as UruIT. UruIT thought through all use cases and exceptions, taking the heavy burden of testing off of our hands. UruIT took quality seriously, which was a huge bonus. In working with them, I felt good about not having to do as heavy testing as we would have normally done.

We don't have any metrics around the deployed software. The Campaign Monitor was more of a minor test project and we don't have a lot of business through that channel. The Marketo feature was launched 2 weeks ago, so I'm not sure if anyone's using it yet. The Google Drive functionality will only be launched the following Thursday.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

Budget-wise, UruIT's work was good, but getting expectations and timelines down took some practice. In the beginning, UruIT's team was a bit over-eager and zealous in promising timeframes for our work. Some of this may have been initial enthusiasm combined with not knowing what it would take to have our deployments delivered. We have a multi-team process, including a production operations team involved in managing environmental variables. We may not have fully expected some complications in launching early features. However, UruIT's pace was such that, even if things took a bit longer, we were still fine budget-wise. UruIT has a lower cost structure than our own. Also, I didn't give them any critical or urgent features to build in the beginning.

We primarily used Jira for logging bugs and features, as well as for requirements communication. We used Confluence in order to document designs and send them to the UruIT team. We had stand-in meetings every day in order to communicate designs and hear UruIT's questions and concerns. We also had regular quick communication through a Slack channel. UruIT is 3 hours ahead of us, so there was good overlap in terms of time.

What did you find most impressive UruIT?

The biggest plus that I've seen with UruIT, compared to our other team, was their thoroughness. Both the developers and the project owner focused on quality.

Are there any areas UruIT could improve?

This may have been because we were in the early stages of the project, but it was challenging to get reasonable timeline expectations for our first 2 features. UruIT took twice as long as we thought they would. A part of this was on us as well, but UruIT could improve in understanding the complexities of working with a new team. They need to factor this into scheduling.  

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with UruIT?

Clients need to spend face-time with the developer, especially in offshore and outsourced scenarios. There's no substitute for this. I had a very good working relationship with the team in Lithuania even before visiting them in person. Even though it wasn't easy traveling to their office, I felt that getting out there made working together much easier. I spent a week in their environment. We bonded over lunch and dinner, which helped understand me the personalities of their team. Visiting the partner for a week, 2–3 times a year at a minimum, is important.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a startup company focusing on unique mobile development. I am the chief technology officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UruIT?

We needed a vendor with the ability to deliver on the spot. As a startup, we couldn't afford a long-term engagement with internally hired developers; it was cost prohibitive.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with UruIT on developing an Android and iOS application. It allows users to contribute to their charity of choice by posting notes about our sponsors on their social media feeds. We use Xamarin, a .NET application that allows us to generate applications on both platforms using the same code. UruIT has provided 1 developer for this work. We have also used a more senior engineer who acted as a project manager.

How did you come to work with UruIT?

I first worked with UruIT when I was part of a market research firm. We were looking for a company which could develop a business intelligence dashboard for our group. We used a large IT company for the vetting process and came up with a list of nearshore options. UruIT was one of those companies and we gave them a small project. Based on the quality of the code, delivery time, and budget, UruIT came out on top. When I changed jobs, I brought UruIT in again.

How much have you invested with UruIT?

The cost of UruIT's services has been around $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our latest project with UruIT started in June 2016 and lasted for 3-months. We have stopped it and took a step back in order to refund and rebuild the team. My past projects with UruIT had durations of 6–12 months. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our apps are currently live and we have users for them. As a startup, we worked with an accelerator and monitored users on a daily and weekly basis. We wanted to make sure that we were making progress and increasing our paid accounts. We have seen some good increases over the last few months.

How did UruIT perform from a project management standpoint?

Instead of throwing our work over the wall, we have an Agile approach. UruIT was a part of our team and attended our standups. This is the main reason for our success: we've set the right expectations for our relationship with UruIT. We used Rallydev for project tracking. We chose the platform because it was very cheap for our user number. It allows us to define user stories, backlogs, and sprints within 1 system.

What did you find most impressive about UruIT?

Everyone on UruIT's team was very friendly and eager to learn. Some engineers assigned to our team sometimes acted more proactively, making some key recommendations, and being highly opinionated on how they wanted to approach things. UruIT worked with us the way we wanted.

Are there any areas UruIT could improve?

Maybe have more engineers on the bench. As it is a hot IT market everywhere, it is always good to be able to add engineers to your team very quickly as needed.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with UruIT?

There is no cookie-cutter approach for offshore teams. Everything depends on the client's needs and must be taken on a project-by-project basis. A company that plans to work with UruIT needs to employ the same processes. Most importantly, the client needs to ensure they can escalate issues to the administration.